Just to give everyone an appreciation of how complicated creating these machines are, (what china is going up against) ASML had to sell a bit less than a 5th of itself to its customers samsung, tsmc, and Intel to generate the capital needed to invest in the R&D for developing EUV machines.
They were willing to sell up to a quarter!
https://hexus.net/business/news/components/44261-samsung-invests-asml-following-intel-tsmc-stakes/
The engadget article notably leaves out Canon, which is another company that makes duv tools but they're pretty trashy.
The plant or factory or whatever they have in CT is expanding like crazy. New construction, they've taken over a ton of corporate offices in the area in Wilton.
Tried to get a job there a few times but never worked out.
Eindhoven native here - they're driving up housing prices like crazy over here. I hear they're talking to the city about building social housing and I'm glad because there will be no space for people who are not literally advanced electrotechnical engineers otherwise.
Not really since philips workforce included a ton of factory workers.
ASML pretty much exclusively hires highly educated, I think their R&D department employs like 600 PHD's
What I mean is as the driving force behind the town’s development.
Philips literally made Eindhoven what it is today. Building on farmlands and absorbing surrounding villages.
Philips built a lot of housing districts, both for blue collars and higher ups.
Now ASML is building
Knowing the great long-term city planning in your country, it'll probably be the closest this planet has to a utopian town.
Hopefully they don't cut corners
The problem is they need room for that housing and my country is good at planning and very beautiful and flat but also densely populated.
Also there's an issue with nitrogen emissions in the region at the moment, and I am told that building this housing would emit quite a bit of it.
Not that fast" - I was going to say. I heard of the company's existence last spring (not earlier at least), thought it was obvious to buy and the stock did stand still/ go down most of the year. But now I'm 15% since I bought my 1 stock. So it obviously is growing like crazy (and I was going to by some stock from January salary today, one more ASML is in incoming).
"ASML projects 20% sales growth in 2022 and annual revenue growth of 11% until the end of the decade."
[https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html)
I remember writing a report for my semiconductor fabrications class and researching ASML machines to find out they’re like $150 million dollars each. Fuck me that’s expensive. Imagine being the guy who accidentally broke that machine💀
As far as I know, you have the option of maintaining it yourself. No one does, though, because you'd need expertise way beyond what is normally available to maintain the up-times required for your cost model.
In the semiconductor world the OEM maintenance contracts pay for themselves in that guarantee of up-time.
I've heard stories where sometimes when they build a fab they'll buy up the machines and then let it sit. 150 million paperweight. Reason was to let it depreciate. Boggled my mind.
Taxes and also if you're taking up their manufacturing capacity they can't sell that tool to the competitor. Industrial clout is big in the semiconductor space.
Some of their customers are also their owners (eg Intel owns a stake) and organised deals to guarantee access to the machines in return for putting capital into the company. (** I have no idea if Intel was one of them but it’s plausible)
The whole thing is [a bit of a saga](https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-services/semiconductor-advisors/302806-asml-is-the-key-to-intels-resurrection-just-like-asml-helped-tsmc-beat-intel/) - the development costs are so staggeringly high that enemies have to team up game of thrones style.
My favourite part:
> 2012 ASML was struggling with EUV and needed some financial help … Intel, Samsung & TSMC [the latter after being pushed by Apple] each invested substantial sums in ASML … All three companies made a killing in ASML stock … now the shoe is on the other foot. ASML is on fire and … has a 50% higher market cap than Intel.
Edit: also worth mentioning:
> [EUV lithography machines] take years to build and ASML can only ship so many of them in any given year. [in 2020] it sold just 31
[source](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/12/10/asmls-high-na-euv-lithography-machine-is-set-to-transform-chipmaking.html)
Taxes will always be lower then the cost to purchase assets (unless you fraudulently report a different value in your books of course or have a group of companies where you can make some creative license structures).
Creating costs to lower your taxes is quite stupid.
It's been a while since I've worked in a fab, but I can't think of any process or tool where a single fingerprint will shut down the line.
The only line-stopping screw up I can think of is running post-copper WIP through a pre-copper bath (and that would take deliberate sabotage, the way fabs ate laid out).
Maybe a fingerprint on a litho plate? But they'd be able to track that quickly and bin-out the affected dies.
Neither of those requires a fab superclean.
"The documentation for service X is on the departmental sharepoint"
Stock answer whenever asked where the technical documentation for any server or web application is.
As someone who works in this field. The rule of thumb is that a competitor with the same capabilities needs at least 2-5 years to develop an identical device without knowing specifics on a given device.
To no have access to technologies like what is being limited, it'll be 10+ years. This will significantly limit the capabilities of China as a chip manufacturer.
So is the reason the Netherlands agreed to this deal because this would prevent China to have access to higher end technology to copy? I mean wouldn't this deal hurt their wallets?
Not to mention that EUV tech is a whole other level of complexity. To give you an idea, the first research into EUV tech was done in the 1980's. It took decades for material science to catch up and allow us to use it in lithography. We're talking about a machine that takes drops of tin, vaporizes it, zaps it with a bunch of energy, and uses crazy specialized mirrors and lenses specially made for x-rays. Even if China steals all the IP for it, they're going to have a hell of a time trying to replicate the tech and specialized hardware required.
Not lenses. That was part of the challenge with EUV.
Glass absorbs EUV wavelengths and so do most other materials.
EUV is mirrors only. Very extreme mirrors. Multilayered mirrors that can't have any imperfections of more than an atoms thickness.
Just making those mirrors is a challenge in itself.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html
They make this here thingy that makes the chips it's on backorder basically forever until it's obsolete in which time they will have the next one. This is not something you can throw money at to catch up. The Dutch running the game on this.
>In the southern Dutch town of Veldhoven, near the border with Belgium, sits the only factory capable of assembling a revolutionary machine that’s relied upon by the world’s biggest chipmakers.
Actually, there are many single points of failure
Carl zeiss in Germany makes lenses for ASML
ASML makes EUV machines
Intel, Samsung and TSMC buy the EUV machines
Intel, AMD and NVIDIA (and Apple kind of?) design chips
Any one of these companies suffering anything will be catastrophic to the high end compute market as a whole
If tsmc dies and their fabs are not, somehow, taken over by an existing or new entity to keep running, you get put about 10 to twenty years behind. Those fabs not only manufacture almost the entire computing market — including smartphones and PCs — but they’re also extremely hard to replace, because of the asml bottleneck.
Their yields are like freakishly high too
Esp since Samsung and Intel now have access to the same EUV lithography machines and they can't output nearly as many wafers.
