# Are the microchips in cars fundamentally different than the microchips in smartphones and game consoles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 19, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407 "2021-05-19T01:54:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/61 "2021-09-14T23:27:29Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Making these chips apparently consumes a LOT of water on a per day basis. Here’s part of that reason. > **[Immersion lithography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_lithography)** > > Immersion lithography is a technique used in semiconductor manufacturing to enhance the resolution and accuracy of the lithographic process. It involves using a liquid medium, typically water, between the lens and the wafer during exposure. By using a liquid with a higher refractive index than air, immersion lithography allows for smaller features to be created on the wafer. > Immersion lithography replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that ha... ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/62 "2021-09-15T00:03:12Z")
That uses some water, but I’m fairly sure that the numerous washing steps in IC production dominate the water use. Really it should all be recycled. Or perhaps purified to the point where it can be used for other purposes. Use it for concrete and it might not even need to be purified. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/63 "2021-09-15T04:00:53Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Your average PC chip doesn’t sit in a hot engine. Neither does your car’s ECU. It resides under the dash for the most part. The boards in my 1992 BMW were in a cast aluminum case and had connectors that looked like they belonged in a fighter plane. The box had it’s own fans connected to outside air by ductwork. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/64 "2021-09-15T04:24:32Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > The foundries make more money on a per unit basis from the consumer electronics sector than they do the auto industry, which seems surprising given the rigors of testing these particular chips undergo to accomplish 0% fail rates. Did you mean hardly seems surprising? I’m pretty sure lots of consumer chips run at higher volumes. Do you know the relative chip sizes? My contact with TSMC was for huge processors with a pitifully small number of parts per wafer. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/65 "2021-09-15T11:05:46Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Neither does your car’s ECU. It resides under the dash for the most part. The boards in my 1992 BMW were in a cast aluminum case and had connectors that looked like they belonged in a fighter plane. The box had it’s own fans connected to outside air by ductwork. Perhaps not the engine control module, but there are plenty of other chips that are in the engine compartment. Two examples from my car: The ABS module and the generator regulator. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/66 "2021-09-15T13:18:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > > > The foundries make more money on a per unit basis from the consumer electronics sector than they do the auto industry, which seems surprising given the rigors of testing these particular chips undergo to accomplish 0% fail rates. > > Did you mean hardly seems surprising? I’m pretty sure lots of consumer chips run at higher volumes. > Do you know the relative chip sizes? My contact with TSMC was for huge processors with a pitifully small number of parts per wafer. Foundries produce wafers. While the foundry will perform some per-wafer testing to ensure that the wafer was processed within specified limits, they do not test the individual die. Wafers are sent to one of more different facilities, frequently in Malaysia or Singapore, for probe testing, dicing, assembly, and final package testing. The foundry gets paid per wafer, they do not particularly care how big the die is or what the end market is. The cost of a wafer will depend on the particular process flow used (affects number of processing steps and the variety of processing equipment used), the number of wafers of a particular design that are processed at one time (setup time for swapping out reticles) and the total number of wafers your company purchases per year (how big a customer you are). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/67 "2021-09-15T19:29:01Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > Foundries produce wafers. While the foundry will perform some per-wafer testing to ensure that the wafer was processed within specified limits, they do not test the individual die. Wafers are sent to one of more different facilities, frequently in Malaysia or Singapore, for probe testing, dicing, assembly, and final package testing. Not true in our case. Instrumentation was placed on the wafers, and certain results meant that the wafer as a whole was rejected, and we weren’t charged. But we did significant wafer probe (not at speed) on individual dies before the dies were packaged. Then the wafers were sent to another place in Taiwan (for us) for packaging and package testing, along with a wafer map showing which dies to package. Our tests were so long that they were split, and there was also testing at different temperature corners, plus post-burnin test. Wafer probe was done inside the foundry, which makes sense since I assume they used the feedback. Our parts were often process drivers, though. Our packages were very expensive, and our yields were relatively low because of die size and aggressive technology, so it would make no economic sense to send untested wafers to be packaged. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/68 "2021-09-15T19:46:11Z")
