--- type: "Topics" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/39995484.md" description: "🚨 When recruitment starts covering lithography and CMP, $Tesla(TSLA.US) is entering a completely different track.I reviewed the recruitment information for this $Tesla(TSLA.US) Terafab project in Taiwan again. What really made me stop wasn't "making chips," but the fact that the positions covered have already delved into the very core layer of manufacturing.This isn't design, nor system integration.It's directly entering the fundamental stages of wafer fabrication.Nine engineering positions uniformly point to a very clear threshold: over 5 years of experience in advanced processes. This requirement essentially filters for people who have already participated in actual production within top-tier manufacturing systems, not ordinary engineering talent.What's more critical is the process requirement itself.Multiple positions explicitly mention needing experience below 7nm, even directly pointing to 2nm-level technology. This tier is already at the global forefront of the most advanced manufacturing, with extremely limited participants.If it were just about designing automotive chips, such a requirement would be completely unnecessary.Looking further into the job details, the signal becomes even clearer.Lithography, etching, thin-film deposition, chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) — these all belong to the core processes of front-end manufacturing (front-end fab).In other words, this isn't about "how to use chips."It's about understanding "how chips are manufactured."The difficulty of these two things is completely on different dimensions.Another easily overlooked point is advanced packaging.One position explicitly requires familiarity with CoWoS and SoIC, two technologies that are precisely $Taiwan Semiconductor(TSM.US)'s key capabilities in the high-performance computing field.This means $Tesla(TSLA.US) is concerned not just with the wafer itself, but with the complete path from manufacturing to packaging to system integration.I'm more inclined to see this as a forward shift of capability boundaries.When directions like autonomous driving, Dojo, and humanoid robots continuously push up computing power demands, the problem is no longer just "whether there are chips," but "whether we can get the most advanced batch."And advanced processes are, by nature, one of the world's scarcest resources.If we rely entirely on external supply, then product cadence and performance ceilings will ultimately be decided by others.So the step we see now is more like building an understanding of "manufacturing itself," rather than simple vertical integration.Whether they will build their own fab is actually not the most important question at the moment.What's more important is that they are starting to enter a field that car companies wouldn't touch in the past —Directly understanding yield, process limitations, packaging paths, and the real bottlenecks of the entire manufacturing chain.This step is essentially about securing future options.Yet the market's current pricing logic still remains on:How many cars are deliveredHow FSD is progressingBut when recruitment already covers levels like lithography and CMP, the competitive boundaries are actually quietly changing.The question then becomes more direct:When a company originally defined as an automaker starts systematically understanding the core processes of wafer manufacturing —Is this just to solve computing power problems, or is it about preemptively entering a larger industrial position?" datetime: "2026-04-17T11:33:45.000Z" locales: - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/39995484.md) - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/39995484.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/39995484.md) author: "[辰逸](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/16318663.md)" --- # 🚨 When recruitment starts covering lithography an… ### Related Stocks - [TSLA.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSLA.US.md) - [TSM.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSM.US.md) - [TSDD.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSDD.US.md) - [TSLL.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSLL.US.md) - [TSLQ.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSLQ.US.md) - [09366.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/09366.HK.md) - [07766.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/07766.HK.md) - [07366.HK](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/07366.HK.md) - [TSLR.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/TSLR.US.md)