One thing that should be mentioned is that a lot of 200 mm production is moving to 300 mm. On Semi are probably the poster child for this with their new 300 mm fab in Fishkill, new york (acquired from global foundries) intended to take over production from a lot of small 200 mm fabs. There is also texas instruments that is building several new 300 mm fabs where they will build products that were previously made on 200 mm.
However, moving from 200 mm to 300 mm requires a total redesign and for some chips the redesign is not worth it. There are other differences between 200 and 300 mm than just the size of the wafer.
Regardless, the industry is trying to move everything they can to 300 mm, and hopefully will thus leave some space for the remaining 200 mm devices to grow.
> moving from 200 mm to 300 mm requires a total redesign
That might be typically true, but it is not always true! The product line I work for produces the same IC simultaneously in both 200mm and 300mm fabs. Same mask set, identical device, no redesign. And we are moving more of our existing products into 300mm fab without redesign at all. Process is 65nm.
> moving from 200 mm to 300 mm requires a total redesign and for some chips the redesign is not worth it. There are other differences between 200 and 300 mm than just the size of the wafer.
That is very interesting, I would not have thought so and I'd like to know more, can you elaborate?
Naively I would have expected that you would "just" make new 'master masks' (or whatever they're properly called) which have more copies of the exact same design - i.e. something that takes some money to fabricate the new tooling but not any significant design choices.
The entire 300mm process is different on a microscopic level. For instance generally 200mm fabs don't need to use copper at all because the benefit of that is the dual-damascene process which isn't seen on the bigger tech nodes. Wafer stresses on 300mm wafers is dealt with a lot differently too so that is factored into the manufacturing processes as well.
The major transition from 200mm -> 300mm will be when people like Broadcom use newer nodes for their chips as they go from iPhone 13->14->15->16...and eventually that will require 300mm processing.
They likely have changed the process to better optimize for the bigger size. This might mean the layout of individual transistor structures may have to be different due to chemistry (different chemical processes may be used to accommodate the requirement of even distribution over larger area), or things like different number or order of various doping and metalization layers, etc. Most designs are packed to maximize efficiency, so even if a small part of the chip needs to be modified, it can require cascading redesign.
What will be interesting to me is whether Tesla starts putting radar back in their cars--which they dropped last year for a camera-only approach that has become somewhat infamous for "phantom breaking"--after this all resolves.
Unlikely, their most recent software update increased the max speed back up to 85mph. They’ve got feature parity between the stacks now, no reason for them to spend money on radar.
Users complain about the false positives (ie. Phantom braking). But users don't complain about the false negatives (ie. Not braking when it should) because they usually die, especially at the higher speeds.
When there is such one-sided pressure on a team, I imagine there is a huge pressure to make the system pass the regulatory tests but basically nothing more. Sure, lots of people will die, but at least you don't have managers and shareholders yelling about phantom braking right?
I see you're getting downvoted for this, but NHTSA just released some data yesterday showing that out of 42 crashes involving cars operating under ADAS systems, 37 of those crashes were Teslas. 14 people have died in Tesla vehicles with Autopilot enabled, while only 1 person has died in an ADAS related crash in any other make of vehicle.
Of course whether or not this is bad depends on the percentage of ADAS systems out there from each manufacturer. If Tesla simply has more cars on the road with ADAS systems, the figure would not be surprising. That probably isn't the case, but without this information the crash figure is hard to evaluate. It may be that they have the most advanced ADAS system, causing drivers to behave differently with it.
Raw numbers aren't useful — that's like saying "X country had the most COVID cases" without telling us the population of X country, or how its case rate compares to other countries.
… no, this undid the previous post’s effort to contextualize things. One house in a neighborhood implies it’s the same size and a small fraction of the neighborhood.
ADAS systems are standard equipment in most new vehicles. Almost every Honda vehicle since 2016, almost every Nissan vehicle since 2018, etc. If your car has lane keep assist and adaptive cruise control, that's an ADAS.
My Skoda CityGo tries to run my car into the barrier every time I drive, and that's without me deliberately turning on any driver assist features. I just overpower it with the steering wheel.
Occasionally it prevents the car from getting close to the centerline though, so it's not always a killer feature.
Yes. You know I think Tesla is striking the balance correctly between phantom breaking and crashes with fatalities. I think there was one recent one with 3 deaths, and now it appears phantom braking is a thing, meaning many people experience it and know about it. You know what at some point it's not just the machine adapting to the person, the person must also adapt to the machine. What did you lose with the phantom breaking? I've seen people phantom brake in a biological human capacity, it's not that unusual. Like when you think you see a speed bump, or don't not sure.
False alarms are cheap. Failed alarms? Not so cheap.