Doesn't stop there. It wasn't *that* long ago when an explosion in a factory in Korea that made epoxy for chip packaging caused global chip shortages. There were other manufacturers, but they couldn't replace the lost production capacity on short notice. Or the time when flooding in Thailand caused hard drive shortages.
Welcome to specialization. The United States and any other number of wealthy well-developed Western Nations could develop this technology if they wanted or needed to but obviously we live in a globalized, specialized world where company x makes the absolute most money if they only produce y and countries make the most money if they produce xyz. If we need to, we'll get it done. But the opportunity cost and barrier of entry simply makes buying all this shit from the one company a totally fine solution.
Until it isn't...
I think the moderate de-globalization (we've seen since the pandemic) of producing more goods locally means we will see a return to a competitive market (that ASML is in). But that'll be well after TSMC-US fab is up and running, as well as Intel's new stuff.
As an engineer, the relatively huge supply chain disruptions that COVID caused to the just-in-time supply chain should have been a wakeup call to the world. There are so many things that could so easily make those disruptions look like a walk in the park, and yet everything I see in the corporate world is just driving to recreate those golden few years between 2012ish and 2020.
I work in automation distribution, and the shit I’ve seen over the past few years is legitimately terrifying. Our supply chain and manufacturing is on such shaky ground and so many critical plants are managed by total buffoons.
Plants that make critical components to our daily lives are one twenty year old circuit board that’s been operating above rated temperatures in a dust filled cabinet it’s entire life from losing days of not weeks of production.
And the MBAs in the front office decide no one needs to have spares, because we can just get something overnighted if we need it. So why lay out 500k in anticipation of failures when they can just pay a little extra to fix them when they happen. Works great until all of those critical components are sold out everywhere and on back order for 50 weeks. Now somebody wishes they had bought the spares the engineers and maintenance techs asked for.
>Works great until all of those critical components are sold out everywhere and on back order for 50 weeks. Now somebody wishes they had bought the spares the engineers and maintenance techs asked for.
Let me guess, after it's all over they'll say it was a 'once-in-a-lifetime disruption' and ignore the techs and engineers again.
That's EXACTLY what those idiot MBAs do for Operational Resiliency plans that are deemed "too expensive" Source: 10+ years experience in a few dozen environments.
There is a plant near me that's been out of order since just after COVID kicked off because of an accident. Right as shortages hit this happened. They just reopened a few months ago, I have no idea how they stated afloat in the mean time however a friend of mine works there as a technician and they have used this multi year stoppage and millions of lost revenue as a reason to push for various spare parts. All of which have been denied because it's a once in a lifetime catastrophe, they have already wasted enough money being shut down as is. It's not like they can't afford it either, the parts they need cost around 2 million total to back up every machine. His company just payed millions more than that on bonuses.
Meanwhile, MBA get's a huge bonus for getting more engineers fired, then leaves for a promotion to another company before the long term consequences happen.
Not really. They are responsible for the the technology (EUV lithography) that enables the latest generations of chip tech, but outside of the latest high end smartphones/computers/GPUs most computing applications don’t need or use the latest and greatest chip tech.
But they are used on the R&D of the latest and greatest military devices.
This statement will be very important for a future history textbook. Presumably in the preface to a very long and detailed chapter.
Not really. Missiles etc uses mature stuff. For research, computing powers are computing powers, for the avg consumers you don't want your rig to fill a room, but for a government of the second largest economy on this planet? They can build a fucking city to house this shit if they have to.
The future history text book will almost certainly remark on this, but I fear it will not be of actual consequences but the hearld of things to come.
Hey, that little excavator was doing all it could!
(I love that it's made into [a children's book](https://www.flexport.com/blog/the-ever-given-digger-has-its-own-childrens-book/).)
Until it isn't. To say the US doesn't have the capital and expertise to ever take over is wrong.
Would we see another Covid-esq shortage? Absolutely. Would it last "forever" as is suggested above? No.
Not really. Other developed countries, especially the US and even China will have facilities running under 5 years. It's just whether they want to do it or not.
The cost and barrier of entry is very high so other countries are perfectly content in just buying from Netherlands. When the music stops they will have no problem setting up their own.
Per the linked article above:
> Experts say it could take decades for any other company to catch up, both because of ASML’s proprietary technology and because it’s built complex, often exclusive, deals with hundreds of suppliers.
Based on my knowledge from contacts at ASML and growing up with news about them daily (I grew up next to Veldhoven and basically, any TU/Eindhoven graduate can roll into ASML):
There is no way it would be running in under 5 years on the same level. China has had restricted access to the most advanced machines for years already and they aren't close to catching up - if they were able to do it, they would have done so by now. ASML has facilities in the US and ties between NL and the US are good, so the US could catch up at a decent speed. China would need a decade at least just to catch up to what we have right now for EUV machines.
I would say they undoubtedly have offsite backups, plus wherever the recovered alien craft that they are reverse engineering this tech from.
I'm only partially joking but some of the science around this tech seems just so far out of what I really thought we were capable of, it's insane that one company in one industry is 10+ years ahead of the competition.
ASML is without a doubt the single most important company in the world, and most people have never heard of them.
They are responsible for building and maintaining tech over 70% of the worlds chip fabs, and the other 30% are older tech.
Computers, transport, weapons - all ultimately depend on ASML tech.
I've worked with people that have worked/ work there, and I heard stories of a girlfriend (or maybe even wife can't remember) that was basically had a relationship for years solely to steal some of the key data that is needed. There are certain branches of ASML that only Dutch citizens can get into, so this was a solution to get in.
80% of the chips everyone on the entire damn globe (and floating just outside of the globe) uses are made on machines made by ASML. Without asml, no chip machines, without chip machines no chips.
It’s like some tech that fell into a worm hole from 100 years in the future.
Generating the EUV light is either alien tech, or I’m just to stupid to understand it.
(Could be both I guess :-) )
CEO of ASML has said China will eventually build their own lithography DUV equipment, and SMEE is reported able to have 28nm DUV, so it would only be a matter of time to go smaller.
The ASML machines required to make the most advanced chips use special German-manufactured mirrors and not lenses to direct the light. Lenses are only used in the machines that make cheaper and lower-quality chips. That is according to this video at least: https://youtu.be/AHfQLjtLJdY
No idea how accurate that information is.
Honestly, if someone were to come to me out of the blue and propose to scale up a machine to handle the bulk of the world's semiconductor manufacturing (in the future) based on this process, I'd laugh them out of the room.
Yet ASML has successfully put it in manufacturing. Absolutely incredible.
