I check this thread every once in a while, mainly to wonder why an up and coming company would hire cypherdouche, official bitwhore for Half-Fast.
I skipped the last couple of pages, in an effort to pose one quick question, posed in the midst of the following essay.
In the mid 1990's, I worked for AT&T, hired just before the Lucent spinoff.
I worked in Reading, PA, in their Micro-Electronic [ME] manufacturing sector. The department I worked in dealt directly with Substrates.
IT IS THE VERY FIRST STEP IN THE PRODUCTION OF AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT.
We used sophisticated grinders to ensure they were all of a uniform thickness.
The substrates were then polished to the typical mirror dark gray mirror finish that comes to mind.
The substrates were shipped to other departments at the facility. I worked mostly with 3.5" and 5 inch wafers. Weeks later, the wafers would emerge from their reactors, having the different conductive, insulative and semi-conductive layers placed upon 'my' substrate. In my mind, 4 to 6 weeks seems to resonate.
(in the late 90's I changed course into the fiber optic manufacturing industry and have since lost touch with any manufacturing process enhancements for ICs)
We would then take delivery of the wafers and grind the remaining substrate off of the 'bottom' of the wafer down to scant microns above the etchings from weeks prior.
Let's say that the time to production has been halved in the past 20 years.
It doesn't change the fact that HF is only in early chip production.
So, I gotta know, is this an effect of poor planning, poor engineering or some karmic manifestation for the douchebaggery that was undertaken in the name of Half-Fast?
The first of the KnC miners were a few days late.
I would think that Hal-Fast will be much slower than KnC.
That is not correct or at least not using current terminology. Substrate is not part of the wafer fabrication process it comes afterwards. The raw silicon in this case is produced by TSMC. The will deliver complete wafers. That process according to Hashfast began roughly weeks ago and is (per their words) on track for end of month. A packaging house will take the complete wafers, cut them into individual dies. The dies as bonded to a the substrate and optionally a metal lid (heat spreader is attached).
From HashFast mockup image.
The shiny metal part in the middle is the die made from silicon it is the part which comes from the fab (TSMC).
The green part is the substate it has nothing to do with the raw silicon production and is the last step in microprocessor construcion.
The part with the logo is the lid. It protects the die from physical damage and helps to distribute the heat.
Older style microprocessor. Die (metal part) & substrate (green part). There is no package lid so the die is vulnerable to physical damage. More than one Athlon XP owner crushed the die attaching the heatsink.
Newer style microprocessor. The chip on the left is how it is delivered. The package lid hides most of the die and subtrate but if you remove it, it looks very similar underneath.
HF will be late. They already stated being two weeks late. However silicon fabrication is 4-6 weeks so stating they are at the beginning of production is not correct. Hashfast wouldn't be responsible for supplying raw wafers. They supplied specs to the foundry. The foundry (TSMC) will deliver final fabricated wafers. They are responsible for everything between tapeout and final wafers. No customer (including HashFast) has any control or input on how the foundry does their work.