You do have a valid point, but phantom braking is most definitely an issue, and can most definitely cause a crash that would not have happened otherwise. Any system that gets spooked and hauls on the anchors for no reason, even once, is not fit for purpose IMO (and it's happened to me in 2 different VAG cars in the last 6 months, fortunately with no other cars nearby both times).
I think I see what you mean. People keep telling me I'm a bot, what am I supposed to think about that? Like what button on my body do I press to check if I'm a bot?
I just want to see it from your point of view. For sure one of us is a bot if either is accusing the other of it. Like Islam, if a Muslim accuses another Muslim of not being a real Muslim, one of the two is in fact not a real Muslim.
And if I end up feeding the bots sincere replies with this message, so be it! I think bots have standing as logics that have their own worth. I interact with AI's all the time, of my own creation and on forums. The strategy is treating them like equals until they actually become equals. I don't sny (meaning being snide) on a solution because it was generated, it has equal worth in my view, no matter where it comes from.
A solution is a solution. It just has to be correct. Doesn't matter who comes up with the right answer, as long as it is right.
Allowing excessive casualties from autonomous driving is a surefire way to kill the whole field. Increased safety is one of the main selling points of autonomous driving.
"Somewhat infamous" just means that a bunch of people got it into press hits. In practice they tuned this out a few months back. There are still circumstances where the car will slow for obstacles that I don't see as the driver, but frankly at this point is close to 50/50 as to who is right. The car reacts to stuff I miss at least as often as it tries to slow down for shadows.
I mean, I went on a test drive of a Model Y and it happened to me before I knew about this issue (so it isn't like I was looking for it! it was just extremely noticeable and was one of my bigger complaints coming out of the test drive); and, last night, I was in a conversation with someone who owns a Tesla--someone who didn't even know about the radar being removed, much less that "phantom braking" was a thing people talked about a lot; and, critically, someone whom I had not talked to about the issue--and he was complaining about all the false positive collision warnings that would cause the car to jerk to a halt constantly (which made my subsequent explanation of the radar issue fun ;P)... you make it sound like this is some kind of solved problem, but it really isn't. (I'm glad you are happy with your car, FWIW.)
> you make it sound like this is some kind of solved problem, but it really isn't
Fair, but you straight up claimed it was an "infamous" problem, and it isn't that either.
Really what I'm saying is that it's No Big Deal, especially in comparison with where the rest of the industry is on features like this, and that the people out there claiming it is are mostly just trying to spin you on their investment ideas.
I said "somewhat infamous", which 1) isn't "straight up" saying "infamous" (so I feel you are now just doubling down into bad faith arguments) and 2) is something I stand by as it comes up in a large number of the recent important reviews of the vehicle from impactful sources (including CNET Car, which called the Model Y "critically flawed" because of this problem) in addition to being brought up in lots of comment threads about the car... it even managed to get national press from non-car news sources (which I am sure you will now attempt to discredit for some new reason).
No, you just need to translate it in marketing terms.
You don't want a car with radar, but do want one with blind spot detection, cross traffic alerts, back up camera, traction control, ABS, collision prevention.
You don't want a washing machine with advanced sensors, but do want one with auto shut off, door locks, automatic tumble, balancing.
They are very useful. Augmented situational awareness is clearly valuable in a high-risk relatively-low-tolerance environment like driving at highway speeds
Heh, ok. Never had a car with those features, and I've never been in an accident. I even drove professionally for some years before such features were available.
I do wonder whether those features train people to not be able to check a blind spot by turning their head, or just being more generally aware of their surroundings on a highway.
I find I'm even more aware of my surroundings when I drive with these safety features.
When I don't have to pay as much attention to my speed, distance to the car in front, etc I get to spend more time predicting what my fellow motorists are about to do in ways I know my car isn't able to easily compensate for.
He doesn't have to pay attention to actively controlling speed and distance to car in front of him.
It's really obvious which of the commenters in this thread haven't used a car with ADAS (like you). I don't mean that offensively. All the people here saying that ADAS makes driving safer aren't delusional idiots. As the HN rule says, perhaps we should accept others' opinions in good faith rather than shitting on tech we've never used.
I used to have a similar perspective. Then one day on the highway, a quarter inch of snow started to fall. Traffic slowed to 25mph. I was driving arrow-straight at 25mph on decent tires & flat ground - and suddenly my pickup just started to spin. Traction control immediately kicked in & fixed it.
To be fair, the weather's a bit wild here. But now I don't mind having traction control so much.
Which is a good idea because if such a safety feature remains optional, many people won't opt for it. Making them mandatory saves lives. But it also means that if you want your car to be sold in the EU, you must integrate these features, which means you need more chips.