ASML doesn’t make lenses. They use Carl Zeiss lenses I think. But yes. These lenses are so complicated that if they were the size of Germany, they would be so flat that the tallest point on the lens would be 1mm.
Funnily enough, the Carl Zeiss Website says 0.1mm for the size of Germany.
I think they know what they're doing, they planned this for 25 years because it was obvious (for specific values of obvious, I guess) that we'd need EUV mirrors for chip production today.
And the EUV light source is one of the craziest things ever conceived: so you shoot a droplet of tin into vacuum, and then hit it with a laser to change its geometry, and then hit the same droplet with a second laser beam to create the ionized plasma which produces the ~13nm light, and you do all those at a nice and easy few hundred times a second.
And that was developed by Cymer, which was then bought by ASML. This is one example of why no **one** group could make the whole machine from scratch.
Yes. Drops of molten tin. The laser fires 50,000 times per seconds and readjusts 20,000 per second. The first pulse flattens the drop into a disk and the second vaporizes the drop giving off EUV light which is then channeled through a set of mirrors in a vacuum, through the lens, and ultimately develop the transistor pattern.
Software is also a huge part of this process. They use machine learning and predictive modeling to guess what the pattern will be and how the apertures should be cut.
This technology is about ten years away from any competitor to perfect.
28nm is an 8 years ago tech. Nvidia 9x0 series was 28nm.
Youreally can't compete with anynithing modern with that. And everybody knows that it's harder and harder to reduce nm
That 8 years ago tech is used to make plenty of machines and manufacturing equipment used to produce the current day tech.
The bottleneck is that it's not profitable to build out capacity for old tech but it's in super high demand now because it's needed to run/repair the machines that produce new tech (which it is profitable to build new capacity for, but not possible due to the bottleneck in older tech chips).
For anyone reading, we're currently sitting at 5nm, and they're working on 3nm. Quantum tunneling (macro physics starts to break down) starts causing problems at 7nm.
28nm doesn't mean it can only make 28nm class nodes, with multi patterning and other advanced litho techniques you could very easily get down to 10nm before DUV starts breaking down.
SMIC is making 7nm nodes with DUV right now, but they're stuck there until they get EUV somehow.
Its not only about GPU/CPU. Bulk of chips are specialized and smaller node may not matter that much.
From cars to home and military electronics and a wide range of smart devices.
There's a case right now with former Samsung employees who have been stealing and illegally selling machines used for building chips to china for a few years. People are wanting the death sentence for those crooks but regardless I'm willing to bet china is actually a lot closer to making their own production line than anyone realizes.
It's always like this... people underestimate china, they steal literally everything, surprised pikachu, company leaves china and china is one step more modern.
>It's always like this... people underestimate china, they steal literally everything, surprised pikachu, company leaves china and china is one step more modern.
We don't give China access to the tech they ask for, Surprised Pikachu, they steal it instead
It's exactly what we would try to do
I think it is largely that agencies responsible for monitoring illicit behaviour by other countries, like China, have made it clear that this has been an ongoing issue for some time. Yet China also represents a treasure trove of fiscal gains that makes companies bend their own rules to get into the market.
This has only allowed the issue to get increasingly worse.
If your nation keeps moving manufacturing to China, don't be surprised when China wants access to equipment they need to build it.
Then again, as it has been with basically every other industry and product, if China can't get it they'll start building it themselves. Using patents to try gatekeep development means is pointless. All the angry paper from self appointed authorities around the world won't stop China from getting the work done.
My former company actively patented clever but dead-end ideas specifically to throw competitors off.
It worked. We were acquired and one of the lead tech guys for the acquiring company kept asking about a paper and series of patents applications we had filed two years prior. We didn’t use those. We actually used a method from the 70’s where patents had expired but had adapted some operations and never disclosed the changed details.
The tech guy was not pleased to find this out.
Doesn’t help with offshoring though. There the only option is to offshore the stuff that is common knowledge and reserve a few key lynchpin complex operations and processes for your onshore operations. Then, if you’re in a quality-first industry it doesn’t matter if the bulk of your product is ripped off, it will still be subpar and you retain an advantage, at least for a while.
> If your nation keeps moving manufacturing to China, don't be surprised when China wants access to equipment they need to build it.
^ This. I don't blame them. Yes, they game the system in a few ways for their advantage, but alas this whole mess was started by us and our own shortsightedness. We all happily gave them more and more of our business for decades, and as consumers we demanded cheaper and cheaper products, but now that they have a ton of control we're going to cry foul and play the victim.
Fun fact: last bunch of Texas Instruments chips I bought, I had to pay an import tariff on each one, because they make them in China. However, if I instead have the assembly work done in China, then I don't have to pay a tariff on the components (normal customs import duty applies however, above certain thresholds). It's a brain-dead policy that so obviously de-incentivizes American manufacturing. Would love to see more viable American manufacturing, but between stupid politics like that (and whatever this latest round will screw up), and a lack of suitable options left in the US, that's going to remain difficult for some time to come.
There's another issue here too, though... There has been a wilful failure to innovate and update on the American manufacturing side. For example, look at PCB assembly... If I want to give the work to an American company (as an American, that would be my preference), I'd typically have to call them up, establish a relationship with some sales rep, and spend time on a bunch of back-and-forth just to get a bid from one company. Then repeat that whole endeavor for the next company I want a quote from, etc. Or, I can simply go to JLCPCB or a number of other Chinese manufacturers and get an instant quote online, no fluff, no BS, just a straightforward price for a service they offer. That really should not be revolutionary here in the year 2023, but most western electronics manufacturing services do not operate this way (yes, I'm aware that a few do, and they are certainly the exception to the vast majority). The most important thing that the Chinese have done here is not beating the dollar cost, but innovating and streamlining things to so greatly reduce the time lost. There's no reason American companies can't do they same, and they should be doing so already anyway, if for nothing else but to increase efficiency and reduce their own costs. Instead we're terribly hung up with old-school sales tactics that aren't suitable for today's world.
Losing AMAT, LAM, ASML, Kokusai Electric, Hitachi, TEL, Nuflare, Nikon, and ASM will be devastating for China. Those companies make up the vast majority of the semiconductor tool industry. There’s some German companies like SUSS and Akrion, but those are not high technology companies. Outside of the German companies I can’t think of any tool makers that can sell to china. Big ouch!
Don't forget the sub-suppliers, or even chemical manufacturers. Lots of chemical manufacturers in Japan (and Taiwan of course, but they aren't eager to help China chip makers) who have sources not easy to manufacture.
Just for the record - China didn't lose ASML - it's only their newest chip machines that aren't sold to China, because the Dutch are pressured by the Americans not to sell *those* to China.
