Working for Tesla... What's it like?

[dnmun]

you can look in the wikipedia article on integrated circuit manufacturing under the section at the end under planarization. every large IC manufactured in the world uses my planarization step. you could not afford to buy an IC without it.

since you know nothing about modern electronic manufacturing then you would not know that HP has long since given up on developing new IC manufacturing processes. everyone in my group is long gone.

people like you do not last because the challenge of making a totally new process work is not a challenge like it was for those of us who actually did it.

first three level metal process, first 10 mask process, first 32 bit processor, first tungsten metal CVD, first 1.5uM photo lithography resolution, first i line photo lithography. maybe you have heard of silicides? i doubt it.

first laser wafer scribing and in process wafer monitoring. first automated in process device parameter testing directly tied to wafer number.

first end of line testing direct feedback to in process control steps. everything we did is now standard procedure for every IC manufacturer in the world. my cell mates were chinese and korean and went back to senior positions in taiwan and korea.

we did change the world, not nearly as much as jean hoerni or bob noyce but intel uses all of our experience to this day.

 

[Ade]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm not sure if this is me being referred to below, but regardless, I stopped the interview process with Tesla when my wife and I decided that neither of us wanted me to be working crazy ours when we have a young child at home. They were very understanding and left an open invitation to restart the process again later if I change my mind. I've worked 10-12 hour days in the past and it's fine for a time, but right now I'm enjoying the fact that I have a flexible job that prioritizes not burning out employees and can enjoy our free time.

...this guy is gonna stay home anyway so whatsittoyah?

Speaking as someone with a 2 year old daughter myself I think you've made the right choice.

 

[Ade]

you can look in the wikipedia article on integrated circuit manufacturing under the section at the end under planarization. every large IC manufactured in the world uses my planarization step. you could not afford to buy an IC without it.

since you know nothing about modern electronic manufacturing then you would not know that HP has long since given up on developing new IC manufacturing processes. everyone in my group is long gone.

people like you do not last because the challenge of making a totally new process work is not a challenge like it was for those of us who actually did it.

first three level metal process, first 10 mask process, first 32 bit processor, first tungsten metal CVD, first 1.5uM photo lithography resolution, first i line photo lithography. maybe you have heard of silicides? i doubt it.

first laser wafer scribing and in process wafer monitoring. first automated in process device parameter testing directly tied to wafer number.

first end of line testing direct feedback to in process control steps. everything we did is now standard procedure for every IC manufacturer in the world. my cell mates were chinese and korean and went back to senior positions in taiwan and korea.

we did change the world, not nearly as much as jean hoerni or bob noyce but intel uses all of our experience to this day.

And that ^ is an incredibly arrogant reply. Though I once thought similarly back in the day to the point where I hated holidays which took me away from work. Then I grew up.

 

[wasp]

you can look in the wikipedia article on integrated circuit manufacturing under the section at the end under planarization. every large IC manufactured in the world uses my planarization step. you could not afford to buy an IC without it.

since you know nothing about modern electronic manufacturing then you would not know that HP has long since given up on developing new IC manufacturing processes. everyone in my group is long gone.

people like you do not last because the challenge of making a totally new process work is not a challenge like it was for those of us who actually did it.

first three level metal process, first 10 mask process, first 32 bit processor, first tungsten metal CVD, first 1.5uM photo lithography resolution, first i line photo lithography. maybe you have heard of silicides? i doubt it.

first laser wafer scribing and in process wafer monitoring. first automated in process device parameter testing directly tied to wafer number.

first end of line testing direct feedback to in process control steps. everything we did is now standard procedure for every IC manufacturer in the world. my cell mates were chinese and korean and went back to senior positions in taiwan and korea.

we did change the world, not nearly as much as jean hoerni or bob noyce but intel uses all of our experience to this day.

And that ^ is an incredibly arrogant reply. Though I once thought similarly back in the day to the point where I hated holidays which took me away from work. Then I grew up.

arrogant lmao i think its damn impressive
wasp

 

[Punx0r]

I once swam four lengths in my local 25m pool!

everything we did is now standard procedure for every IC manufacturer in the world. my cell mates were chinese and korean and went back to senior positions in taiwan and korea.

It's good to see the system has stepped up from sewing mail bags and assembling washing machines

 

[velias]

since you know nothing about modern electronic manufacturing then you would not know that HP has long since given up on developing new IC manufacturing processes. everyone in my group is long gone.

Arrogant is an understatement......
How do you know I know nothing about modern electronics manufacturing? I worked for TI for years.
Sounds like you wasted your 100 hour workweek time at HP and it has turned you into a bitter man.
Like everyone is saying theres more to life than going to work 100 hours a week, but you never figured that out.

