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by hashtag-til
1244 days ago
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Oh come on… you just broke the myth I had on my mind for many years, that this company was some magical craftwork shop for mechanical parts. Anyway, nice to get a bit more realistic view. Thanks! Eager to hear more about the software, which I heard some crazy stuff about how it is engineered and tested. |
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I should not really say too much, but the software tends to be kind of a trainwreck. WFE companies are definitely engineering-first organizations, but software is a second-order concern in general since it is a check-the-box requirement rather than a truly differentiating product feature, and companies like Lam and AMAT which are headquartered in the Valley have serious trouble competing for software talent. Moreover the software has a multi-decade pedigree with a concordant amount of technical debt. Pretty much everything is C++.
Anyway, there are fairly well-specified standards issued by SEMI like SECS-II and GEM that govern interoperability. In my (highly biased) opinion, the really interesting stuff is the real-time control systems that operate on millisecond timescales to make minute adjustments on the fly using data from onboard sensors to improve process outcomes.