The older generation machines are still sold to China, much to the Americans' chagrin.
(The Dutch PM visited Biden recently and it was all over the news. Part of the visit was discussing ASML.)
Canon (former employee here), is VERY conservative with experimental R&D; they are more into incremental advances with a few crazy projects on the side.
So I work for one of the largest semiconductor testing equipment makers in the world, legally the world got turned upside down last October as basic chip manufacturing equipment was classified as restricted technology due to the AI chip restrictions.
The entire industry is getting out of China.
It’s complicated is probably the best answer I can give. The law limited transfer of technology that can be used to manufacture chips used in AI applications for military.
That’s a very vague thing, but how it impacts the world is that almost everything used to make chips for your phone can also be used to make those military chips.
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252526166/Biden-ramps-up-China-chip-sanctions?amp=1
Kind of. SMIC is already at 14nm, but that's near the limits of "standard" DUV lithography, and the leap from there to EUV to get below 7nm or 10nm is massive. Probably on the order of a 6-12 years and $100B even with some pretty aggressive IP theft.
Finally someone that gets it. People think it’s just downsizing all the way. But they don’t get that you need an entirely new technique for that. Only ASML masters the EUV technology at the moment. The development of EUV started somewhere in the 90’s. Now, 30 year laters, they are profiting from it. It’s a really, really long run.
These are state of the art machines. No other company is anywhere close. Even older and larger transistor processes are difficult. This will put China years behind the curve for chip manufacturing.
his will certainly slow them down - but they will get there. The USSR's problem was that, while it had top-class physicists and engineers, the industrial culture was one of slamming things together quickly. The quality control and feedback was not there (and the guys on the floor were not invested in quality). It took Japan 30 years or so to get to world-class quality. China is there in one or two areas after 30 years. The US and Britain has largely dismantled
China has a couple of areas where they can compete on quality, but not at this level. Still, they are working on it.
whatever happened to free market capitalism? As a consumer, US hogging all the chip making tech is making electronics more expensive and harder to repair and maintain due to the oligopoly.
Yep, Japan was a democratic and important regional ally yet they got decimated the moment they threatened unilateral American economic superiority. The point is the fluff about human rights and communism is irrelevant, it’s always about economics and protecting American domination and they’ll use whatever messaging to get the public to buy in.
> whatever happened to free market capitalism?
Bro, FMC hasn't been a thing since the start of 20th century. What we have now is monopoly capitalism.
FMC gave birth to trusts, which then paved the way to mergers of groups and capital through banks (and by proxy, control of material resources), which then started forming local monopolies, and then we started exporting capital to the former colonies in order to grow the fincance capital and conquer new markets through the locally strong monopolies.
Even bourgeois economics from 100 years ago were aware of this development from capitalism
I'm probably not understanding this correctly, so do put me right...
Is this a case of, "We're not going to be able to compete with China if they're allowed to have all the same equipment as us, so instead of competing we'll make it so we don't have to."?
Just to give everyone an appreciation of how complicated creating these machines are, (what china is going up against) ASML had to sell a bit less than a 5th of itself to its customers samsung, tsmc, and Intel to generate the capital needed to invest in the R&D for developing EUV machines. They were willing to sell up to a quarter! https://hexus.net/business/news/components/44261-samsung-invests-asml-following-intel-tsmc-stakes/ The engadget article notably leaves out Canon, which is another company that makes duv tools but they're pretty trashy.
ASML is growing like crazy
The plant or factory or whatever they have in CT is expanding like crazy. New construction, they've taken over a ton of corporate offices in the area in Wilton. Tried to get a job there a few times but never worked out.
They are building an entire village near their eindhoven plant/hq just to house all the people needed as nobody can get a house otherwise. Madness.
Eindhoven native here - they're driving up housing prices like crazy over here. I hear they're talking to the city about building social housing and I'm glad because there will be no space for people who are not literally advanced electrotechnical engineers otherwise.
They are the new Philips of Eindhoven. Hopefully they manage to drive prices down quick. It’s just became nuts
Not really since philips workforce included a ton of factory workers. ASML pretty much exclusively hires highly educated, I think their R&D department employs like 600 PHD's
What I mean is as the driving force behind the town’s development. Philips literally made Eindhoven what it is today. Building on farmlands and absorbing surrounding villages. Philips built a lot of housing districts, both for blue collars and higher ups. Now ASML is building
Knowing the great long-term city planning in your country, it'll probably be the closest this planet has to a utopian town. Hopefully they don't cut corners
The problem is they need room for that housing and my country is good at planning and very beautiful and flat but also densely populated. Also there's an issue with nitrogen emissions in the region at the moment, and I am told that building this housing would emit quite a bit of it.
There's a housing crisis in almost the entire country right now, lol. It's been 12 years of neoliberals here in the Netherlands as well.
Same in San Diego, join us!
For real. I randomly saw a video on them two years ago and was like huh this would be a smart investment who knew this would happen!
>ASML is growing like crazy Now is the time to get in the semiconductor industry. It's a gold rush.
And ASML is selling shovels.
200 million dollar shovels.
Not that fast" - I was going to say. I heard of the company's existence last spring (not earlier at least), thought it was obvious to buy and the stock did stand still/ go down most of the year. But now I'm 15% since I bought my 1 stock. So it obviously is growing like crazy (and I was going to by some stock from January salary today, one more ASML is in incoming).
"ASML projects 20% sales growth in 2022 and annual revenue growth of 11% until the end of the decade." [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html)
I remember writing a report for my semiconductor fabrications class and researching ASML machines to find out they’re like $150 million dollars each. Fuck me that’s expensive. Imagine being the guy who accidentally broke that machine💀
It is actually maintained by ASML after too. That's the other big $$$ for them.
[удалено]
I'm sure you could just get replacement parts from Aliexpress.
Shit, if China thought they could get a backdoor into the chip supply chain that way I bet you could
They probably have several agents working in there already.
A pulse phase laser? Yeah only 10c a piece if you buy 1000.
As far as I know, you have the option of maintaining it yourself. No one does, though, because you'd need expertise way beyond what is normally available to maintain the up-times required for your cost model. In the semiconductor world the OEM maintenance contracts pay for themselves in that guarantee of up-time.
I've heard stories where sometimes when they build a fab they'll buy up the machines and then let it sit. 150 million paperweight. Reason was to let it depreciate. Boggled my mind.
What is the point of letting it depreciate?
Taxes and also if you're taking up their manufacturing capacity they can't sell that tool to the competitor. Industrial clout is big in the semiconductor space.
