Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
They weren't very fast at buying those machines. TSMC bought more.
ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
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Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#42So what does TSMC then do that no one else can replicate if they use these machines?
The lithography is just a step of the process. I'm just a layman but there's a lot of chemistry involved in just the processing of materials like coating and etching the wafers, particle bombardment, etc. Even the conditions and environment in which the lithography is done makes a big difference.
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#43Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
Intel already has a fab which makes it's own chips. They can print, their problem is the design process on smaller nodes.
I know they have had fabs, but they decided to go with TSMC recently, and that's what I was wondering about. Going with TSMC doesn't mean TSMC does their designs too, does it?
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#44I was bullish on Cymer back in the mid to late 90s. The stock did nothing (well maybe doubled) until ASML bought the m, perhaps then doubling the stock price. I was so frustrated because Cymer’s light source was the enabler of smaller and faster chips. Anyone have a theory why Cymer never had a great ROI, compared to other equipment makers? Nikon and Cannon were already enormous, and Applied Materials, KLA-tencore, and others were already big and faced competition.
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#45Can someone explain why Intel needs TSMC to make their chips? Why can't they just buy ASML's machines and use them to make their own chips?
Fabs are just a wee bit more complicated than buy the machine and plug it in. Everything is very tightly integrated under insanely precise requirements. Changing equipment is akin to redesigning and reconstructing a non trivial portion of the fab. And that's just integrating these lithography machines, which are but one piece of a huge puzzle.
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently the machines are pretty hard to replicate, the company (ASML) has had to deal with a couple of corporate espionage cases in the past[0]. [0]: https://nos.nl/artikel/2280228-wat-heeft-de-chinese-overheid... (in Dutch)
What I meant was TSMC uses these machines. Anyone else (except the Chinese I guess?) can also use these machines. What is the TSMC secret sauce that no one else can match?
Think of these machines as being what a paint brush is to an artist; it's just a tool. Anyone can buy a paintbrush, but it takes much skill and experience to paint a masterpiece.
Even if you have a masterpiece in your possession to try and copy, you will fail.
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#47I feel like ASML is the company that almost everyone who would care has heard of at this point. Granted, I hadn't heard of them 3 years ago, even though I work directly with HW designers. Its just funny how they're going through the hype cycle in their level of public awareness. Give it 3 years and (hopefully) the "general public" won't have to care about them again, because chip shortages are resolved :)
ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from...
the company is probably as important as TSMC in terms of geopolitics now
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the extreme cost and risk to enter the business is the key issue.
Sounds like something governments could help with.
There are a number of companies that can produce lithography machines, just not on the same level as ASML (at the moment anyway). Even if we ignore any patent/IP and upfront investment issues, designing and actually constructing machines which are on par with ASML's is not an easy task and will take years of research, assuming the project succeeds in the first place. What ASML is doing now is the culmination of years of research and investment and some pretty specific know-how. It's kind of like trying to replicate NASA's James Webb telescope project: many of the basic principles aren't very hard, but actually building the thing is.
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#49ASML's first EUV machine contract closure was for $15 bil, and the contract explicitly stipulated that $3bil was just for the purpose of acquiring three specialty Boeing 747s for shipping the machines to the clients. Each chunk of the machine must be shipped in vacuum. It takes about 40 chunks to make a complete EUV lithography machine. Each is about the equivalent mass of a school bus.
Why the need for special 747s? Can't they put each chunk into a shipping container sized steel box and seal it vacuum tight, then ship that with regular 747s?
Re: ASML, a $300B Dutch firm, makes the machines that make semiconductors
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently the machines are pretty hard to replicate, the company (ASML) has had to deal with a couple of corporate espionage cases in the past[0]. [0]: https://nos.nl/artikel/2280228-wat-heeft-de-chinese-overheid... (in Dutch)
What I meant was TSMC uses these machines. Anyone else (except the Chinese I guess?) can also use these machines. What is the TSMC secret sauce that no one else can match?
It's not a single thing, it's everything. State of the art fabs require precision control of an incredible number of process steps each with an incredible number of tunable dimensions. These machines are just one piece of the puzzle. A key piece, but buying the machines does not a fab make.