[nwiswell]

Sorry :)

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.

[phkahler]

I commented last week about floating point issues in a simple low pass filter. Someone responded confirming similar issues working on nanometer resolution servos. I just figure he's from ASML or similar. It seems someone from everywhere is here on HN.

[markus_zhang]

Ah, multiple decade C++ codebase! My dream. Do they hire juniors in Canada?