Manufacturing & Production — Posts

73 posts on "Manufacturing & Production" by Shlomo Strauss — bilingual writing on technology, science, and business.

• Beyond Food: How Soybeans Power Jet Engines and Plastics — Beyond agriculture, soybeans possess unique biological properties driving innovations in jet fuel, winter tires, and safer plastics.
• The Technologies Turning Carbon Into a Profitable Industry — New technologies are turning carbon capture from a costly necessity into a profitable industry by using emissions to create resources like concrete.
• The Foxconn worker who built a $70 billion manufacturing giant — Founded by a former factory worker, Luxshare now assembles the Apple Vision Pro and is raising billions to expand into AI server infrastructure.
• Liquid metal circuit boards could slash electronics prototyping time — Itera's liquid metal technology instantly reconfigures circuit boards, drastically reducing prototyping time while protecting intellectual property.
• Corning's evolution from Edison's lightbulb to AI optical fibers — Corning has sustained 175 years of relevance by adapting its glass technology for everything from Edison's lightbulbs to modern AI data centers.
• Bambu Lab vs. the open-source community: a fight over who controls — Bambu Lab's push to lock its printers to official software has triggered a fierce backlash from open-source developers and right-to-repair activists,…
• How Camelid Nanobodies Are Reshaping Snake Antivenom Development — Researchers are using camelid nanobodies to create stable, highly effective snake antivenoms that can be mass-produced in the lab.
• Walmart proves 3D-printed construction is commercially viable — Walmart's new 3D-printed warehouses prove that robotic concrete printing is now a faster, cost-effective alternative to traditional construction.
• The Geopolitical Battle Over LED Manufacturing — The transition to gallium nitride in LED manufacturing has sparked a geopolitical struggle due to its critical military and communication applications.
• How Cerebras Built a Giant AI Chip and Why It Is Going Public — While Cerebras boasts revolutionary wafer-scale AI chips, its upcoming multi-billion dollar IPO faces risks from extreme customer concentration.
• Nvidia's $9 Million Server Threatens Traditional Hardware Makers — Nvidia's upcoming NVL144 server highlights the company's push to control the entire AI supply chain, threatening traditional hardware manufacturers.
• How the Global Helium Crisis Threatens Advanced Technology — An Iranian attack on Qatari facilities and the depletion of US reserves have triggered a severe helium shortage, threatening chipmaking and MRI systems.
• How bots tried to corner the RAM market with 10 million crafty — DataDome exposed a bot campaign that scraped RAM product pages over 10 million times, aiming to scalp inventory and deepen an AI-driven memory shortage.
• How Tesla solved the battery and heat problems that held back — From cylindrical cells with interleaved cooling tubes to a structural battery floor, a look at the engineering breakthroughs behind Tesla's thermal and…
• The engineering inside Tesla's motors that most drivers never think — Dual motors, carbon-fiber sleeves, and silicon carbide inverters — a clear look at the engineering solutions Tesla built into its electric drivetrains.
• Natural gas feeds the world — here is how it travels to do so — From fertilizer production to cryogenic tankers sailing at -161°C, this piece explains why natural gas underpins global food supply and modern industry.
• Why old HDD drives are suddenly back in high demand — EU AI data-retention rules, rising SSD costs, and new laser and microwave writing technologies are driving an unexpected HDD revival with capacities up to
• A QR code smaller than a bacterium just broke a world record — Researchers from TU Wien and startup Cerabyte etched a 1.98 sq-micron QR code onto ceramic, demonstrating a storage method that could hold 2TB per A4…
• The physics behind launching and stopping jets on a carrier — From electromagnetic catapults powered by flywheels to glycol-cooled arresting gear, a clear breakdown of the advanced systems aboard the USS Gerald R.…
• Intel's ZAM memory aims to pack 512 GB where HBM tops out at 64 — Intel and SoftBank's ZAM technology uses diagonal drilling between memory layers to promise 512 GB per package — eight times the capacity of today's best…
• WD-40's trade secret is not much of a secret — and it doesn't matter — WD-40's formula is publicly listed and easily replicated, yet smart branding and consumer habit have built a company worth over $3 billion.
• Tower Semiconductor and Nvidia bet on silicon photonics for AI — A new deal between Tower Semiconductor and Nvidia will bring silicon-nitride optical interconnects inside AI servers, promising up to 70% energy savings…
• How a Japanese toilet maker became a key supplier to the chip — Toto's mastery of ceramic shrinkage, developed for luxury toilets, led to an electrostatic wafer-holding technology now in high demand as AI chip…
• Why Nvidia's $20 billion Groq acquisition is a bet on the inference — As the AI industry shifts from model training to cost-efficient inference, Nvidia's Groq acquisition signals a strategic pivot to compete with Google's…
• The glass fabric holding the chip industry together — and Intel's — Why boron-free T-Glass became a critical bottleneck for AI chip production, and how Intel is developing a pure glass substrate as a future alternative.
