The problems and irritations with finding a new job...

[Frank]

Excellent! Best of luck to you.

Thanks!

Btw, mind explaining the function of a wafer stepper?

I assume it involves stepper motor(s) to position a wafer for exposure during the lithography process...?

It's the whole machinery that makes chips. You have a laser, optics, masks, the coating, etching and positioning of the wafer and masks, and optional cutting, testing and packaging, depending on the client specifications. The main challenge is in the positioning of the multiple masks over the wafer, as there are many, and they all have to line up perfectly. That's where they got their name.

ASML became famous by using refraction and interference patterns for doing so, and is still one of the very few worldwide that make cutting-edge wafer steppers every cycle.

But (although I also responded to a vacancy for a developer for the software that makes all that happen), the job I was talking about will be pretty simple and mundane: adding new features to Microsoft Office applications, and migrating them to Office 2010. But that's how I got my best jobs.

 

[Grall]

The main challenge is in the positioning of the multiple masks over the wafer, as there are many, and they all have to line up perfectly.

Am I right in assuming that the individual dies on a wafer are exposed one at a time, rather than the entire surface at once? The latter would save a lot of time, but I can imagine an optics system that can focus accurately on nanometer level across an entire 300mm wafer must be incredibly difficult (and they're planning to go up to even bigger sizes I read somewhere...)

ASML became famous by using refraction and interference patterns for doing so, and is still one of the very few worldwide that make cutting-edge wafer steppers every cycle.

How big a role does players like Intel for example have during the design and manufacturing of this gear? Do they make their own machinery tailored to their own process requirements maybe?

the job I was talking about will be pretty simple and mundane: adding new features to Microsoft Office applications, and migrating them to Office 2010. But that's how I got my best jobs.

Wow. Who knew working with office apps was so exciting and high-tech!

Again, best of luck in getting that contract signed!

 

[Davros]

Since we are talking about the need for a certain iq in the computer industry Im going to disagree
I think every hi tech company needs an average bloke give him the job title of "chief ass-clownery prevention officer"
The computer industry is legendary for making stupid decisions.

for example: sata2 drives :
As you know sata2 drives dont work in boards that have sata1 controllers (perfect example of ass-clownery from the people who came it with the sata2 specs)
Anyway most hdd companies dealt with this by having a jumper on the drive to set it to sata1 mode, simple enough.
Not for the ass-clowns at hitatchi, no the as-clowns there thought lets make a program to change the mode. So the if a user has a sata1 board they have to download and run a program.
No that would be too easy, they made it a bootable floppy image. Because everyone has a floppy drive dont they...
Does this program just change the sata mode oh no it does all kind of stuff like low level format so the inexperienced user has a chance to totally f***ing up his drive.
So the user downloads the image, installs a floppy drive, copies the image to a floppy disk, boots with it and changes the drive to sata1 mode
NO....
why not!
because sata2 drives dont work in sata1 boards so the program cant see the drive (ass-clownery at its finest)
The only people the program will work for is those who have sata2 boards and if they have sata2 boards they have no need of the stupid program would they....
Now if hitatchi had a chief ass-clownery prevention officer" he could of got a floppy drive, and when the guy proposed this idea he could have beat him about the head with it while screaming "you are a f***ing dickwad"

 

[Grall]

You know... That's an excellent suggestion, Davros. I wholeheartedly agree.

Anyway, I never knew Sata2 drives aren't backwards compatible. If I've heard it mentioned before, I must have forgotten all about it. That's monumentally stupid, most PC users aren't tech savvy enough to change jumpers, and much less to create bootable floppies and jump through all kinds of hoops.

There's loads of weird and dumb decisions made throughout the computer industry, like Windows must have a PCI interface in order to function.

...Why?

No reason! No devices need to be hooked up to it; it has simply to be there or else no windows. Wtf?

 

[Davros]

Or, in other words: the really hard things are easy to me, while the really simple things are hard. I make many mistakes if I have to do dumb work, but excel with the very hard and complex stuff.

So they should hire me and frank as a team
frank can come up with technically brilliant solutions, with stupid ui's and i can beat him over the head while calling him a dickwad for doing it

 

[WhiningKhan]

for example: sata2 drives :
As you know sata2 drives dont work in boards that have sata1 controllers (perfect example of ass-clownery from the people who came it with the sata2 specs)

Hmmm. They have failed doing their ass-clownery properly at some point, my fileserver has a PCI-bus SATA-controller with a SATAII-drive connected to it. Being the ass-clown that I am, I just threw it in there and expected it to work. So far it has.

 

[Mize]

I've tried the sata connector on every combination of pins I can on that long one with all the pins and none work. Sata sucks.

 

[Davros]

oops think it may have been samsung not hitachi

from wiki
"SATA 1.5 Gbit/s, SATA 3 Gbit/s and SATA 6 Gbit/s

The designers of SATA aimed for backward and forward compatibility with future revisions of the SATA standard.[citation needed]

According to the hard drive manufacturer Maxtor, motherboard host controllers using the VIA and SIS chipsets VT8237, VT8237R, VT6420, VT6421L, SIS760, SIS964 found on the ECS 755-A2 manufactured in 2003, do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s drives. Additionally, these host controllers do not support SATA 3 Gbit/s optical disc drives. Users with a SATA 1.5 Gbit/s motherboard with one of the listed chipsets should either buy an ordinary SATA 1.5 Gbit/s hard disk, buy a SATA 3 Gbit/s hard disk switchable to 1.5 Gbit/s, or buy a PCI or PCI-E card to add full SATA 3 Gbit/s capability and compatibility.

