[nwiswell]

> I do believe the top machines now cost over a billion dollars, each.

This isn't accurate, the top end is no more than $200M (and large customers will negotiate down from there).

> The machines are so sensitive that a truck driving down the road ten miles away can affect the output and may cause the machine to be knocked out of calibration.

This is obviously untrue, fabs are busy industrial centers.

The assembly-partial disassembly-reassembly process you laid out is accurate, however, and is the case for all major wafer fabrication equipment.

[seper8]

Wrong again

https://www.reuters.com/technology/ intel-orders-asml-machine-still-drawing-board-chipmakers-look-an-edge-2022-01-19/

[nwiswell]

That is a development system. The purchase prices of the actual manufacturing systems are never disclosed, since the negotiated price differs between customers.

In any event the HVM systems will cost significantly less. This similar article says $150M, as I claimed, and again the actual customer price would be less:

https://content.techgig.com/technology/intel-to-get-chipmaki...

> ASML's most advanced machines in current commercial production, known as EUV lithography systems because of the "Extreme Ultraviolet" light waves they use to map out the circuitry of computer chips, are as big as a bus and cost around $150 million each.

[seper8]

How are you so confidently wrong so often?

Wonder if you have ever heard of ASML before reading this news article. Just stop it.

[nwiswell]

Has it occurred to you that I might work in this industry?

The other guy had a six month stint in manufacturing two decades ago.