 

[r3volved]

wtf? To each their own...

Some people find personal value in advancing society with the investment of their time and skills...specially when they're doing something they're passionate about.

I've invested countless hours into my passionate work...that doesn't mean that (a) I enjoy work more than free-time and it doesn't mean (b) I would spend countless hours doing any type of work.

 

[liveforphysics]

We are all going to die, we have this one moment of now to have some experienes before them. There is no rule that you need to live outside work, if you choose to enjoy that long hour work experience and embrace it, you are doing life right. If you choose to enjoy working you are winning more than someone not working and choosing to suffer while living a labor free life of luxury.

If you have a passion for enjoying your work, long weeks go by in a flash, and you get to see your amazing ideas come into being and function. It is satisfying and life enriching in it's own unique way.

Dnum- Thank you for your contributions to chip mfg that I benefit from today as I type this.

 

[Lebowski]

yo maybe you have heard of silicides? i doubt it.

Isn't that where something is done (top layer implant) to the drain and source of a transistor to make it low-ohmic ? I once worked on something
where the silicide was removed on the source of a wide transistor, so that from one end to the other the source implant
could double up as a resistor...

P.S. my old company invented the oxide isolation, the CD, the SOIC chip package etc etc

 

[dnmun]

silicides are compounds of silicon and transistion metals that can form an ohmic conduction contact to silicon. when only the silicon contact is exposed in the oxide contact window then it is called self aligning, or salicide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicide

jack kilby is considered to be the guy who developed the technique of isolating transistors on the surface of the wafer by growing an oxide barrier around their perimeter. oxide will grow preferentially in a trench around the transistor that is etched along the 110 planes of the crystalline silicon around the transistor. the trick is growing the oxide just enuff to isolate without causing damage to the transistor silicon itself by inducing strain into the region under the transistor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicide

the history of the traitorous 8 who left schockley to form fairchild electronics and then on to develop the integrated circuit is most probably the most informative explanation of why people in 'silicon valley' could succeed in developing the new ideas that had been so limited by the institutional corporate culture of the east coast. read a biography of bob noyce or gordon moore or jean hoerni or watch the PBS special in their american experience series for a short course.

when i went to san fransisco in the summer of 1967 to join all the other hippies living out an impulse to create a better world from the racist warmongering culture we grew up in, i made a major mistake in going directly to golden gate park and living on haight street.

instead i should have turned south to san jose and found work at fairchild. took me 10 years to finally get to where i was focused on pursuing the electronics industry and studying solid state and nuclear physics at the time then when the first 16 bit processor was manufactured by zilog. in mountain view, idaho of all places.

i did luck out as is usually the case because i met a guy who came to our lab at colorado state university to use our ultraviolet laser. he was a photolith guy in the HP group developing the i line photolithography and the specialized Canon developers. he had been head of the 64k ram group at TI and just by chance i was wearing a tshirt from some small western colorado town where i would go hiking in the mountains and it turned out that his brother lived in this small town so after much small talk about physics, (why light is dispersed into the spectrum by passing through a prism), he was the guy who got me the interview into that group.

of course i never really used any of my physics training but instead it was all about plasma physics and the ion etchers i was responsible for.

just to clue you young guys about how just being on top of your game and able to make contacts is as important as anything else in getting that first job and entry into the world being created now. be prepared to not only do something you never trained for, but to be able to succeed where others quit and to help make your group successful in the end is what it is all about. my group disappeared in the great financial destruction of the company that began with the acquisition of compaq and money siphoned off to the merger bankers until this last deal bankrupted them.

dave packard was the greatest guy in the world to work for. huge giant of man and smart as a whip.

 

[peters]

Someone else would have developed them if he had not.

Nooooooo, with this attitude the humanity wouldn't have been able to create even a stone axe.
I believe if someone has the opportunity, knowledge, passion and courage for doing or improving or innovating something, then he has to do it, rather than just waiting for others to do it. Calling it a moral obligation or responsibility is maybe too much, but something like that. This is a huge value. You have to find a way to balance it with your personal life, but if your work is your passion then there is no conflict.
So my full respect to dnmun and people like him.

