A person wearing headphones holds a cigar-like object inside an industrial facility with yellow lighting.

Elon’s plans for a chip fab network have evolved significantly over the past few months, as the billionaire now rejects the idea of having a cleanroom within fab operations.

Elon Musk Says He Could Be Spotted With a Cigar In His TeraFab, Ignoring the Need for Cleanrooms

Elon Musk proposed establishing Tesla’s own chip facility network at the last shareholder meeting, claiming it would ultimately become a necessary step to ensure the firm could fulfill demand for custom chips. Tesla also entered into an extensive collaboration with Samsung Foundry as well for AI5 and AI6 chips, and now, while speaking at Moonshots with Peter Diamandis, Elon says that Tesla’s proposed ‘TeraFab’ might produce 2nm chips, but he doesn’t understand the concept of cleanrooms, saying that he would actually smoke a cigar while being inside his TeraFab.

I think they are getting clean rooms wrong in these modern fabs. I am going to make a bet here, that Tesla will have a 2nm fab, and I can eat a cheeseburger and smoke a cigar in the fab.

– Elon Musk

Cleanrooms are an integral part of a chip facility, as they are responsible for controlling contamination particles that could compromise the yield rates of the chips produced. Companies like TSMC essentially spend ‘billions’ on having controlled environments within chip facilities, by integrating equipment such as HEPA/ULPA filtration, and ensuring that all operating employees are under full-body bunny suits. If Elon actually intends to have permission to smoke a cigar in his TeraFab, well, good luck to his yield rates and wafer output.
A person in a cleanroom suit holds a small, unbranded microchip in a manufacturing facility.Image Credits: Intel
Another interesting point mentioned by Elon is the production of 2nm chips in his TeraFab, but considering that Tesla has no experience in manufacturing semiconductors, if Elon actually wants to target 2nm, he would likely be engaged in some sort of partnership with his current foundry partners. Tesla’s CEO has revealed that the demand for 100 billion to 200 billion chips per year is earlier than he anticipated. While the estimates do sound far-fetched, Elon does appear pretty determined, to say the least.

The availability of semiconductors is proving to be a significant constraint for Big Tech, considering that the AI frenzy has generated unprecedented demand, which is why Tesla feels the need to establish its own fab network.