Always Be Curious #196: Earthquakes in chip land, autonomous fabs and robot assistants

This week in ABC: A sizable earthquake hits a chip region in Japan, Samsung ponders autonomous fabs by 2030, and Stanford PhDers builds an AI robot that can do a LOT.

🚨 What happens when a powerful earthquake hits a delicate chip fab? 🫨 On New Year’s day, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake rocked the Noto region in Japan—home to chipmakers like Toshiba and UMC. 🇯🇵

Inside a shaking fab, status lights on the lithography systems and other chipmaking equipment immediately flip from green to red 🚦, shutting down and completel…