Submitted 1 year ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: sopuli.xyz/post/18617680
Are the largest power consumption steps of semi conductor product happening 24/7? Could we simply align manufacturing times with useful solar production times? So no need to store all the solar power, with the idea of consuming most of it immediately for manufacturing. Then pass a run that Semi conductor fabs have to build out their own solar arrays to cover most of their power consumption.
Chances are yes. Simply because to build the machines, such an astronomical amount of money and energy is needed to build them, that even if electricity during dead times cost a bunch more (which for businesses probably does), it probably is still worth it, just to bring it to maximum capacity
Do 7 nm chips are more energy intensive than older 100 nm?
Or it’s just scale, more chips to manufacture, more energy needed.
Cutting edge chips consume more electricity to manufacture as there are a crapload more steps than older fabs. All chips are made on the same size silicon wafers regardless of the fabrication process.
Gamers Nexus has some good videos about chip manufacturing if you are interested
“Thanks Steve”
Older chips definitely consume more watt per processor power, newer are usually better on top of that too.
Talking about usage, not construction.
In contrast to stuff like AI training or crypto, chips at least fulfill an actually useful function, so I don’t see the issue with their manufacturing consuming a lot of energy. Or should we compare the same for cars or medicine?
AI Training, compared to crypto, has at least been used in medicine to:
Create novel proteins based on specific requirements (useful for developing medicine): www.cell.com/chem/fulltext/S2451-9294(23)00139-0?…
Detect possible cancer: hms.harvard.edu/…/new-artificial-intelligence-too….
And there’s many more uses you can easily find if you look into it. Don’t just assume every LLM slop is all what AI is. Even LLMs probably have their use in stuff actually relating to language, such as translation.
Right? I was just thinking that entire countries run on chips so it sort of sounds about right at least.
What exactly do you think these chips are used for?
Because it’s often enough AI, crypto and bullshit IoT.
Phones, laptops, PC components, data centers, cars, planes, trains, satelites, medical laborarory equipments, factory controller, and many more!
The vast, vast majority of chips produced are “old generation” chips used for relatively mundane purposes. The high-tech stuff you see in the news is a minority (though it’s pricey enough that it doesn’t look that way in company earnings reports).
Think power supplies, middle-of-the-road CPUs, ASICs for common I/O like USB and ethernet, timing devices, and wireless communication modules.
Cars, manufacturing, microwaves, washer\dryer, dishwasher, cellphones/tablets, anything wireless. There are more non crypto/AI products than not.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Not going to even read this horseshit. Which countries? Brazil or Vatican City?
Fuck these headlines. If they have valid points to make, I’ll never see them. Grow the fuck up and be journalists or I don’t have time.