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Comment by olejorgenb | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but my understanding is that the wafer is exposed in multiple steps, so there would still be less exposure steps? Probably insignificant compared to all the rest though. (Etching, moving the wafer, etc.)

EDIT: to clarify - I mean the exposure of one single pattern/layer is done in multiple steps. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photolithography#Projection)

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The number of exposure steps would be unrelated to the (surface area) size of die/device that you're making. In fact, in semiconductor manufacturing you're typically trying to maximize the number of devices per wafer because it costs the same to manufacture 1 device with 10 layers vs 100 devices with 10 layers on the same wafer. This goes so far as to have companies or business units share wafers for prototyping runs so as to minimize cost per device (by maximizing output per wafer).

Also, etching, moving, etc is all done on the entire wafer at the same time generally, via masks and baths. It's less of a pencil/stylus process, and more of a t-shirt silk-screening process.

> This goes so far as to have companies or business units share wafers for prototyping runs so as to minimize cost per device

Can this be done in production? Is there a chance that the portion of the wafer cerebras.ai can't fit their giant square in is being used for production of some other companies chips?

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