To address interoperability problems many manufacturers allow to switch drives to the SATA1 mode. The largest hard drive manufacturer, Seagate/Maxtor, has added a user-accessible jumper-switch known as the Force 150, to switch between 1.5 Gbit/s and 3 Gbit/s operation. Western Digital uses a jumper setting called OPT1 Enabled to force 1.5 Gbit/s data transfer speed (OPT1 is used by putting the jumper on pins 5 & 6). Samsung drives can be switched to 1.5 Gbit/s mode by using software downloadable from the manufacturer website. This needs a SATA2 controller to use temporarily while programming the drive."

 

[BRiT]

Like all things, theoretically it is backwards compatible. The reality is the sub-quality providers such as SIS and Via leave much to be desired. I've had no trouble with my SATA II drives on SATA I motherboards using chipsets purely from AMD or Intel.

What completely sucks about SATA is the connector mechanism even with locking metal tabs on the cables. They physical connector tabs on the devices are horribly flimsy and can easily break or snap off.

EDTI: /me looks at the topic title and is surprised by what discussions are held within...

 

[Mize]

What completely sucks about SATA is the connector mechanism even with locking metal tabs on the cables. They physical connector tabs on the devices are horribly flimsy and can easily break or snap off.

I have a 1TB Hitachi in one of my computers now with a busted SATA tab that will work if you get it just right. The tab itself is stuck inside the cable connector but the wipers are still on the drive.

I hate the mechanically-utter-shit nature of SATA on a very deep level.

 

[Frank]

I'm hired.

Yesterday, I had an intake meeting with a HR manager from an intermediary: she was strict, looked down on me, I had black marks on my CV, it was an exam and I didn't answer the questions like your average Joe so she could put me in the right profile box, and afterwards she gave me the highlights of what I had done and answered wrong. I was pretty pissed about that.

But today I had a nice meeting, with nice people who were interested in what I could do, at ASML, and they hired me. It was easy.

 

[Frank]

Am I right in assuming that the individual dies on a wafer are exposed one at a time, rather than the entire surface at once? The latter would save a lot of time, but I can imagine an optics system that can focus accurately on nanometer level across an entire 300mm wafer must be incredibly difficult (and they're planning to go up to even bigger sizes I read somewhere...)

It depends, but for the smaller processes and larger wafers, they tend to do it per-chip, as focussing scales badly with size. Don't forget, that most recent wafer steppers use a laser with a wavelength larger than twice the size of the smallest structures. So, yes, pin-point accuracy is a vast understatement.

How big a role does players like Intel for example have during the design and manufacturing of this gear? Do they make their own machinery tailored to their own process requirements maybe?

Intel is probably the single exception nowadays, as they still develop most of their equipment themselves. But even they buy machines from ASML. For just about everyone else that uses cutting-edge wafer steppers: they probably bought it from ASML, as they're the largest producer by far.

I saw the CEO of ASML showing the CEO of some Japanese company around (together with some other people) when I was there today.

Wow. Who knew working with office apps was so exciting and high-tech!

Again, best of luck in getting that contract signed!

Thanks.

It isn't all that challenging as such, technically, but it's for Customer Support, and they use Office simply because if they use "real" programming languages and databases, they have to hand it over to the IT department.

But the applications themselves are still pretty high-tech and challenging in what they do.

 

[Frank]

So they should hire me and frank as a team
frank can come up with technically brilliant solutions, with stupid ui's and i can beat him over the head while calling him a dickwad for doing it

Sounds like a plan! And I'm pretty sure I would never be bored with you around.

 

[Frank]

Btw, I now got quite a bit closer to possibly, in a few years time, scrap the bit in my opening post where I never designed/build wafer steppers, only leaving ICs. And I expect I will learn how to design ICs while doing so.

 

[Grall]

Grats on getting hired man. Go you!

Now don't go get yourself fired, okay? We'll have Xxx call off the imminent worldwide collapse of the capitalist economic system and civilization as a whole, you'll be fine.

 

[Frank]

I'll be surrounded by very clever people all working at the best state-of-the-art machinery available in my chosen field. And the pay is great. Sounds like heaven to me.

If you can get xxx to call of the Apocalypse, I'll make sure they think I do great. That probably won't be much of a suffering.

 

[Frank]

Btw, considering all the above I wrote, do you guys think I sound like a sociopath? I was simply honest (and much more so than on an intake meeting with a HR manager ), and did not try to be politically correct in any way.

I'm curious.

 

[Grall]

No, I don't think so.

Anyway: here's a cat in a jar.

 

[Davros]

heres another one
http://www.ding.net/bonsaikitten/gray.html

 

[Frank]

Horrible!


Anyway, I had still two solicitations running, so I called them, told them I wasn't available for at least the next 17 weeks, and if they still wanted to see me. They both did, and the first one (which I saw today, and it was nice), wants me to come in for half a day, so they can show me all their stuff, see what I make of it and if I like it.

Luxury problems!