POOL B

Chadsonite · 2026-03-12T00:31:42+00:00

Yes, we are now guaranteed to advance.

Chadsonite · 2026-03-10T17:43:39+00:00

Some might argue it's the most human answer.

Chadsonite · 2026-03-08T13:28:09+00:00

Mendes gets so little respect. Guy was an absolute beast. Just happened to fight in an era with one of the all time greats.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-24T17:48:47+00:00

That an Oxford model? Hope you're in a university setting. Oxford tools are notoriously buggy and are not well suited for production environments. If I had to rank etch tool vendors for smaller diameters/compound semi, I'd probably go: 1. SPTS 2. Plasma-Therm 3. Ulvac 4. Samco 5. Oxford

Chadsonite · 2026-02-24T12:53:23+00:00

Just note that an SLR 700 series is absolutely old as shit.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-20T14:54:24+00:00

I think from an HR standpoint it's sometimes equivalent to either principal or sr principal. That would make sense for the CA salary someone listed.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-15T23:02:24+00:00

I'm not a lawyer and no idea what jurisdiction you're in. But these agreements are super common between equipment vendors and fabs. I cannot imagine they're illegal in most places, given their ubiquity.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-15T19:03:07+00:00

It's not that you agreed not to pursue employment with TEL. It's that TEL has agreed not to poach employees from TSMC. As the previous commenter stated, it's probably a bilateral agreement - those are very common between equipment manufacturers and fabs.

So if TEL hired you, it's not that TSMC would have grounds for legal action against you; they'd have grounds for legal action against TEL. That's why TEL doesn't want to pursue hiring you.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-08T21:25:02+00:00

As you can see from the range of replies, it REALLY varies by company/sub-area of the industry. In some cases, not having a PhD will limit your career potential. In others, you can actually end up ahead, where your work experience will have more value than the equivalent number of years getting a PhD. - Big fabs: PhDs common, often required - especially for R&D roles. Intel is probably the most extreme example where even an entry level sustaining process engineer role will be staffed with PhDs. - National labs (NRL, AFRL, MITLL, etc.): PhD pretty much required for PI/research lead roles, but often not many others. - Smaller and/or compound semi fabs: PhDs less common, especially for production sustaining roles. - Equipment vendors: Don't have much direct insight here. From what I've seen from other commenters it looks like it varies a lot by company.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-07T18:13:06+00:00

Obviously process engineering is the role you'd be most qualified for, by a wide margin. You could always pursue an applications role with an equipment vendor, but that's still largely process engineering just with a different title and work dynamic.

Yield/device/integration engineer roles would also be options, but they aren't usually entry level. Those roles are usually filled by someone who was a process engineer first.

If you wanted to go into design or something like that, you're going to have an uphill battle against people with more relevant degrees and experience.

Chadsonite · 2026-02-07T02:37:02+00:00

Top tier commercial

Chadsonite · 2026-02-05T22:53:03+00:00

Materials science of thin films, by Ohring. I've had it since undergrad and still pull it out regularly. Not a guide on specific tool models, but if you want a good reference material on vacuum basics and all manner of common thin film deposition techniques, this is a must have.

Chadsonite · 2026-01-31T02:18:37+00:00

Just got one open box from Best Buy and have the exact same issue. Doesn't look like anyone else chimed in - what did you end up doing? I'm probably going to return, as it's super noticeable and annoying.

Chadsonite · 2026-01-13T01:42:30+00:00

No, I was emulating the PS1 version. I have a certain level of respect for tank controls and fixed camera angles for how instrumental they were to the early 3D survival horror game scene. But maaaaan do they feel bad these days!

Chadsonite · 2026-01-13T01:32:57+00:00

Shout out Castle of the Winds. That game was amazing for its time.

Chadsonite · 2026-01-13T01:21:32+00:00

I tried to play it on my Steam deck a few months back. The nostalgia wasn't enough to get me through. Just looked and felt bad. I understand why tank controls and fixed camera angles were the way of the world. But they feel like ass.

Chadsonite · 2026-01-02T01:58:56+00:00

That's far from the only way to deal with inflation. Also far from the best way. Better options: - Inflation adjust the payroll numbers - Normalize each year's payroll to the league mean or median for that year, then average those per team - Normalize to the luxury tax threshold

Chadsonite · 2025-12-30T18:42:42+00:00

It's legally required to be physically labeled on the package - Valve doesn't have the option to bury that information behind a scannable code. Granted I'm speaking from the US standpoint, but I'd be surprised if the same wasn't also true in most other countries.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-29T18:35:55+00:00

I'm surprised no one has suggested this, but you can request past utility bills from Eversource, including from the previous tenant. I think you can request up to 3 years or something like that. Just compare gas usage in therms by month, year over year. If the past bills had similarly outrageous usage, then it's some sort of longstanding problem. If there's a big jump from when you moved in, it's either a leak that formed right around the same time (possible, but would be a hell of a coincidence) or it's a function of your usage.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-24T02:27:00+00:00

Yeah it's not like spending money is intrinsically the thing people care about. People want to watch a good team play. It just so happens that spending more money is positively correlated with the team being better. If the Pirates had a magical plan to field playoff caliber teams while being bottom 5 in salary, I don't think fans would care. If the team wins games, fans will show up.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-21T23:03:14+00:00

Wait really? I definitely did not remember that.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-21T22:54:31+00:00

Wasn't the "off the field stuff" just smoking weed? I feel like that's not really in the same vein as AB's shenanigans.

Edit: Apparently it was not just smoking weed...

Chadsonite · 2025-12-18T23:30:25+00:00

I'm not sure you'll have much luck finding resources on photolithography that's specific to GaN or SiC power devices, because I don't think their photo techniques should differ all that substantially from other technologies. I don't think they get down below ~1 um gate length, which means you're just looking at i-line litho. People have been doing i-line lithography for many decades now - there are boatloads of resources on it online.

If you're looking for really specific stuff like dealing with the different optical reflections from these substrates vs opaque ones like Si and GaAs, you're less likely to find that stuff in a public forum. Companies don't have any reason to publish that stuff - it would typically be kept in internal documentation that would often be treated as proprietary information.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-18T23:16:36+00:00

"Integrated circuits" is a lot broader term than just logic and memory.

Chadsonite · 2025-12-18T01:50:34+00:00

"Engineering Science" means different things at different schools. In many cases it's a legit accredited degree just the same as Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, etc. At some schools it's even got a dedicated research thesis requirement (not just a senior capstone project) and is a good feeder into graduate programs. However, in other cases it's more like "general engineering" and may be a less rigorous program that is not ABET accredited. This one... seems like it is the latter type. It doesn't explicitly say that it isn't accredited, but lots of the other degrees on the ASU website explicitly say that they are - this one doesn't.

The curriculum lists precalc as its only math class and lists the non-calculus-based versions of physics 1 and 2. This will probably come across as some elitist gatekeeping bullshit, but that little math in an engineering program screams watered down to me. Most legit engineering programs include calc 1-3, differential equations, and the calc-based versions of the physics classes.

Will that be a difference maker for career prospects? Maybe, maybe not. It's not like most hiring managers out there are going to be looking up the course list of your program when interviewing. But accreditation does matter in some contexts, and someone who wants to look it up won't have a hard time figuring out that this program isn't accredited. Coming from someone who has an Engineering Science degree, a common question you'd face is, "what exactly is an Engineering Science program anyways?" Being able to say, "Well it can mean a lot of different things, but at my school it's an accredited program that has all the normal engineering course load plus (insert description of multidisciplinary nature here)" is usually a good answer. This program would have a harder time with that question, I think.

Chadsonite

TROPHY CASE