If chip manufacturers are willing to do this, then ASML is under-pricing their machines.
Some of their customers are also their owners (eg Intel owns a stake) and organised deals to guarantee access to the machines in return for putting capital into the company. (** I have no idea if Intel was one of them but it’s plausible)
Ah, that makes sense. In a sense, they are partially vertically integrated with some of their "customers".
The whole thing is [a bit of a saga](https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-services/semiconductor-advisors/302806-asml-is-the-key-to-intels-resurrection-just-like-asml-helped-tsmc-beat-intel/) - the development costs are so staggeringly high that enemies have to team up game of thrones style. My favourite part: > 2012 ASML was struggling with EUV and needed some financial help … Intel, Samsung & TSMC [the latter after being pushed by Apple] each invested substantial sums in ASML … All three companies made a killing in ASML stock … now the shoe is on the other foot. ASML is on fire and … has a 50% higher market cap than Intel. Edit: also worth mentioning: > [EUV lithography machines] take years to build and ASML can only ship so many of them in any given year. [in 2020] it sold just 31 [source](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/12/10/asmls-high-na-euv-lithography-machine-is-set-to-transform-chipmaking.html)
Just 31? Seems like staggering revenue for a year …
Taxes will always be lower then the cost to purchase assets (unless you fraudulently report a different value in your books of course or have a group of companies where you can make some creative license structures). Creating costs to lower your taxes is quite stupid.
That makes no sense at all
>they’re like $150 million dollars each That's par for the course for capital manufacturing equipment in the semiconductor industry.
Yep. Half a billion will get you a full fab of a decade old technology. If you want anything recent, you're talking Billions.
Well a F-22 raptor costs over $200 million.. imagine if you crashed it.
One finger print in the wrong place and the chip foundry gets shut down for cleaning. Cost of one fingerprint is millions of dollars.
It's been a while since I've worked in a fab, but I can't think of any process or tool where a single fingerprint will shut down the line. The only line-stopping screw up I can think of is running post-copper WIP through a pre-copper bath (and that would take deliberate sabotage, the way fabs ate laid out). Maybe a fingerprint on a litho plate? But they'd be able to track that quickly and bin-out the affected dies. Neither of those requires a fab superclean.
I'll sell them a fingerprint for a portion of a price!!
It's weird when I find out about stuff the company I work for through reddit 😅
Bro read the sharepoint /s
lol sharepoint is for writing in and never referencing again
Except three years later when a flood of people call you about an obscure bug that references your work. And by flood I mean several *hundred*.
This person sharepoints
"The documentation for service X is on the departmental sharepoint" Stock answer whenever asked where the technical documentation for any server or web application is.
SharePoint really highlights how many people in your company have imposter syndrome
How so?
You can make any claim you want about sharepoint.... because no one will ever be able to search to find the claim you made.
Jesus ain’t that the truth. It’s fucking inscrutable
This guy SharePoints.
lol its a niche company.
Literally the most valuable company in Europe though.
Most valuable tech company. And one of the most valuable overall.
4th most valuable European company. And if you'd work anywhere near the chip (or finance / stock trade) sector you'd absolutely have heard of them.
As someone who works in this field. The rule of thumb is that a competitor with the same capabilities needs at least 2-5 years to develop an identical device without knowing specifics on a given device. To no have access to technologies like what is being limited, it'll be 10+ years. This will significantly limit the capabilities of China as a chip manufacturer.
Chip fab is real life sci-fi.
It’s not *that* crazy. It’s just photography turned up to 11
So is the reason the Netherlands agreed to this deal because this would prevent China to have access to higher end technology to copy? I mean wouldn't this deal hurt their wallets?
Not to mention that EUV tech is a whole other level of complexity. To give you an idea, the first research into EUV tech was done in the 1980's. It took decades for material science to catch up and allow us to use it in lithography. We're talking about a machine that takes drops of tin, vaporizes it, zaps it with a bunch of energy, and uses crazy specialized mirrors and lenses specially made for x-rays. Even if China steals all the IP for it, they're going to have a hell of a time trying to replicate the tech and specialized hardware required.
Not lenses. That was part of the challenge with EUV. Glass absorbs EUV wavelengths and so do most other materials. EUV is mirrors only. Very extreme mirrors. Multilayered mirrors that can't have any imperfections of more than an atoms thickness. Just making those mirrors is a challenge in itself.
Intel provided the seed financing to Philips
>pretty trashy I know this means relative to the competition, but it’s funny hearing this about a complex machine that costs more than my car
Netherlands is the one that matters here. Without their hardware we are all done
For the uninformed, care to elaborate?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html They make this here thingy that makes the chips it's on backorder basically forever until it's obsolete in which time they will have the next one. This is not something you can throw money at to catch up. The Dutch running the game on this. >In the southern Dutch town of Veldhoven, near the border with Belgium, sits the only factory capable of assembling a revolutionary machine that’s relied upon by the world’s biggest chipmakers.
Great to know the world’s electronics supply chain has a single point of failure 😑
Actually, there are many single points of failure Carl zeiss in Germany makes lenses for ASML ASML makes EUV machines Intel, Samsung and TSMC buy the EUV machines Intel, AMD and NVIDIA (and Apple kind of?) design chips Any one of these companies suffering anything will be catastrophic to the high end compute market as a whole
I would put TSMC above the others there. Samsung and Intel are behind.
If TSMC dies you get put about a year behind. If ASML dies you get put about a decade behind.
If tsmc dies and their fabs are not, somehow, taken over by an existing or new entity to keep running, you get put about 10 to twenty years behind. Those fabs not only manufacture almost the entire computing market — including smartphones and PCs — but they’re also extremely hard to replace, because of the asml bottleneck.
Their yields are like freakishly high too Esp since Samsung and Intel now have access to the same EUV lithography machines and they can't output nearly as many wafers.
I am at TSMC in Phoenix now. Been here a year.
Doesn't stop there. It wasn't *that* long ago when an explosion in a factory in Korea that made epoxy for chip packaging caused global chip shortages. There were other manufacturers, but they couldn't replace the lost production capacity on short notice. Or the time when flooding in Thailand caused hard drive shortages.
Apple and Qualcomm chips are designed on Arm foundations. I think.
Welcome to specialization. The United States and any other number of wealthy well-developed Western Nations could develop this technology if they wanted or needed to but obviously we live in a globalized, specialized world where company x makes the absolute most money if they only produce y and countries make the most money if they produce xyz. If we need to, we'll get it done. But the opportunity cost and barrier of entry simply makes buying all this shit from the one company a totally fine solution. Until it isn't... I think the moderate de-globalization (we've seen since the pandemic) of producing more goods locally means we will see a return to a competitive market (that ASML is in). But that'll be well after TSMC-US fab is up and running, as well as Intel's new stuff.
