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A comment on China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip leadership. Parent comment

Re:China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip lead... by jjoonathan on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @03:00PM (#24135527)
That's why the USSR did it. Tsar Bomba is still serving its purpose 60 years later!

The USSR's followup actions give it away, though: they stopped pursuing higher yields, even though there was no theoretical or engineering limit prohibiting them, and instead chased the USA down the path of miniaturization. SLBMs and MIRVs were the future and everyone knew it.

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Re:China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip lead... by monocasa on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @05:21PM (#24137135)
Everyone stopped pursuing them because the massive falloff of effectiveness at higher yields. The explosions got large enough that the difference in air pressure at higher altitudes meant that more and more of the energy released was going straight up rather than directed at the ground.

I'd call that an engineering limit.

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Re:China hires over 100 TSMC engineers in push for chip lead... by jjoonathan on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @05:28PM (#24137218)
It's an engineering limit to effectiveness but not an engineering limit to higher yield. I think we agree and are just nailing down the terminology here.
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