Top all-time · #2042
Doug O'Laughlin
Personal blog · fabricatedknowledge.comeconomicshardware
Doug O'Laughlin writes Fabricated Knowledge, a personal blog at fabricatedknowledge.com about economics and hardware. Since 2021, 37 different Hacker News readers have linked it 49 times, most often “The Rising Tide of Semiconductor Cost – It Isn't Transistory”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Doug O'Laughlin's blog covers semiconductors and AI infrastructure, including chip process nodes, costs, packaging and AI capital cycles. HN readers link it to follow industry trends and players from an investor's view.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Let's learn more about the world's most important manufactured product. Meaningful insight, timely analysis, and an occasional investment idea.
Most-linked posts?
- The Rising Tide of Semiconductor Cost – It Isn't Transistory4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-11-22
- The Data Center Is the New Compute Unit:Nvidia's Vision for System-Level Scaling3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-04-04
- Engels' Pause and the Permanent Underclass3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-04-16
- The Death of Software 2.0 (A Better Analogy)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-01-16
- Lessons from History: The 1980s Semiconductor Cycle(s)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-28
- Mobileye S-1 Teardown2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-12-20
- The Shift from Fabless to Fabs2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-08-14
- Capital Cycles and AI2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-26
- How France's Largest Semiconductor Company Got Nationalized in Plain Sight2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-23
- Lessons from History: The Rise and Fall of the Telecom Bubble2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-16
What Hacker News says?
Ben Thompson and Doug O'Laughlin ( https://stratechery.com/2025/the-oracle-inflection-point-app... (paywall), https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/capital-cycles-and-ai ) are calling it a bubble, largely because we've entered the cycle where cash flows aren't paying for it, but debt is (See Oracle. they won't be able to pay for their investment with cash flow). I think even Byrne Hobart would agree (from his interv…
Comment linking /p/capital-cycles-and-ai
on “OpenAI and Nvidia announce partnership to deploy 10GW of Nvidia systems”Submitted Intel’s board, and an example of when boards and short-termism fail as a story · 351 points
HN discussion"Most large investors vote alongside Glass Lewis and ISS recommendations, the two most prominent proxy solutions for investors. Most GL/ISS recommendations tend to vote with the board and don’t change much unless something drastic happens. If you’re a passive investor, you vote in line with the two proxy powerhouses." - The Death of Intel: When Boards Fail https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/the-death-of-intel-whe…
Comment linking /p/the-death-of-intel-when-boards-fail
on “Pat Gelsinger was wrong for Intel”Submitted US Export Restrictions, Intel Layoffs, Applied Materials, and TSMC as a story · 134 points
HN discussion> AI models do not need coherent memory, the access pattern is regular enough that you can make do with explicit barriers. response to both this and the sibling: even for training, I remember some speculation that explicit synchronization might not even be needed, especially in the middle stages of training (past the early part, before fine tuning). it's not "correct" but the gradient descent will eventually fix it…
Comment linking /p/the-data-center-is-the-new-compute
on “PCIe 7.0 Draft 0.5 Spec: 512 GB/s over PCIe x16 On Track For 2025”Submitted NVLink Fusion: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish as a story · 14 points
HN discussionIt depends how literally one wants to take the law. The "law" is doubling density every two years. So strictly speaking it is done because it has taken longer than two years. But if you choose the looser interpretation and simple read it as, transistor density increases with time, then it's not dead. Probably the bigger deal is cost per transistor is actually going up with the new nodes. https://www.fabricatedknowle…
Comment linking /p/the-rising-tide-of-semiconductor?triedSigningIn=true
on “The end of Moore's Law forced YouTube to make its own video chip”Submitted The Rising Tide of Semiconductor Cost – It Isn't Transistory as a story · 14 points
HN discussionThis blog has been very helpful to follow the recent trends and players from an investors standpoint - https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What books are recommended to learn the semiconductor industry?”Submitted The Internet as You Know It Is Dying as a story · 7 points
HN discussion> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. This is not true anymore. At leading edge process nodes (i.e., smaller conductor pitch), the bulk resistivity of copper changes dramatically because it is increasingly dominated by ballistic electron scattering on the interfaces and grain boundaries: surface area has decreased as a fraction of volume and the average grain size has shrunk to fit in…
Comment linking /p/backside-power-delivery-and-bold
on “A Room-Temperature Superconductor? New Developments”Submitted The Internet as You Know It Is Dying as a story · 5 points
HN discussionMaybe, but it worked out really well last time we did this. I say the government ended up with a tremendous ROI. https://www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/history-lesson-the-198... What about the safeguards, which are in place, makes you uneasy?
Comment linking /p/history-lesson-the-1980s-semiconductor
on “H. R. 4346: The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022”Submitted AI Is Creating Peak Software, Media Is the Best Analogy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAccording to the graph on the linked page below, the cost per transistor hit a minimum at 28nm (which was the last of the planar designs), and has risen slightly with FinFET (which is not as reliable as planar). "The chart below is from Marvell’s 2020 investor day. The bar for 28nm was approximately 2011-2012." Cost is per 100 million gates. 90nm - $4.01 65nm - $2.82 45/50nm - $1.94 28nm - $1.30 20nm - $1.42 16/14nm…
Comment linking /p/the-rising-tide-of-semiconductor
on “TSMC Expected to Charge $25,000 per 2nm Wafer”Submitted Capital Cycles and AI as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWe really lack a better name here than packaging. When it was packaging substrate, wire-bonds, chip, pins, and heat spreader, yeah, ok. But now the substrate is probably it's own interposer, perhaps with more interposers in it, the chip is probably at least two chips, when more and more is stacked together & intricately interconnected: the word packaging feels super super insufficient. Massive shout out to "The Risi…
Comment linking /p/the-rising-tide-of-semiconductor
on “Advanced Packaging Shifts Design Focus to System Level”Submitted 2025 AI and Semiconductor Outlook as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The ROI of AI (It's a Dollar Auction) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Data Center Is the New Compute Unit:Nvidia's Vision for System-Level Scaling as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Engels' Pause and the Permanent Underclass as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Engels' Pause and the Permanent Underclass as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Mobileye S-1 Teardown as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Data Center Is the New Compute Unit Nvidia's Vision for System-Level Scaling as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted OpenAI Boardroom Battle: Safety First as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Lessons from History: The Rise and Fall of the Telecom Bubble as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI Foundations Part 1: Transformers, Pre-Training and Fine-Tuning, and Scaling as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Shift from Fabless to Fabs as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Intel – They Are Who We Thought They Were – Share Donors as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Lessons from History: The 1990s Semiconductor Cycle(s) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
