Quote from: Vycid on August 17, 2013, 10:41:31 PM

Quote from: cardcomm on August 17, 2013, 10:21:14 PM

Quote from: Vycid on August 17, 2013, 09:37:24 PM

Do you understand what is involved with the manufacture of a modern integrated circuit? You are talking about one of the most complex manufacturing processes on earth. Yifu is clearly at fault for missing the deadlines he promised - but that does not change the fact that getting these chips manufactured is far more complex than sending TSMC a request for some more chips.

Why in the heck would it be MORE difficult than sending in another order? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's extremely complicated to design and manufacture a car. Yet if my local Toyota dealer needs more cars, they have only to order more. Yes, they DO need to consider lead time, but that's pretty much the extent of the "complexity".

Given that the manufacturing facility has obviously been set up already, what specifically is so complicated about placing additional orders for more of the same product?

We have a saying in America: "It's so easy a child could do it."

It makes no sense whatsoever because you do not understand what is involved.

Integrated circuits are manufactured starting from bare silicon substrates (wafers). They then go through a series of several hundred processing steps in multi-million dollar machines. These unit steps involve huge varieties of litho, etch, dep, strip/clean, and doping/implantation processes. The recipes, process parameters, and similar can change depending on how foundries are organizing their production flows, and how they are adding/removing/replacing processing tools. It is entirely possible that a wafer flow that was implemented successfully 6 months before is no longer possible because it's been replaced by something new. Furthermore, companies with much more influence than some kid (read: Yifu) may be utilizing 100% of the desired capacity for a specific process.

This isn't a turnkey business. Computer chips are not cars. Just because it was possible 6 months ago doesn't mean it is possible now, ESPECIALLY if you're a small customer. The fact that huge companies like AMD or Nvidia have issues with production at foundries should give you an idea of what it's like for Avalon.

Even if it WAS like cars, surely you can understand how a small customer might make an order for 10,000 cars and receive them as planned, because the manufacturing line is below capacity. But if Toyota comes along and asks for 1,000,000 units (I understand that car companies tend to own their factory - semiconductor companies usually do not), they might get shut out completely when they try to make their next order, because the manufacturing plant is at 100% capacity and cares far more about making Toyota happy than some punk with a 10,000-car special order.

If you could do this as a child, you should be a titan of industry by now.

Thanks for the refresher on IC manufacturing. I AM familiar with the process.

Perhaps YOU are aware that a modern automobile contains anywhere from a couple dozen to a couple hundred special purpose microprocessors. Many of these are "off the shelf" components, but a fair number are custom chips. One might even call them Application Specific Integrated Circuits.

Add to that the complexity of manufacturing a modern internal combustion engine to extremely close mechanical tolerances, sourcing thousands of parts from potentially hundreds of individual manufacturers from all over the world, and assembling them into a final working automobile.

Consider all these factors, and I think you'll have to agree that the design and production of a car is orders of magnitude more difficult than producing one custom IC. Yet my Toyota dealer can order one with relative ease, and get it here when promised.

I concede that my automotive analogy isn't perfect, but then analogies seldom are. I'll also concede that ordering chips is perhaps more complicated than a child could handle. That was obvious hyperbole.

But then, we don't really expect children to manage the pre-order and sale of products valued in the hundred of thousands of dollars, do we? Instead we depend on adults who should know enough about basic business operations to ensure the parts manufacturing contracts are in hand before taking pre-orders. If the proper contracts were in place as they should be, then ordering additional batches as specified by the contracts should be a very simple matter indeed!