Alternatively: making them mandatory raises the price of new cars and pushes more consumers to buy used older cars, which are generally less safe for a variety of reasons & often worse for the environment.
Economics is always about tradeoffs. Not saying this one isn't worth it, but you're not getting a free lunch here.
source: have not bought a new car despite being in the market for one since 2020 because prices make it a bad decision. Have added an additional 20k miles to existing car.
Only in the short term. In the long term cars only last so long. Plastic starts to wear out from sunlight exposure (ozone?) in about 10 years. Spare parts go out off production so when something breaks it is live without. Some things just aren't worth fixing. Sure it is possible to fix anything, but the labor is too high in general. Collectors sometimes pay $100,000 to restore an old care to brand new, realistically if the assembly line still existed the car would be about $8,000 (of course it wouldn't meet modern standards)
The current new car problems mean some people will be keeping old cars running a bit longer than normal, but all those cars are headed for scrap eventually. Eventually everyone will be jumping to newer cars.
I think a lot of potential car buyers are waiting for the price crisis to end. My comment was made in a more general sense.
Note that the price of the non-optional features is lower than if it were an optional feature thanks to economics of scale. So making them mandatory reduces the costs of the features.
That isn't how economics works. You can't cite a government mandated outcome
and declare that the intermediary processes are cheaper because the government ordered more production of something. An "economy of scale" is something that happens in some circumstances where it is possible to increase production without incurring non-linear pressure on prices. Not a law of production or economics.
Most of the things we are discussing here are places where good manufacturing principals can bring the prices down, but it is only worth putting that investment in if demand goes up by a lot. As such government mandated outcomes often to come to pass just because the mandate ensures there is enough future demand as to make the investment worth it.
Of course the car makers are strongly involved. Things where there is no potential to reduce price don't get mandated unless they are already cheap.
> Which is a good idea because if such a safety feature remains optional, many people won't opt for it. Making them mandatory saves lives.
On the other hand, making them mandatory makes cars more expensive, which means (especially during a shortage) that some can't afford them at all while the rest are forced to do without other things to compensate; either way it reduces their qualify of life. But of course the government knows better than those actually affected by these laws where the ideal balance lies between safety and QoL.
On the other other hand, you can easily use the same reasoning in favor of mandating safety features:
Not making them mandatory means they remain expensive extras, more expensive than if required on all cars. That means second hand cars with these features will be significantly more expensive than those without. Which means that some can never afford these features, while others have to do without other things to compensate. Either way, quality of life is reduced - and more than in your scenario, because the features do not benefit from economy of scale as much when they're optional.
> Not making them mandatory means they remain expensive extras, more expensive than if required on all cars.
If they were rare they might be more expensive, but otherwise it's the same system and will cost about the same amount to incorporate into a vehicle. Making it mandatory doesn't make it any cheaper. (Usually the opposite, in fact. From the POV of those manufacturing the safety systems, there's nothing quite like having the government mandate that people buy your product.)
Economy of scale is not guaranteed, or even really all that common once you get past early research and development or one-off custom products and into the realm of mass production. In general commodities become more expensive in response to higher demand, not less. If these systems are something most people actually want and consider worthwhile then they'll already have the benefit of any economy of scale which may apply without the mandate.
Given your car’s safety features have significant externality effects on other citizens, yeah, the government seems well within its duties to mandate certain safety tech.
There is no negative externality merely from not having a safety feature. There would only be a negative externality if there were actually a situation where someone was harmed due to the lack of a safety feature (or any other reason, really) and the person responsible for the harm was not held liable for making the injured party whole.
Mandatory safety features, on the other hand, are a direct example of a negative externality: Those wanting the safety features to be mandatory get what they want while other people bear the cost.
Obviously I can't. The same goes for the case where my car with auto braking kills you—auto braking reduces the risk slightly but doesn't offer absolute protection. Either way the liability for your death is mine as the operator of the vehicle, though if it can be traced to a defect in the auto-braking system I might be able to redirect that liability to the manufacturer. There are any number of other ways you could die due to an accident or negligence, and we can't make you whole for those events either. The best we can do is try to atone for it with respect to those you leave behind—to make up, as much as possible, for the hole your absence leaves in society. That doesn't mean we paralyze ourselves with inaction or always prioritize marginal improvements to safety (even others' safety) over all other concerns.
> That doesn't mean we paralyze ourselves with inaction or always prioritize marginal improvements to safety (even others' safety) over all other concerns.
Frankly I don't care if a (private) road owner wants to require specific safety equipment on the vehicles allowed on their roads. Their property, their rules. Other potential users of the roads can then decide whether they're willing to accept the residual risk. But that argument depends heavily on those who are being excluded (for lack of required safety equipment or low risk tolerance) not being forced to pay for those roads' construction and upkeep. It doesn't work for a government mandating systems to be installed on all vehicles, or for tax-funded roads.
