[krautt]

i worked at intel between 97 and 07. MFG was absolute king. Keeping that production line stable and active was the priority that eclipsed all. i was a process engineer, and to change a gas flow rate on some part of the process by a little bit, i'd have to design an experiment, collect data for months, work with various upstream/downstream teams, and write a change control proposal that would exceed a hundred pages of documentation. AFAIK, that production line was the most complex human process that had happened to date. It was mostly ran by 25-30 yo engineers. That in itself was a miracle.

[dr_quacksworth]

Semiconductor manufacturing is brutal. I'm glad I no long work for 24/7 fabs & foundries.

I have similar stories where adding a standard wafer-rinse step took a year of testing, documenting, pitching to customers, etc.