• Sugar cane: from white sugar to jet fuel and nano-cellulose — The world's highest-yield crop produces far more than table sugar — its byproducts include bioplastics, sustainable aviation fuel, Lego pieces, and…
• Molten salt and the eutectic point powering next-generation solar — A Chinese concentrating solar plant using 30,000 heliostats and a eutectic molten-salt mixture can store thermal energy for up to six hours, outperforming
• How supersonic jet engines could power AI data centers — Boom is adapting its supersonic jet engine to generate electricity for data centers, potentially eliminating the water-cooling workaround that limits…
• From banana leaves to the lab: the science behind chocolate — A breakdown of the fermentation process that turns raw cacao into chocolate, alongside the lab-grown cacao technology that could reshape the global…
• How AI's appetite for HBM memory is driving up the cost of ordinary — As manufacturers shift production lines to the more profitable HBM chips powering AI accelerators, a RAM shortage for standard computers is expected to…
• Apple's N1 chip beats Broadcom with half the bandwidth — Apple's first in-house WiFi chip, the N1, uses a narrower 4nm design to outperform leading Broadcom chips in real-world use while cutting reliance on…
• Gallium: the metal that melts in your hand and corrodes aircraft — A concise look at gallium's unusual properties, its role in power electronics and military radar, the complexity of refining it, and why China's dominance
• How a little-known Dutch chipmaker triggered a global auto industry — After U.S. sanctions and a Chinese countermove disrupted Nexperia's supply chain, automakers worldwide are facing shortages of components essential to…
• The $400 million machine at the heart of modern chip manufacturing — A look at how ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machine works, and the startup betting X-rays can do the job better and cheaper.
• China's underwater data center runs on wind and seawater cooling — China completed the first phase of a subsea data center that uses ocean water for passive cooling and nearby wind turbines as its sole power source.
• Small modular reactors and the case for a new nuclear age — From AI data centers to lunar bases, this post examines how small modular reactors work, why tech giants are betting on them, and what risks remain.
• Lab-grown diamonds are becoming a critical component in chips and — Lab-grown diamonds, which conduct heat five times better than copper, may soon enable faster chips and room-temperature quantum computing qubits.
• Ethanol: from sugarcane and yeast to fuel, antiseptics and tax law — A concise look at ethanol — how it is produced from plants, why it is considered a relatively clean fuel, and why industrial grades are deliberately…
• The Bugatti Royale sold only 3 units — and now fetches $22 million — Built between 1927 and 1933 with a 12.7-liter aircraft engine, the Bugatti Type 41 Royale was a commercial failure that now sells for $22 million at…
• Ammonium nitrate: why the same compound fertilizes crops and levels — A concise chemical explanation of why ammonium nitrate is both a highly effective fertilizer and the powerful explosive behind disasters like the 2020…
• From mining waste to battery materials: olivine's unlikely second — A New Zealand startup has developed a process to extract magnesium, silicate, and battery-grade NMC from olivine powder — an industrial waste product — in
• How FPSO platforms use hydrostatics and electrostatics to process oil — A look at how FPSO vessels exploit hydrostatic pressure, gravity separation, and electrostatic fields to extract, process, and store crude oil far…
• The world's smallest artificial heart saved a toddler's life — An 11-gram titanium artificial heart implanted in a 16-month-old in 2012 kept him alive for 13 days, and the continuous-flow technology behind its…
• The children's uranium kit from the 1950s that became one of — The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab sold radioactive ore samples and a Geiger counter to children in the early 1950s, with fewer than 5,000 units made…
• The real reason 5G was built — remote cranes, not faster phones — A Chinese cargo port shows how 5G's near-zero latency and massive device density enable safe, real-time remote operation of heavy cranes and trucks.
• The physics of glass: why it shatters and how it is made stronger — From borosilicate to tempered glass, the post explains the physical mechanisms behind heat resistance and impact strength in different types of glass.