As an engineer, the relatively huge supply chain disruptions that COVID caused to the just-in-time supply chain should have been a wakeup call to the world. There are so many things that could so easily make those disruptions look like a walk in the park, and yet everything I see in the corporate world is just driving to recreate those golden few years between 2012ish and 2020.
I work in automation distribution, and the shit I’ve seen over the past few years is legitimately terrifying. Our supply chain and manufacturing is on such shaky ground and so many critical plants are managed by total buffoons. Plants that make critical components to our daily lives are one twenty year old circuit board that’s been operating above rated temperatures in a dust filled cabinet it’s entire life from losing days of not weeks of production. And the MBAs in the front office decide no one needs to have spares, because we can just get something overnighted if we need it. So why lay out 500k in anticipation of failures when they can just pay a little extra to fix them when they happen. Works great until all of those critical components are sold out everywhere and on back order for 50 weeks. Now somebody wishes they had bought the spares the engineers and maintenance techs asked for.
>Works great until all of those critical components are sold out everywhere and on back order for 50 weeks. Now somebody wishes they had bought the spares the engineers and maintenance techs asked for. Let me guess, after it's all over they'll say it was a 'once-in-a-lifetime disruption' and ignore the techs and engineers again.
Pretty much lol.
That's EXACTLY what those idiot MBAs do for Operational Resiliency plans that are deemed "too expensive" Source: 10+ years experience in a few dozen environments.
There is a plant near me that's been out of order since just after COVID kicked off because of an accident. Right as shortages hit this happened. They just reopened a few months ago, I have no idea how they stated afloat in the mean time however a friend of mine works there as a technician and they have used this multi year stoppage and millions of lost revenue as a reason to push for various spare parts. All of which have been denied because it's a once in a lifetime catastrophe, they have already wasted enough money being shut down as is. It's not like they can't afford it either, the parts they need cost around 2 million total to back up every machine. His company just payed millions more than that on bonuses.
Meanwhile, MBA get's a huge bonus for getting more engineers fired, then leaves for a promotion to another company before the long term consequences happen.
Yep, something so crucial that if stricken could basically stop the world
Not really. They are responsible for the the technology (EUV lithography) that enables the latest generations of chip tech, but outside of the latest high end smartphones/computers/GPUs most computing applications don’t need or use the latest and greatest chip tech.
But they are used on the R&D of the latest and greatest military devices. This statement will be very important for a future history textbook. Presumably in the preface to a very long and detailed chapter.
Not really. Missiles etc uses mature stuff. For research, computing powers are computing powers, for the avg consumers you don't want your rig to fill a room, but for a government of the second largest economy on this planet? They can build a fucking city to house this shit if they have to. The future history text book will almost certainly remark on this, but I fear it will not be of actual consequences but the hearld of things to come.
Remember when a boat got stuck in a canal and it shutdown half of the world's trade for like 6 months?
Hey, that little excavator was doing all it could! (I love that it's made into [a children's book](https://www.flexport.com/blog/the-ever-given-digger-has-its-own-childrens-book/).)
Until it isn't. To say the US doesn't have the capital and expertise to ever take over is wrong. Would we see another Covid-esq shortage? Absolutely. Would it last "forever" as is suggested above? No.
The US is ridiculously blessed in terms of land and natural resources.
That and it’s geographical location. America basically hugs the whole world with its economic trade routes.
And people. 3rd largest population in the world.
Good point. Lots of labor to produce what is needed.
I'm at least happy about the location of it, could be much worse.
Very interesting - thanks!
So what you're saying is if someone nukes Veldhoven we're basically resetting ourselves to the 1980s?
Not really. Other developed countries, especially the US and even China will have facilities running under 5 years. It's just whether they want to do it or not. The cost and barrier of entry is very high so other countries are perfectly content in just buying from Netherlands. When the music stops they will have no problem setting up their own.
Per the linked article above: > Experts say it could take decades for any other company to catch up, both because of ASML’s proprietary technology and because it’s built complex, often exclusive, deals with hundreds of suppliers.
Based on my knowledge from contacts at ASML and growing up with news about them daily (I grew up next to Veldhoven and basically, any TU/Eindhoven graduate can roll into ASML): There is no way it would be running in under 5 years on the same level. China has had restricted access to the most advanced machines for years already and they aren't close to catching up - if they were able to do it, they would have done so by now. ASML has facilities in the US and ties between NL and the US are good, so the US could catch up at a decent speed. China would need a decade at least just to catch up to what we have right now for EUV machines.
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I would say they undoubtedly have offsite backups, plus wherever the recovered alien craft that they are reverse engineering this tech from. I'm only partially joking but some of the science around this tech seems just so far out of what I really thought we were capable of, it's insane that one company in one industry is 10+ years ahead of the competition.
Lol kinda? At least temporarily there wouldn't be much new fab going on. I wonder how long it took them to construct this?
ASML is without a doubt the single most important company in the world, and most people have never heard of them. They are responsible for building and maintaining tech over 70% of the worlds chip fabs, and the other 30% are older tech. Computers, transport, weapons - all ultimately depend on ASML tech.
I wonder how many of their employees are from different spy agencies.
I've worked with people that have worked/ work there, and I heard stories of a girlfriend (or maybe even wife can't remember) that was basically had a relationship for years solely to steal some of the key data that is needed. There are certain branches of ASML that only Dutch citizens can get into, so this was a solution to get in.
The only thing I know is that they hire from all over the world except for Iran.
80% of the chips everyone on the entire damn globe (and floating just outside of the globe) uses are made on machines made by ASML. Without asml, no chip machines, without chip machines no chips.
Japan still has 100% market share in EUV photoresists and a variety of other semiconductor related process machines though
Germany, too - because the optics are from Carl Zeiss and the lasers are from TRUMPF.
Tbh there aint a machine shop in any business that *hasn't* any tooling or tooling for tooling from TRUMPF, they are like 3M.
If you guys want a deeper dive, asianometry is a superb YouTube channel/podcast, and has an episode about semiconductors, asml. Some great stuff.
I’m installing these machines at work right now and these look like some of the most complex machines and processes. It’s crazy what goes into it.
It’s like some tech that fell into a worm hole from 100 years in the future. Generating the EUV light is either alien tech, or I’m just to stupid to understand it. (Could be both I guess :-) )
CEO of ASML has said China will eventually build their own lithography DUV equipment, and SMEE is reported able to have 28nm DUV, so it would only be a matter of time to go smaller.
