← Notes
Nov 10, 2025
Thesis: from ‘I want to do semiconductors’ to a real chokepoint model
Pick the bottleneck first. Then force everything to orbit it.
thesissemiconductorsresearch
Quick scan
Context Reading spirals when the topic is too wide. Every paper feels relevant and none of them produce a concrete next step.
Breakage Papers ended with “collaborate more,” which felt unrealistic in semiconductors. I needed a mechanism, not vibes.
Takeaway Choose the chokepoint and treat it as the mechanism. Scope becomes a filter, not a constraint.
Why reading feels like quicksand
When you don’t have a mechanism, reading becomes collecting: you keep adding papers because you’re not sure what you’re trying to explain.
You end up with a bibliography, not a model.
The filter that helped
Force the chokepoint: if a paper doesn’t change the mechanism, assumptions, or evaluation, it’s not needed right now.
Next step (practical)
Write a one-page model sketch: variables, constraints, and the minimum output that would make the thesis real.
Then read again only to fill specific holes.
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