It is automated in the sense that silicon goes in one end, and ideally no human being touches it until it comes out of the other end in a finished package. It is not at all automated in the sense that there is a ton of maintenance work on the production line.

I love reading through random tech journals, the type with highly industry-specific ads in them, as an insight into the worlds other people live in. Jobs and every day problems I will never experience first-hand.

One of the single most eye-popping experiences like that was an ad in a chip industry quarterly I found somewhere that was breathlessly advertising that their latest tool (a machine the size of a garage) now had an MTBF of "just" 27 hours instead of the previous 2-3 hours, a massive tenfold improvement! Cutting edge stuff, apparently, compared to the competition. The really impressive part apparently was that by cutting down on maintenance time, it could be "online" for up to 90% of the time instead of just 30-50% of the time or somesuch. Apparently that's impressively good in this space.

The rest of the ad (and much of the journal) kept going on and on (and on!) about how their tool has easy-swap parts, can keep the vacuum during repair, has tool-less panels, quick access, no need for heavy lifting, etc...

I don't think I'm exaggerating too much by saying that nearly 50% of all technical development in the fab industry is about reducing the maintenance effort, and hence staffing costs.

I can only wonder why one would use ads in an industry which is so specialized and has so few players. Wouldn't it be more efficient to just talk to these people?

I think they want to do both.

Put ads and positive press in trade journals you know your customers read. It increases the percentage of their minds you occupy.

In-person contact does that too. They aren't mutually exclusive strategies.

A lot of this equipment is so expensive, that the cost of a few trade journal ads is negligible compared to the amount of revenue involved.