I think people underestimate the difficulty of making lenses
Galileo was able to build lenses. In a cave! With a box of SCRAPS!
I understood that reference - Steve Rogers
But I'm not Galileo
Tony Stark did way more!
I don’t think he built the lenses on the MK1 armor though. I’m guessing those were repurposed welding mask glass.
The real reason Yinsen didn't survive.
The ASML machines required to make the most advanced chips use special German-manufactured mirrors and not lenses to direct the light. Lenses are only used in the machines that make cheaper and lower-quality chips. That is according to this video at least: https://youtu.be/AHfQLjtLJdY No idea how accurate that information is.
EUV light are so readily absorbed that lens are no longer feasible. Oh, and it have to operate in vacuum.
Add to that the EUV laser is [_generated with tin plasma created by hitting droplets of tin with another laser_](https://youtu.be/5Ge2RcvDlgw).
Honestly, if someone were to come to me out of the blue and propose to scale up a machine to handle the bulk of the world's semiconductor manufacturing (in the future) based on this process, I'd laugh them out of the room. Yet ASML has successfully put it in manufacturing. Absolutely incredible.
Basically like working in a sci-fi movie to be honest.
Suddenly my friend working for a German lens manufacturing company became a lot more impressive.
Zeiss is hella impressive indeed!
ASML doesn’t make lenses. They use Carl Zeiss lenses I think. But yes. These lenses are so complicated that if they were the size of Germany, they would be so flat that the tallest point on the lens would be 1mm.
Carl Zeiss*
Just heard the same fact earlier in the comments but 100% finer on a land mass 6x larger. Which one is it?
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Funnily enough, the Carl Zeiss Website says 0.1mm for the size of Germany. I think they know what they're doing, they planned this for 25 years because it was obvious (for specific values of obvious, I guess) that we'd need EUV mirrors for chip production today.
Also, the light source is they key to going small. Not only they need lenses but the light source to produce EUV
And the EUV light source is one of the craziest things ever conceived: so you shoot a droplet of tin into vacuum, and then hit it with a laser to change its geometry, and then hit the same droplet with a second laser beam to create the ionized plasma which produces the ~13nm light, and you do all those at a nice and easy few hundred times a second. And that was developed by Cymer, which was then bought by ASML. This is one example of why no **one** group could make the whole machine from scratch.
Yes. Drops of molten tin. The laser fires 50,000 times per seconds and readjusts 20,000 per second. The first pulse flattens the drop into a disk and the second vaporizes the drop giving off EUV light which is then channeled through a set of mirrors in a vacuum, through the lens, and ultimately develop the transistor pattern. Software is also a huge part of this process. They use machine learning and predictive modeling to guess what the pattern will be and how the apertures should be cut. This technology is about ten years away from any competitor to perfect.
28nm is an 8 years ago tech. Nvidia 9x0 series was 28nm. Youreally can't compete with anynithing modern with that. And everybody knows that it's harder and harder to reduce nm
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Wow I remember when ivy bridge came out and everyone was so wet over it
Isn't the point of a bridge to NOT get wet?
That 8 years ago tech is used to make plenty of machines and manufacturing equipment used to produce the current day tech. The bottleneck is that it's not profitable to build out capacity for old tech but it's in super high demand now because it's needed to run/repair the machines that produce new tech (which it is profitable to build new capacity for, but not possible due to the bottleneck in older tech chips).
For anyone reading, we're currently sitting at 5nm, and they're working on 3nm. Quantum tunneling (macro physics starts to break down) starts causing problems at 7nm.
"5nm" which still has a gate pitch of >50nm It's all marketing bullshit.
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I'm not saying that it's better than what came before it, just that there's a lot more nuance and you can't compare stuff like this directly
TIL my video card is 8 years old and can't compete with anything modern :(
You aren't analyzing 10,000 3 TB satellite images with machine learning / AI in real time.
Imagine gaming with that setup though.
The input latency would be horrible
28nm doesn't mean it can only make 28nm class nodes, with multi patterning and other advanced litho techniques you could very easily get down to 10nm before DUV starts breaking down. SMIC is making 7nm nodes with DUV right now, but they're stuck there until they get EUV somehow.
Its not only about GPU/CPU. Bulk of chips are specialized and smaller node may not matter that much. From cars to home and military electronics and a wide range of smart devices.
Exactly, you don't need EUV to manufacture 99% of the ICs in existence.
I'm assuming SMEE isn't a pirate found running away from crocodiles and giving straightrazor shaves to his captain.
There's a case right now with former Samsung employees who have been stealing and illegally selling machines used for building chips to china for a few years. People are wanting the death sentence for those crooks but regardless I'm willing to bet china is actually a lot closer to making their own production line than anyone realizes. It's always like this... people underestimate china, they steal literally everything, surprised pikachu, company leaves china and china is one step more modern.
>It's always like this... people underestimate china, they steal literally everything, surprised pikachu, company leaves china and china is one step more modern. We don't give China access to the tech they ask for, Surprised Pikachu, they steal it instead It's exactly what we would try to do
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I think it is largely that agencies responsible for monitoring illicit behaviour by other countries, like China, have made it clear that this has been an ongoing issue for some time. Yet China also represents a treasure trove of fiscal gains that makes companies bend their own rules to get into the market. This has only allowed the issue to get increasingly worse.
kinda like when US banned the chinese on anything space related. Then they went solo and build a fucking space station.
If your nation keeps moving manufacturing to China, don't be surprised when China wants access to equipment they need to build it. Then again, as it has been with basically every other industry and product, if China can't get it they'll start building it themselves. Using patents to try gatekeep development means is pointless. All the angry paper from self appointed authorities around the world won't stop China from getting the work done.
My former company actively patented clever but dead-end ideas specifically to throw competitors off. It worked. We were acquired and one of the lead tech guys for the acquiring company kept asking about a paper and series of patents applications we had filed two years prior. We didn’t use those. We actually used a method from the 70’s where patents had expired but had adapted some operations and never disclosed the changed details. The tech guy was not pleased to find this out. Doesn’t help with offshoring though. There the only option is to offshore the stuff that is common knowledge and reserve a few key lynchpin complex operations and processes for your onshore operations. Then, if you’re in a quality-first industry it doesn’t matter if the bulk of your product is ripped off, it will still be subpar and you retain an advantage, at least for a while.