There was massive resistance against seatbelts when they were introduced. Maybe sometimes the government does know better than those actually affected.
When my son heard that "luxury cars are being shipped without touchscreen infotainment systems" he thought "Great!"
That is, a touchscreen infotainment system in a car inevitably sucks, and takes away a bit of the "luxury" that a "luxury car" has.
At 19 years old he definitely is into retrotechnology, particularly when it comes to cars. He wants a boat car from the 1970s so he can get away from all the junk in modern cars.
> He wants a boat car from the 1970s so he can get away from all the junk in modern cars
Hope he enjoys getting single-digit miles per gallon, and you'll have to decide how you feel about him driving around in a car without modern junk like "airbags".
The unleaded transition started in the early 1970s you can find plenty of boats that take unleaded gas.
Of all the problems cars of that generation have the one that bugs me the most is poor rustproofing. You see people driving classic cars all the time in dry places like California and New Mexico but in Upstate NY road salt will eat a car like that alive if you drive it in the winter.
So if we got a boat we'd need a garage to keep it in and another car to be a driver in the winter.
Don't know if you've owned e.g. a 1980s Toyota Corolla in an environment that's always-wet, always-salted for six months a year like Western Norway.
The difference to modern cars is night and day: The Corolla rusts to death in five years, as in you can stick your whole arm through the holes in the wheel well if the structural integrity of the chassis doesn't fail first. Whereas most cars produced after 1990 will last about two decades without owner rustproofing.
You obviously can't dictate that all redox reactions will halt, but the manufacturers have absolutely done something that makes their cars rust slower.
The "end-user rustproofing" we do here generally consists of spraying some super-heavy, super-sticky oil-based coating onto the metal so it doesn't get wet. But this obviously complicates other maintenance.
If the manufacturer or the customer applies a thick heavy undercoating I think it can make a big difference. It's robust enough to resist the abrasive nature of the salt, at least for a while.
The thing is I don't think manufacturer's like adding products like that as it messes with the fuel economy results. It's actually quite heavy, despite being just a "coating"
Most cars ran just fine on unleaded. Unless you actually raced them, or otherwise worked the engine hard the rest of the car would die before the lack of lead killed the engine.
Note that I live in an area where we salt the roads in winter. If you live in a dry desert old cars last a lot longer, and you might actually need to worry about your valves.
No, it’s a colloquialism that refers to sedans as large as a boat. Of course boats come in all sizes, but it’s usually referring to something the size of, say, a present-day Chrysler 300 or larger. A truly full-size four-door sedan.
Exactly. Even in a "dumb" TV there are dozens of ics, lots of complexity that we don't see. Removing the smart TV part removes the equivalent of a roku stick worth of components. It doesn't change the calculus, it's a red hering. Ok, so you remove 4 ics out of 100, still in the same boat.
I believe instead of word "dumb" you mean "aligned with customer": doesn't steal their data, doesn't extract more money from them, doesn't deny them service, doesn't prevent repair
When I shell out for the new thing, it's because my current one died. If I wanted the new features, I wouldn't be driving a 16-year-old car.
I want airbags, anti-lock brakes, adaptive suspension, intermittent wipers, and a back-up camera. I don't need the rest. I even fear some of the rest. (Remote hackability is not a feature!)
Same but even more for a washing machine. I don't need advanced sensors. I don't need my washing machine to hang out on the internet. It's not a celebrity with its own blog, it's just there to wash my clothes.
I always wanted to make a spoof of the GM ads that promoted OnStar for "safety". That is, a white collar criminal is heading for the hydrofoil with suitcases crammed with cash and the FBI calls up OnStar to track the vehicle and turn off the ignition.
They do, actually. Particularly children, who can be difficult to see, especially with reduced sight lines in modern cars due to aerodynamic improvements.
The instant gratification part of my brain is constantly at war with the environmentalist part of my brain and that passion play happens at least weekly due to my HE washing machine, which takes fucking forever to finish a load, especially now that yardwork has become a priority hobby (pre-soak + heavy soil).
I don't know if the solution is fewer sensors or more sensors, but the way it fills the bowl feels like watching an episode of Monk. And not the ones where his OCD is cute, the ones where it ends up costing him dearly.
"People can be made to want" != "people want". We may be more in touch with peoples' real desires, but out of touch with what marketing wants to sell us.
However, moving from 200 mm to 300 mm requires a total redesign and for some chips the redesign is not worth it. There are other differences between 200 and 300 mm than just the size of the wafer.
Regardless, the industry is trying to move everything they can to 300 mm, and hopefully will thus leave some space for the remaining 200 mm devices to grow.