[fabfabfab]

Fab guy here. Lots of references in the article about semiconductors. I posted about automation here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331417

It is already extremely automated in the US for semiconductors.

If you have any questions about semiconductor manf, ask away.

[quanto]

I appreciate your expertise and openness to discussion.

How much of the business/industry cost is HR/wages, would you say? If the industry is already automated, further attempts to automate would not lead to great cost reduction. It seems like a higher ROI approach would be increasing the efficiency of the existing automated processes.

[fabfabfab]

Semiconductor Fabs would be less than 10% labor costs. But there are also indirect labor costs: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/semiconductors/our-insig...

There are areas in the fab that are not fully automated. Lot of backend wafer fabrication (Laser scribing, Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate or CoWoS, a bunch of other wild card assembly steps at wafer level, Wafer-to-Tape & Reel processes, etc.) is not entirely automated in terms of material flow in the Fab.

There are usually bigger fish to fry when it comes to Fab cost-reduction w.r.t labor. For example, if there is a trade off between having space for laborers to move about vs. using OHTs, the favor is almost always for OHTs. Why? Because every square foot of the Fab is big bucks. Floor space is king. You'd rather jam more equipment than to put humans that need 4 ft clearance and a whole bunch of OSHA needs.

[moneywoes]

What happened to the Wisconsin tmsc deal?