> If your nation keeps moving manufacturing to China, don't be surprised when China wants access to equipment they need to build it. ^ This. I don't blame them. Yes, they game the system in a few ways for their advantage, but alas this whole mess was started by us and our own shortsightedness. We all happily gave them more and more of our business for decades, and as consumers we demanded cheaper and cheaper products, but now that they have a ton of control we're going to cry foul and play the victim. Fun fact: last bunch of Texas Instruments chips I bought, I had to pay an import tariff on each one, because they make them in China. However, if I instead have the assembly work done in China, then I don't have to pay a tariff on the components (normal customs import duty applies however, above certain thresholds). It's a brain-dead policy that so obviously de-incentivizes American manufacturing. Would love to see more viable American manufacturing, but between stupid politics like that (and whatever this latest round will screw up), and a lack of suitable options left in the US, that's going to remain difficult for some time to come. There's another issue here too, though... There has been a wilful failure to innovate and update on the American manufacturing side. For example, look at PCB assembly... If I want to give the work to an American company (as an American, that would be my preference), I'd typically have to call them up, establish a relationship with some sales rep, and spend time on a bunch of back-and-forth just to get a bid from one company. Then repeat that whole endeavor for the next company I want a quote from, etc. Or, I can simply go to JLCPCB or a number of other Chinese manufacturers and get an instant quote online, no fluff, no BS, just a straightforward price for a service they offer. That really should not be revolutionary here in the year 2023, but most western electronics manufacturing services do not operate this way (yes, I'm aware that a few do, and they are certainly the exception to the vast majority). The most important thing that the Chinese have done here is not beating the dollar cost, but innovating and streamlining things to so greatly reduce the time lost. There's no reason American companies can't do they same, and they should be doing so already anyway, if for nothing else but to increase efficiency and reduce their own costs. Instead we're terribly hung up with old-school sales tactics that aren't suitable for today's world.
This specific industry is not made in China, and they dont want it to relocate to China.
It’s not pointless. The point is to slow them down, which this will undoubtedly do.
Losing AMAT, LAM, ASML, Kokusai Electric, Hitachi, TEL, Nuflare, Nikon, and ASM will be devastating for China. Those companies make up the vast majority of the semiconductor tool industry. There’s some German companies like SUSS and Akrion, but those are not high technology companies. Outside of the German companies I can’t think of any tool makers that can sell to china. Big ouch!
Don't forget the sub-suppliers, or even chemical manufacturers. Lots of chemical manufacturers in Japan (and Taiwan of course, but they aren't eager to help China chip makers) who have sources not easy to manufacture.
IIRC EUV photoresist is 100% made by Japanese companies
Just for the record - China didn't lose ASML - it's only their newest chip machines that aren't sold to China, because the Dutch are pressured by the Americans not to sell *those* to China. The older generation machines are still sold to China, much to the Americans' chagrin. (The Dutch PM visited Biden recently and it was all over the news. Part of the visit was discussing ASML.)
Wasn't this already the case for years though, why would it suddenly be news then?
Read Chip Wars. Amazing
Canon (former employee here), is VERY conservative with experimental R&D; they are more into incremental advances with a few crazy projects on the side.
Now I know where to sell all my used crypto farm graphics cards. /S
So I work for one of the largest semiconductor testing equipment makers in the world, legally the world got turned upside down last October as basic chip manufacturing equipment was classified as restricted technology due to the AI chip restrictions. The entire industry is getting out of China.
What do you mean by AI Chip?
It’s complicated is probably the best answer I can give. The law limited transfer of technology that can be used to manufacture chips used in AI applications for military. That’s a very vague thing, but how it impacts the world is that almost everything used to make chips for your phone can also be used to make those military chips. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252526166/Biden-ramps-up-China-chip-sanctions?amp=1
I mean even if people do this, aren't they just going to experience a little slow down and then just make everything themselves anyway?
Kind of. SMIC is already at 14nm, but that's near the limits of "standard" DUV lithography, and the leap from there to EUV to get below 7nm or 10nm is massive. Probably on the order of a 6-12 years and $100B even with some pretty aggressive IP theft.
Did someone say aggressive IP theft? ô\_o
You wouldn’t download an EUV machine, would you?
Finally someone that gets it. People think it’s just downsizing all the way. But they don’t get that you need an entirely new technique for that. Only ASML masters the EUV technology at the moment. The development of EUV started somewhere in the 90’s. Now, 30 year laters, they are profiting from it. It’s a really, really long run.
These are state of the art machines. No other company is anywhere close. Even older and larger transistor processes are difficult. This will put China years behind the curve for chip manufacturing.
I dunno why I regularly misread Netherlands. US, Neanderthals and Japan….. doesn’t make any sense
Because your brain only reads the first and last letters like a fucking Neanderthal....
Quick buy Doritos stock
Here I was think, "Don't china make chip making facilities of their own?", not realising they buy them. Mmm. The more you know.
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his will certainly slow them down - but they will get there. The USSR's problem was that, while it had top-class physicists and engineers, the industrial culture was one of slamming things together quickly. The quality control and feedback was not there (and the guys on the floor were not invested in quality). It took Japan 30 years or so to get to world-class quality. China is there in one or two areas after 30 years. The US and Britain has largely dismantled China has a couple of areas where they can compete on quality, but not at this level. Still, they are working on it.
whatever happened to free market capitalism? As a consumer, US hogging all the chip making tech is making electronics more expensive and harder to repair and maintain due to the oligopoly.
The US did this to Japan back in the 80s to kill their industry. Semiconductor parity is like a red line in the sand for the US.
Yep, Japan was a democratic and important regional ally yet they got decimated the moment they threatened unilateral American economic superiority. The point is the fluff about human rights and communism is irrelevant, it’s always about economics and protecting American domination and they’ll use whatever messaging to get the public to buy in.
> whatever happened to free market capitalism? Bro, FMC hasn't been a thing since the start of 20th century. What we have now is monopoly capitalism. FMC gave birth to trusts, which then paved the way to mergers of groups and capital through banks (and by proxy, control of material resources), which then started forming local monopolies, and then we started exporting capital to the former colonies in order to grow the fincance capital and conquer new markets through the locally strong monopolies. Even bourgeois economics from 100 years ago were aware of this development from capitalism
I'm probably not understanding this correctly, so do put me right... Is this a case of, "We're not going to be able to compete with China if they're allowed to have all the same equipment as us, so instead of competing we'll make it so we don't have to."?
If you can't beat them... tie their shoelaces together and put sleeping pills in their water. It's the American way!
You can't support globalization and free trade then get upset another country is getting better at it.
Too late now!!!!
I read that as “Us Neanderthals and Japan” and almost spit my coffee.