I didn’t mean that die are packaged untested, just that probe test of the actual die is usually done at a different location. Probe testing for wafer acceptance is done using test structures places in the scribe lanes between dice. This testing is done by the foundry before the wafers are shipped. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/69 "2021-09-16T19:57:55Z")
Our probe was done within the walls of TSMC, but I’m aware that anything can get shipped all over the place. When I was in Bell Labs wafers were manufactured in Orlando and shipped to Singapore for packaging. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/70 "2021-09-16T21:48:41Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Making these chips apparently consumes a LOT of water on a per day basis. TSMC, the largest chip manufacturer on the planet, uses the equivalent of 60 olympic-sized swimming pools of water per day. For context: an olympic-sized pool contains 2.5 M liters of water according to my googling, which is just about 2 acre-feet. So 120 acre-feet/day. Or 44,000 acre-feet/year. In the US, an acre-foot is roughly the amount of water a family of four consumes in a year, so that much water would support a population of 175,000 people (domestic water use only - not the agriculture or power generation to support them.) Taiwan’s population is 23.5 million. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2021, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/71 "2021-09-20T01:13:21Z")
Goddamn I love AND hate the Dope right about now. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/72 "2021-09-21T12:44:05Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > The foundries never closed down due to the pandemic because they already operate in full PPE and 500,000 square foot clean rooms. The foundries in Taiwan didn’t close because Taiwan has generally done remarkably well against the pandemic. It doesn’t matter if the fabrication workplace itself is sterile if the workers are becoming infected at home or in stores. The manufacturing process also depends on the logistic system which is outside of the sterile environment and again Taiwan had had a long streak of very low levels of domestic transmissions but then things suddenly got worse in May. They had managed to keep things out, but a case slipped in and spread rapidly. Because of the low vaccination rate, cases started popping up all over. Taiwan has a problem getting enough vaccines, with one factor being China interfering with the procurement. This led to questions concerning possible shortages of chips because of the lack of vaccines. Here is [one article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-23/world-s-supply-of-chips-is-in-danger-unless-taiwan-gets-vaccines) about it, written just when Taiwan was in the worst of it. Taiwanese technology giants stepped into [obtain the vaccines](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57801031). > [@](#): > > Taiwanese firms Foxconn, which makes devices for Apple, and chip giant TSMC brokered the agreements for the BioNTech vaccine, worth $350m (£252m). > > Taiwan has been trying for months to buy the vaccine from Germany’s BioNTech and blames China for blocking a deal. > > China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own territory, denies the accusations. > > The agreements will see Foxconn and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) buy five million doses of the vaccine each and donate them to the government for distribution. It’s said that German car manufacturers put pressure on the German side to make the deal possible. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > For context: an olympic-sized pool contains 2.5 M liters of water according to my googling, which is just about 2 acre-feet. So 120 acre-feet/day. Or 44,000 acre-feet/year. In the US, an acre-foot is roughly the amount of water a family of four consumes in a year, so that much water would support a population of 175,000 people (domestic water use only - not the agriculture or power generation to support them.) Taiwan’s population is 23.5 million. For additional context: Parts of Taiwan suffered a severe shortage of water this year which threatened the supply of chips. They resorted to trucking water in from the east side of Taiwan where water is plentiful. The total population of Taiwan isn’t relevant here. The chip manufacturers are concentrated around Taichung and the water supplies are not connected. We had plenty of water but they were rationing the water in the southwest and west. Also note that your calculated figures would be for only TSCM and does not include other manufacturers. I have no idea the accuracy of any of the numbers, but as I said, the water shortage and the chip industry were big news this year. