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Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” ― Henry Kissinger

That's not something that Kissinger has ever gotten to decide and he has historically been frequently wrong. Kissinger is about as meaningless of a reference point as you could use in that sphere. He hasn't had potent influence over US foreign policy in over four decades. They barely pay attention to anything he has said in the last several decades, and the left certainly ignores him. Might as well quote Robert E Lee…

I interpreted that quote as more of an observation by Kissinger, as opposed to statement of official US foreign policy.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#122
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a made up explanation because: 1) All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7 2) Intel has consistently been the leader in process technology for 20+ years. Why did this “3x shift advantage” deliver gains only in the past 5 years?

> my R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one shift > All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7 Are you talking about the same thing? It's one thing to let an experiment run overnight with three technician shifts. It's another thing to have three research shifts. It could also be a metaphor for doing more research than the competition on how to best use the same equipment, so I wouldn't get too hung up on it.

I imagine moving the wafers means just that, the wafers don't stop or they become trash.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#123
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would cause the VP of R&D to make such a false claim? Also see his discussion of copper interconnects, which they delivered first, even before IBM. He also concedes that Intel has led in "transistor performance," and they have never been equaled. The interview also goes into the later scandal of his employment at SMIC, so he is a controversial figure, without doubt.

>What would cause the VP of R&D to make such a false claim? Winning in a complex business environment is very frequently both intentionally and unintentionally misattributed by the winner.

Agreed, history is written by those who prevail.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#124
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel certainly do run machines 24/7 but perhaps those R&D engineers/PhD's don't, so maybe only the techie's running the machines have full coverage...?

Essentially yeah. R&D at Intel/AMD/NVidia is 9-5 work. TSMC and SMIC are different beasts entirely. They push way harder on the gas and never let up. A lot of ex-TSMC are at SMIC now. They aren't doing cutting edge nodes for now but expect crazy things out of SMIC in 5-10 years.

It’ll be hard for SMIC to do too many crazy things without being able to get ASML machines, though.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the whole story, sure, things are complex... but I think you calling it "made up" is a bit absurd. I'd attribute most of the lack of competition with Intel to a lack of capital; which, thanks to the success of TSMC's largest customers (who directly compete with Intel) Apple and AMD is no longer a problem. Intel did have a huge advantage on everyone else 20 years ago, but ten years ago they more or less start…

I read it could also be volume. Higher volume means more data to learn from.

In one way, you are correct.

TSMC's decision to use "Black Diamond" CVD was driven by previous failures of "spin-on" dielectric that allowed them to deliver copper interconnects before anyone else.

However, the R&D cycle, which failed for "spin-on," otherwise allowed TSMC to deliver faster, as they ran in multiple shifts, allowing accelerated focus on the new node.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#126

Semiconductor 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…

>I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new technology node for mass production is like a moon program. It's insane. I had a friend tell me about what goes on in these asml machines. Essentially the targeting system that moves the wafer around cannot have any vibration so I kid you not the platform is floating and controlled by magnets. And this is just the etching machine.

I worked on a campus where they were building prototype manufacturing processes with these tools.

The building those tools were housed in had a foundation that was iirc 30’ of a specialized concrete mix. I was chatting with some of the construction engineers over coffee and the consensus was that 10,000 years from now, some archeologists would be pondering wtf this giant concrete platform was for.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#127
post #124
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially yeah. R&D at Intel/AMD/NVidia is 9-5 work. TSMC and SMIC are different beasts entirely. They push way harder on the gas and never let up. A lot of ex-TSMC are at SMIC now. They aren't doing cutting edge nodes for now but expect crazy things out of SMIC in 5-10 years.

It’ll be hard for SMIC to do too many crazy things without being able to get ASML machines, though.

As pure designers yeah but Chinese government is about to do to chips what they did to solar and batteries so I wouldn't count them out yet. Might be 5-10 years before they catch up but they are by no means out of the fight.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#128
post #79
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's definitely not the case. For digital design, in general, you're not doing anything transistor-level. But those digital designers are using standard cell or memory libraries which are created at a transistor level. I believe the foundries also charge for their own standard cell libraries, and there are many other vendors that a design company can choose from like cadence, synopsys, even ARM. For analog/RF de…

Since you seem to know a lot about this--could Apple (or Cadence or ARM) create custom transistors on TSMC's process?

Theoretically, yes, but in practice, no. Creating a manufacturing process is a very complex and time consuming process that takes a huge about of research and development, investment, etc to achieve profitable yields. For bulk CMOS processes, which is what digital circuits are made on, this is especially the case. Foundries like TSMC can't afford to let customers design custom transistors, and customers generally don't have the expertise to do so. There's a huge economies of scale benefit from having customers all use the same process.

That being said, there is a little room for tweaking. The manufacturing process has a ton of variation in it, and the center point / average of that variation can be moved around a little. I think most companies just take what they get, but I'm betting the big players (Qualcomm, Apple, Nvidia, AMD) all do internal tracking of the process variation when they get product back, and give feedback to the foundries to make changes to optimize their own yield.

There's also been a recent push in the very new and advanced processes for "Design-Technology Co-Optimization", where the digital circuit design (i.e. standard cells and memory) and the process technology design happens together. We got here because all of the low hanging fruit has been picked and now companies are chasing single digit percentages in yield and PPA (power, performance, and area) improvements. It's a collaboration between foundry and customer that happens before the process is even released, so again - big players only, and it's still more tweaking than custom transistors.

For other types of processes, meaning non-bulk CMOS, customers can definitely design their own transistors. This is especially common in RF applications where you're often making chips with a few transistors. In some cases, it can be just changes in the shapes and/or dimensions of the transistors in the GDS, relative to what the foundry recommends. For this type of custom transistor, the foundry still controls the material science details of how the process happens. In other cases, though, customers are in control of everything from the transistor dimensions to the chemical concentrations and methods used for fabrication.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#129
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent interview with Shang-Yi Chiang, former Vice President of R&D at TSMC (also held positions at TI, HP, and SMIC) had insightful commentary on the speed of bringing up a new node. "We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That…

This is a made up explanation because: 1) All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7 2) Intel has consistently been the leader in process technology for 20+ years. Why did this “3x shift advantage” deliver gains only in the past 5 years?

There’s a lot of weird politics in that business.

I’m pretty sure the big players like Intel and Samsung put their r&d eggs into the G450C coalition to build bigger wafers. TSMC saw that as a threat, did not join and invested more on its own. In the meantime, the 450 thing collapsed for a variety of reasons and the billions of dollars invested went up in smoke and left Intel and other behind.

Re: Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?

#130
post #127
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’ll be hard for SMIC to do too many crazy things without being able to get ASML machines, though.

As pure designers yeah but Chinese government is about to do to chips what they did to solar and batteries so I wouldn't count them out yet. Might be 5-10 years before they catch up but they are by no means out of the fight.

what did China do in battery? I thought China is still behind Japan and South Korea.
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