ASML is the closest thing to the planet Dune in our world. Chips made with their machines extend life. Chips made with their machines expand consciousness. And he who controls the chips, controls the universe. The information universe, at least. I just wish for a messiah to arrive who leads the jihad against FAANG. The Kwisatz-RISC-V-Haderach. The Voice from the Open Source World. Fortunately, he need not fell Mark Zuckerberg in single combat with crysknife in order to lead our people to true freedom.
ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
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Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some parts seem oddly manual and others interestingly esoteric. They don't really make that many machine for heavy automation to make much sense. By the end of 2021 they had made ~140 EUV machines in total with commercial production starting in 2011. So if you average it out they make ~15 per year. Though the production rate has most likely ramped up over the years so most of those have been built closer to today t…
Maybe, but then again the demand is far higher than what they can deliver and their solution is to hire thousands more people. While that’s a simple scaling mechanism they were limited by Covid restrictions and will probably be limited by the worsening energy crisis
Even if they 10x their production you are talking about 200 of the same machine max per year. Nowhere near the numbers where proper industrial automation would make much sense.
Also who would be buying these machines if they 10x their production? They go into fabs that costs 10 to 20 billion to build. Let’s say you put 10 of them in each fab. It would still require 150 billion in fab investments every year. There is demand but not that much demand (or capacity to build the fabs)
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#13I absolutely despise the ancient traditional ways they practice: referring to their techniques of 'mystery', secrecy, and occultation of knowledge (which they do in order to construct knowledge as authority and then wield it as power) they've overdone it. by this point they have made it way to fucking difficult for people to truly come to grips with the complexity of modern life mostly becuase in their zealous protec…
I have no clue what you’re on about. ASML has hardly any culture of secrecy to speak of, or at least in comparison to famously secretive companies like Apple.
Talk to a random ASML engineer at a party and they’ll enthusiastically tell you everything about what they’re working on.
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#14I absolutely despise the ancient traditional ways they practice: referring to their techniques of 'mystery', secrecy, and occultation of knowledge (which they do in order to construct knowledge as authority and then wield it as power) they've overdone it. by this point they have made it way to fucking difficult for people to truly come to grips with the complexity of modern life mostly becuase in their zealous protec…
>construct knowledge as authority
Can you explain why you used the word construct here?
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#15What's the purpose of this corridor the workers walk through? Some kind of cleaning process, or a security scan to make sure they're not bringing in unauthorized devices? https://youtu.be/zQu_TMgHO98?t=34
It's an air shower designed to get any last bits off your bunny suit before you go into the cleanroom.
Hi there! This is a totally off-topic comment, but since there is no way in HN to send private messages, I though I might as well reply to your most recent comment. I have been enjoying your comments about being a craftsman and working in a niche, and I think I am heading in the same direction. I could use some advice and would love to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind (email is in my profile).
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#16To summarize the video the secret is just how the people collaborate. Some parts seem oddly manual and others interestingly esoteric. Interesting little detail is how that researcher knows the political game of not presenting to Intel but instead having the VP himself present. At least there is a lesson for society here about how to keep people together instead of dividing them. I'm both fascinated by the company, an…
> Some parts seem oddly manual and others interestingly esoteric. They don't really make that many machine for heavy automation to make much sense. By the end of 2021 they had made ~140 EUV machines in total with commercial production starting in 2011. So if you average it out they make ~15 per year. Though the production rate has most likely ramped up over the years so most of those have been built closer to today t…
The bottleneck is not TSMC, but Zeiss which makes the mirrors "more perfect than that of space telescopes"
The yield on those mirrors is very small. They throw away 19 out of 20 mirrors.
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#17Well, the video does not show the ppl actually designing the blueprint of the machine and doing the R&D, the real brains... we are showed mostly assembly workers (all above averagely skilled), customer service operators, etc.
I was surprised to agree with most of what ASML bosses said, and I would have given exactly the same answer than the assembly operator, namely not providing any timeline... because it is complete garbage to do so on so much complex machines, not to mention the machine is a prototype, then the first one. I may have answered "yesterday".
But noway they will make me use a doz computer, or an android phone...
I am _seriously_ curious on how they want to get their pitch below 7nm with a 13.6nm EUV light. Do they plan to go massive multi-patterning with sub-nm xray positioning? For below 7nm pitch, what would they use: xray light? electron/ion beams? pattern printing? And what about the purity of the wafer dopped silicon for smaller features? xray light: what materials to use?? Quantum interference tricks?
I wonder how many silicon atoms from a wafer crystal we have on a 1nm row...
All that is to get chips which consume less energy, get faster telecom, play magnificient games, store more in flash ram.
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#18Well, the video does not show the ppl actually designing the blueprint of the machine and doing the R&D, the real brains... we are showed mostly assembly workers (all above averagely skilled), customer service operators, etc. I was surprised to agree with most of what ASML bosses said, and I would have given exactly the same answer than the assembly operator, namely not providing any timeline... because it is complet…
The documentary spends a lot of time interviewing their head of R&D who is described as the 'mad professor', he talks extensively about the problem of the tin exploding onto the mirror and how he encountered that problem etc, so presumably he should count as someone doing R&D for real.
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#19Well, the video does not show the ppl actually designing the blueprint of the machine and doing the R&D, the real brains... we are showed mostly assembly workers (all above averagely skilled), customer service operators, etc. I was surprised to agree with most of what ASML bosses said, and I would have given exactly the same answer than the assembly operator, namely not providing any timeline... because it is complet…
The documentary spends a lot of time interviewing their head of R&D who is described as the 'mad professor', he talks extensively about the problem of the tin exploding onto the mirror and how he encountered that problem etc, so presumably he should count as someone doing R&D for real.
The head of R&D, but he is the only "real brain" who is presented on the show. Could have presented maybe 1 other "real brain".
I have heard about "the 2 times lazered tin droplet to generate "enough" EUV light" already in an older ASML documentary (years ago).
Re: ASML's Secret: A view from inside the global semiconductor giant [video]
#20As a student, I did a tour of ASML. One of the coolest things was one of the tour guides bragging how they would inspect the prospective location for a new plant and deny sale if they didn't like it.
Why? Because their machines are incredibly sensitive... and equally expensive. And your customers get angry if the machine doesn't work reliably - and rightly so.
I don't know if they do that still, and it likely was somewhat hyperbole, but the core of it is actually correct: the machine is indeed that sensitive, and is indeed that expensive. Every second of lost operation is expensive, and creating a fab around one of them is not quite as straightforward as just pouring some concrete somewhere and adding walls and a roof.