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2021, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/73 "2021-09-21T15:41:17Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > The foundries in Taiwan didn’t close because Taiwan has generally done remarkably well against the pandemic. It doesn’t matter if the fabrication workplace itself is sterile if the workers are becoming infected at home or in stores It sounds to me like it would be both - workers weren’t getting sick elsewhere and if a worker did have, say, an asymptomatic case, they were extremely unlikely to pass it on to coworkers due to the nature of the work environment (sterile, full PPE…) > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > For additional context: Parts of Taiwan suffered a severe shortage of water this year which threatened the supply of chips. They resorted to trucking water in from the east side of Taiwan where water is plentiful. > > The total population of Taiwan isn’t relevant here. The chip manufacturers are concentrated around Taichung and the water supplies are not connected. We had plenty of water but they were rationing the water in the southwest and west. That’s good to know. The point of my post was fairly simply: @FoieGrasIsEvil posted a factoid about 60 olympic-sized pools a day of water without any context. Is it a lot? Is that a little? Is it a drop in the bucket? Without doing a deep dive to understand where the drought areas are, where the fabs are, what the connections between the water systems were, etc, I did a little quick back-of-the-napkin math to contextualize it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/74 "2021-09-21T17:48:25Z")
There was an article in the latest Fortune that randomly got sent to me about Toyota. It said that Toyota was relatively unaffected by the shortage because it forced its suppliers to keep I think six months of ICs on hand. It started this after the disruption caused by the earthquake and tidal wave in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/75 "2021-09-22T13:17:09Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > For context: an olympic-sized pool contains 2.5 M liters of water according to my googling, which is just about 2 acre-feet. So 120 acre-feet/day. Or 44,000 acre-feet/year. In the US, an acre-foot is roughly the amount of water a family of four consumes in a year, so that much water would support a population of 175,000 people (domestic water use only - not the agriculture or power generation to support them.) Taiwan’s population is 23.5 million. 44,000 acre feet/year =\> 14.3 billion gallons/year. I assume that is the worldwide number for TSMC. In 2020 TSMC produced the equivalent of 12 million 12 inch wafers/year =\> 1200 gallons/wafer. Assuming an average of 600 dice/wafer that’s 2 gallons per chip. (Big processor chips would use a few times more, most analog chips would use a lot less. I took a WAG at 10mm x 10mm for an average.) About the same amount of water as growing an almond. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/76 "2021-09-22T13:18:52Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There was an article in the latest Fortune that randomly got sent to me about Toyota. It said that Toyota was relatively unaffected by the shortage because it forced its suppliers to keep I think six months of ICs on hand. It started this after the disruption caused by the earthquake and tidal wave in Japan. I hear constantly that the pandemic is the death knell for “just in time” manufacturing. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/77 "2021-09-22T14:54:09Z")
Hearing something and thinking that makes it true is a false assumption. After the pandemic is over and the supply chains get back to “normal” it doesn’t make sense to abandon just in time manufacturing. What most likely will happen is that the auto manufactures will require multiple supplier plants in different regions to supply parts closer to the assembly location. If one region goes down the other regions will theoretically be able to pick up the slack. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/78 "2021-09-22T16:41:33Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It said that Toyota was relatively unaffected by the shortage One data point: the local (Atlanta area) Toyota dealership has dozens of new pickups on their lot, in contrast to, say, the Nissan dealer across the street that has very few of anything. Pickup trucks are very popular here, so either they’re pricing them very high, or they are getting a decent supply. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/79 "2021-09-22T19:14:54Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Hearing something and thinking that makes it true is a false assumption. After the pandemic is over and the supply chains get back to “normal” it doesn’t make sense to abandon just in time manufacturing. What most likely will happen is that the auto manufactures will require multiple supplier plants in different regions to supply parts closer to the assembly location. If one region goes down the other regions will theoretically be able to pick up the slack. That won’t help with the supply chain for the suppliers. I suspect it is far more likely that they will force suppliers to keep inventory on hand, as Toyota did, and the suppliers won’t be able to say no. In 2001 the contract manufacturers who built our circuit boards owned the product until it was shipped to our system assembly factory. When the crash came, and orders plummeted, they had to eat that inventory, not us. In the current case Toyota’s suppliers got to keep selling parts, so they won at the expense of more inventory before the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2021, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407/80 "2021-09-22T19:25:09Z")
Not really seeing it working out long term. What happens when their is a recall and the parts in stock are worthless? Suppliers could go out of business. Its not just chips but multiple small components and built up assembles. The market will decide and lower cost always wins in automotive. Always. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-microchips-in-cars-fundamentally-different-than-the-microchips-in-smartphones-and-game-consoles/942407.md?page=5)