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ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

koreaherald.com

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Re: ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

#4

How far does a $762 million deal get you? Doesn't seem like such a huge sum for priority access to next gen 2nm machines, but also hard to judge as a layperson...

Just based on some price familiarity with previous generations and extrapolating forward, that does seem like a contract for one machine with a gold-plated service contract or two machines with a good service contract. It seems to me more like a pilot program, but Samsung is a very significant player in semi so idk... I'm not familiar enough with this industry. It could just be because it's very early in the generation.

Re: ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

#6
post #5

Anyone here who knows what are the benefits of going from, say, 4 or 3nm to 2nm? ASML talks about energy cost per function mostly, but it’s not as clear cut as transitions in the 2000s were if I‘m not mistaken.

Concisely, but eliding: smaller transistors consume less power. Using smaller transistors, you can get the same performance at a lower power budget, or more performance at the same power budget.

Re: ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

#7
Everything over the last years tells me we are very close to the end game in chip production.

1. power stopped scaling

2. clocks stopped - 4x over 20 years?

3. node names became fiction.

4. EUV now differentiates the top from everyone else.

5. IPC improvements are a trickle.

6. Tons of non-moores law ideas are here:

A) GPUs

B) chiplets

C) stacked die

D) specialized accelerators

7. Governments are now involved in dividing up the tech. Since its finally mature / done.

It has been incredible to watch the progression over the last 50 years.

Re: ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

#8
post #7

Everything over the last years tells me we are very close to the end game in chip production. 1. power stopped scaling 2. clocks stopped - 4x over 20 years? 3. node names became fiction. 4. EUV now differentiates the top from everyone else. 5. IPC improvements are a trickle. 6. Tons of non-moores law ideas are here: A) GPUs B) chiplets C) stacked die D) specialized accelerators 7. Governments are now involved in divi…

I'm guessing we're not done, we're just reaching the endgame with silicon dies. Next steps will be new tech sometimes with a long lead time until it has been developed to the extent that it's competitive with silicon. Things like integrated photonics (or a completely photonic CPU), quantum computers, or diamond instead of silicon (or other materials instead of silicon).

Are we not still getting exponential growth in capability vs time?

Re: ASML and Samsung seal deal on 2nm chips

#9

How far does a $762 million deal get you? Doesn't seem like such a huge sum for priority access to next gen 2nm machines, but also hard to judge as a layperson...

> How far does a $762 million deal get you?

Oh, you know, a billion here, a billion there, who counts anymore, right? (The other posters already aswered this one, seems like two top of the line machines?)

Anyways... the numbers being invested at the top of this game are completely nuts. The future like in Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't seem that crazy! It begins with Metaverses, Neuralinks, LLMs, hundreds of billions of spending in the hardware/silicon business (boosted by AI demand) and ends in, well play Cyberpunk. They may even get the year right.

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