Taiwan has invested in it like it was it's military.
And it worked, they got to the point that the US would defend them from a Chinese invention.
Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
11–20 of 149 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#12TSMC isn't competitive. That's a misconception. Back in the days Intel was ahead and by a huge margin. TSMC go by the slow and steady model.
Intel made mistakes and lost its gain and here we are today. Intel has always been a lot more aggressive and risk taken. They might catch up again. It's just a long process.
As to Samsung etc they were never really in the game. They only got remotely competitive by heavy poaching and stealing of trade secrets from TSMC / Intel (and merging IBM fabs).
At the end of the day it's not just ASML machines (that take forever to deliver). It's a huge investment.
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#13Read "Chip War" by Chris Miller.
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#14The short answer is during a time of massive profits of semi companies, most cashed out. One (TSMC) has kept reinvesting gains into R&D for the last 20 years. Lithography via ASML is the cutting edge advance, but there are many other small details too. Both in the technology itself but also in the complexity of integrating that technology to work together in one process.
I think that one of the greatest advantages that Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese companies have is that most of them seem to be somewhat immune to Harvard Business School ideas, and Jack Welch was never worshipped as he was in the West. Keeping the bean counters under leash is good for building long-term value.
I suspect this is due to those bad ideas mainly being spread in English.
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#15Semiconductor industry has the deepest and most complex value chain in the economy. TSMC has always been pure fab company and it pays off now. Samsung and Intel are also in chip design business and do other things. They are less focused. TSMC's lead is not guaranteed. Any new technology node can fail and remove them from competition if they make wrong choices. I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new tech…
What is a node in this context and what does designing a new node entail? Does this design process mean TSMC can do something with ASML machines that another company with the same machine couldn't do?
The important thing to understand is that at the level of chip manufacturing, you’re doing advanced materials science. These aren’t just abstract logic gates and structures built out of them, such as SRAMs. At the manufacturing level, the logic gates are nano-scale 3D structures made of different materials and in different shapes. For example, at this scale, the shape of the transistor gates has a big effect on performance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_field-effect_transistor. That materials science is highly guarded secret sauce in companies like TSMC. NVIDIA and Apple will tell TSMC what logic gates go where (or often at an even higher level—specifying certain SRAM blocks going here or there). But TSMC has to actually build the nano-scale material structures that comprise those logic gates.
The ASML machines perform the actual photolithography. They expose the die mask to the photoresist coated silicon wafer. Using that technique, you can built up complex 3D materials incorporating different layers and shapes. But the ASML machine doesn’t know how to make a transistor. It’s kind of like a 3D printer in that way.
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#16[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#17Definitely not the tooling.
Seriously, it's really horrible. Is there no competition to force them to improve it?
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#18Interesting article in Wired this month: https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a-tsmc-...
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#19[flagged]
Thanks ChatGPT
Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
#20TSMC isn't competitive. That's a misconception. Back in the days Intel was ahead and by a huge margin. TSMC go by the slow and steady model. Intel made mistakes and lost its gain and here we are today. Intel has always been a lot more aggressive and risk taken. They might catch up again. It's just a long process. As to Samsung etc they were never really in the game. They only got remotely competitive by heavy poachin…
I'm not sure I understand how they're not competitive. Staying steady while your opponent is making mistakes is, in fact, a competitive strategy — straight out of Aesop's Fables. Intel doesn't get to be the "competitive" one just because they're playing the role of the Hare.