• Robotic sculpture and the question of what human artistry still means — As Monumental Labs deploys autonomous robotic arms to carve stone, the post asks whether machine-made sculpture can ever carry the same weight as a…
• The 660-ton pendulum keeping Taipei 101 standing — The 660-ton steel sphere suspended inside Taipei 101 uses inertia and energy conservation to counteract earthquakes and typhoons — the same damping…
• Aluminium is the most recyclable material humans use — From Napoleon's dinner table to modern recycling plants, aluminium's near-perfect recyclability and staggering energy savings make it unlike any other…
• Why Nike lost tens of millions trying to automate shoe manufacturing — Nike's multimillion-dollar bet on robotic shoe production collapsed because flexible materials and constant new designs made automation practically…
• The Jiangsu shipyard and the cost of erasing the individual — A viral clip of thousands of workers flooding out of a Chinese shipyard becomes a meditation on what dictatorships erase — and what democracies must…
• The neutrino that nearly broke the speed of light barrier — From a $100-million underground detector in Japan to a loose cable that sent physics into a panic, this piece traces the neutrino's strangest moments.
• A robotic hand grown from living tendons reaches 18 cm — Researchers at the University of Tokyo embedded lab-grown tendon tissue into a 3D-printed hand that can grip objects, control individual fingers, and…
• What Japanese schoolgirls learn on Toyota's factory floor — A school visit to Toyota's assembly line shows why hands-on, real-world learning leaves a deeper impression than any classroom lesson.
• Why electronic solder is exactly 63% tin and 37% lead — The specific tin-lead ratio in solder is no accident — it forms a eutectic mixture that lowers the melting point to 183°C, protecting circuit boards…
• Why rain smells like earth, and how that knowledge may improve food — Scientists identified the specific nasal receptors behind geosmin detection, with plans to mimic them in electronic sensors for food and water quality…
• How water at 60,000 PSI cuts through steel like butter — Using Pascal's and Bernoulli's laws together, a thin water jet reaches 2.5 times the speed of sound — enough to slice through steel with remarkable…
• BOE makes screens for Apple and the world — and almost no one knows — A look at BOE, the Chinese display giant behind TV panels, smartphone screens, and a new folding dashboard prototype — operating largely out of the…
• Melting metal without touching it: induction heating explained — A changing magnetic field from an AC coil levitates a metal piece and heats it from within via eddy currents until it melts — the same principle behind…
• The Rehbinder Effect: how water makes glass resist shattering — Discovered in 1928, the Rehbinder effect explains how surface-active substances weaken intermolecular bonds in solids, making materials like glass…
• Why titanium screws change color: the physics of electrochemical — A titanium dioxide layer formed by electrochemical redox produces a spectrum of colors through light interference, not changes in chemical composition.
• Prince Rupert's Drops: the physics of a nearly indestructible head — The internal stress locked inside Prince Rupert's Drops explains both their remarkable resistance to crushing and their explosive fragmentation when the…
• How a tiny quartz crystal keeps your watch accurate — From piezoelectricity to the Mohs scale, this piece explains the engineering behind the 32,768 Hz quartz crystal at the heart of every modern watch.
• Xiaomi's fully automated factory runs 24/7 with zero human workers — Xiaomi's new 81,000-square-meter factory produces smartphones and auto parts around the clock using only robots, raising pointed questions about the…
• That $12 10TB drive from AliExpress is a scam — here is what is — A Reddit user who bought a supposed 10TB external drive for $12 found a cheap, no-name microSD card inside running firmware that fakes the reported…
• Why small businesses stay small — and what delivery delays have to do — Low margins, high unit costs, and thin volume trap small businesses in a cycle of stagnation — and differentiation is the only structural way out.
• Mighty Buildings prints modular homes in 3D and ships them to your — Mighty Buildings uses giant 3D printers to produce modular home components that a four-person crew can assemble in four days, claiming five times the…
• Why Apple has never made a printer, and probably never will — Apple's product philosophy of premium design and user delight may explain why it has never put its logo on one of tech's most despised devices.
• Xiaomi built the car Apple walked away from — After Apple abandoned its autonomous car project following a $10 billion investment, Xiaomi successfully launched an electric vehicle and is already…
• Why economic pressure on Israel and China tends to backfire — Attempts to weaken Israel and China through war or trade restrictions have repeatedly pushed both to build stronger, more self-reliant industries — a…
• What is inside Apple's $129 Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable — An internal scan of Apple's Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable reveals a complex printed circuit supporting data, video, and up to 100W charging, alongside Intel…
• The architecture of Apple's UltraFusion processor bridge — Bypassing traditional upgrades, Apple uses an UltraFusion bridge to merge two processors into a single chip transferring 2.5 terabytes per second.
• What makes Apple Silicon so fast and energy-efficient — A technical breakdown of Apple Silicon's edge, covering its SoC design, unified memory, ARM architecture, Metal API, and Apple's end-to-end control over…