 

[flathill]

there are two keys here to conforming

1) like the work you do (must be passionate about it)
2) like where you work (healthy environment)

if you dont like where you work it can actually kill the passion. in the long term you may get bored no matter what but you might end up stuck because of debt (mortgage or whatever) or something else holding you in place (kids in school or whatever). at this point it is time to find a new challenge if you are not stuck. something different to like. because you might get stuck it is very important to choose a line of work you don't think you will ever get bored of when you are choosing key 1 the first time

there is also another way to live. refuse to work and just play like a child. never get stuck

("productive play")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abolition_of_Work

One reason you may have to work within the system is the tools needed are only available at work or university. Long-term I will fix this problem by making a free university with no teachers only tools and books and equipment whatnot. I'm talking thousands of billion dollar machines available to anyone who passes the usage test. And a million thousand dollar instruments. And a billion billion hundred dollar books. Free to all humans. All open source. All open ware.

 

[Hillhater]

there are two keys here to conforming

1) like the work you do (must be passionate about it)
2) like where you work (healthy environment)

I would add one other..
Like your boss/team leader.
Working for someone you respect either for their experience or maybe for their leadership skills will make a huge difference to your motivation and commitment.
Having An incompetent boss is the worst possible work situation.

 

[flathill]

there are two keys here to conforming

1) like the work you do (must be passionate about it)
2) like where you work (healthy environment)

I would add one other..
Like your boss/team leader.
Working for someone you respect either for their experience or maybe for their leadership skills will make a huge difference to your motivation and commitment.
Having An incompetent boss is the worst possible work situation.

I would file that under key 2. You are obviously not going to like where you work if you don't like the people you work with. Same thing with too long of a commute. That involves where you work. If you "like where you work" but you don't like your long commute, then you in fact do not like where you work. You cannot separate the two even though everyone does. Lucky that problem has a solution. Move closer to work. If you can't then simply quit. If you can't quit you are stuck and your life sucks because in truth you can always quit but you are simply afraid

 

[dnmun]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/business/dealbook/insider-offers-a-view-from-moguls-lofty-heights.html?emc=edit_dlbkam_20150428&nl=business&nlid=49600008

http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-be-as-great-as-Bill-Gates-Steve-Jobs-Elon-Musk-Richard-Branson?nl=business&emc=edit_dlbkam_20150428

 

[dmwahl]

Interesting articles about Elon, seems in line with some of the people I've known who have started/run a business.

 

[USAEBIKECO]

Time to head out west !

 

[Lebowski]

Elon Musk denies scolding employee for taking time off to witness childbirth

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/12/8590343/elon-musk-childbirth-quote

 

[methods]

Working at Tesla was invigorating. Don't pass up an opportunity if you have one.

As far as work vs play...
Those who wish to raise children may find that keeping some separation between the two is wise.

-methods

 

[Hillhater]

Working at Tesla was invigorating. ...

"Working" for the Military was invigoration also..!
... Not sure I would recommend it for everyone though ! :lol:

 

[dmwahl]

As far as work vs play...
Those who wish to raise children may find that keeping some separation between the two is wise.

Agreed. Perhaps when mine are the age when they want less to do with me, then more work isn't a bad thing. Now, when they are always happy to see me I wouldn't even consider a job requiring late hours and getting to see them 30 minutes a day. Couldn't pay me enough to do it.

 

[dnmun]

just saw this article and it kinda relates to this and how crucial is the reno plant in the future of EV sales by tesla:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-tesla-batteries-will-beat-the-competition-2015-05-19?mod=MW_story_latest_news

 

[Hillhater]

Interesting data.
But it seems quite different to Musks cost predictions.?
Part of Tesla's cost advantage may be that they produce much bigger packs than most of the others ?
So less " non cell" cost per kWhr ?
But one of the biggest factors in pack cost in future, will be production quantities ( indirect costs are directly reduced)
So, it will likely be down to who can gear up and sell volume EV's into the market.
With GM so close to Tesla on pack cost, if they have the will to produce a popular EV in the volumes they are capable of, then they could be the cost benchmark.
Likewise, there is no predicting what BYD might do !
Interesting times !

 

[dnmun]

BYD is commited to lifepo4. the kids that elon hired to do his battery chemistry research are the best in the world imo.

the new product that comes from that plant will set the new standard for battery chemistry, it will set a bar so high that others will commit to purchase batteries from him.

maybe even GM will be buying batteries from him, if they continue making EVs that is.

they may yet drop out of EV production and sell another companies product since i don't think they will ever turn a profit at it.

 

[Doctorbass]

A guy from Quebec in Canada where i live got a job at TESLA after pedalling 9000km to give them his CuriculumVitae!!

Here is the story:

https://translate.google.ca/transla...-son-reve-de-travailler-chez-tesla&edit-text=

Original page non translated: http://www.journaldequebec.com/2015/05/17/il-realise-son-reve-de-travailler-chez-tesla

Doc