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Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

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Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#11

Post by spwa4 »

rando1234 wrote: post #9

Amazing looking machine! $380 million a pop. Must surely be one of the most sophisticated machines humanity has ever built? A great achievement of European science and technology (ducks).

That's what makes this hard to interpret. The whole strategy of intel is that they have their own version of this machine, part of their "18A" design. The only reason they need the ASML machine is because of the "optics" (between quotes because at the frequencies they work at no optics work - only (bad) mirrors do. However you need make the mirrors accurate enough - we're talking far more accurate than the chips, as in sub-nanometer max deviation, they can function as optics with high losses, but low enough that exposure works). No American company can achieve even 10 times lower accuracy at the moment.

So is this giving up on their own version? That would mean their stock price is absolutely not justified at $110, and it should be more like $60-70 if not lower. Or is this "we have technical reasons to use this. We're still going to do 18A and it's still going to beat 2nm", which would mean their stock price is easily justified at $200 and it's high time to buy.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#12

Post by PowerElectronix »

jbstack wrote: post #4
nasretdinov wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO it's competition that makes better products in the end. If either party becomes a full monopolist the progress will stall (as already happened with Intel I guess)

> as already happened with Intel I guess In which sense? Intel is neither a full monopolist (AMD, ARM) nor has progress stalled (we're still getting a regular cycle of new generation CPUs which improve on the previous).

Intel had a monopoly on bleeding edge cpu for a long time until they got stuck on 14nm for years, allowing TSMC to catch up and providing AMD the means to compete.

In a the best of timelines, intel, tsmc and samsung (and glofo maybe?) Would all have competitive fab nodes.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#13

Post by vrganj »

spwa4 wrote: post #11
rando1234 wrote: post #9

Amazing looking machine! $380 million a pop. Must surely be one of the most sophisticated machines humanity has ever built? A great achievement of European science and technology (ducks).

That's what makes this hard to interpret. The whole strategy of intel is that they have their own version of this machine, part of their "18A" design. The only reason they need the ASML machine is because of the "optics" (between quotes because at the frequencies they work at no optics work - only (bad) mirrors do. However you need make the mirrors accurate enough - we're talking far more accurate than the chips, as…

Only the optics is an ... interesting way of phrasing it.

There was a great Economist article a while ago that talks about this. ASMLs moat isn't just the know-how to build the machines themselves. It's a network of suppliers all across Europe, specialized businesses doing one little part better than anyone else in the world.

This is the type of thing that Europe is still leading in, and it'll be incredibly hard to reproduce elsewhere.

You don't just need to figure out how to build an High-NA EUV machine. You need to figure out how to build or procure all of the parts that go into it. Many of these suppliers have exclusive contracts with ASML.

Here's the article, de-paywalled: https://archive.ph/jP1HX

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#14

Post by c0n5pir4cy »

ahartmetz wrote: post #7
jbstack wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as already happened with Intel I guess In which sense? Intel is neither a full monopolist (AMD, ARM) nor has progress stalled (we're still getting a regular cycle of new generation CPUs which improve on the previous).

Intel didn't do much to improve their CPUs while AMD was out of the competition with the Bulldozer disaster.

It was a pretty bad time - ARM wasn't really encroaching on any of their markets in the way they are now & AMD was struggling. Intel basically just left the engineering to rot & the business people to try and gouge consumers with things like the Intel Upgrade Service, low power CPUs that were essentially just normal cores but less rather than optimized, inflated prices etc.

It also allowed AMD to completely blindside them with Zen - so we're in a situation where AMD now dominates consumer desktop and arguably a lot of enterprise/DC instead of it balancing towards a more competitive centre.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#15

Post by spwa4 »

vrganj wrote: post #13
spwa4 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what makes this hard to interpret. The whole strategy of intel is that they have their own version of this machine, part of their "18A" design. The only reason they need the ASML machine is because of the "optics" (between quotes because at the frequencies they work at no optics work - only (bad) mirrors do. However you need make the mirrors accurate enough - we're talking far more accurate than the chips, as…

Only the optics is an ... interesting way of phrasing it. There was a great Economist article a while ago that talks about this. ASMLs moat isn't just the know-how to build the machines themselves. It's a network of suppliers all across Europe, specialized businesses doing one little part better than anyone else in the world. This is the type of thing that Europe is still leading in, and it'll be incredibly hard to r…

Yeah. ASML doesn't make the mirrors, but they have exclusive sales rights, exactly as you say. And yes, positioning them, for example, both in the fixed sense (mounting the mirrors in the machine) and in the dynamic sense (rapidly positioning wafers to nanometer-or-better accuracy below the beam, I forgot how quick exactly but it's 10s to 100s of times per second to maintain production rates) is very much not easy either. But it's "been done" (by teams of phds). Producing the mirrors has not been duplicated.

Of course, producing the EUV beam in the first place has also not been duplicated and it's Californian technology.

Intel 18A has a different strategy all together. I mean, it's not like they're saying much about it, but from the little we know, it's very different.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#16

Post by namibj »

spwa4 wrote: post #15
vrganj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the optics is an ... interesting way of phrasing it. There was a great Economist article a while ago that talks about this. ASMLs moat isn't just the know-how to build the machines themselves. It's a network of suppliers all across Europe, specialized businesses doing one little part better than anyone else in the world. This is the type of thing that Europe is still leading in, and it'll be incredibly hard to r…

Yeah. ASML doesn't make the mirrors, but they have exclusive sales rights, exactly as you say. And yes, positioning them, for example, both in the fixed sense (mounting the mirrors in the machine) and in the dynamic sense (rapidly positioning wafers to nanometer-or-better accuracy below the beam, I forgot how quick exactly but it's 10s to 100s of times per second to maintain production rates) is very much not easy ei…

No the beam source we know how to create; it's just that the way to do so requires a factory sized machine that better be feeding 10~30 steppers or a pair for uptime/maintenance windows and then probably more like 50 steppers.

Free electron lasers are not hard at "mere EUV", and the accelerators to feed aren't either, it's just that an efficient setup requires recycling the beam which means bending it back which means a large (factory hall sized) accelerator at the beam energies needed for good EUV light.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#17

Post by whazor »

spwa4 wrote: post #11
rando1234 wrote: post #9

Amazing looking machine! $380 million a pop. Must surely be one of the most sophisticated machines humanity has ever built? A great achievement of European science and technology (ducks).

That's what makes this hard to interpret. The whole strategy of intel is that they have their own version of this machine, part of their "18A" design. The only reason they need the ASML machine is because of the "optics" (between quotes because at the frequencies they work at no optics work - only (bad) mirrors do. However you need make the mirrors accurate enough - we're talking far more accurate than the chips, as…

As I understand it, the machine also needs lots of 'normal parts' and can be designed differently to fit the factory and the automation. Like if you need a pipe, instead of buying it from ASML, you can buy it from a local hardware vendor. And parts of the ASML also break, and those parts would be directly shipped from the vendor that makes the part. ASML manages the integration between these parts and each part can have multiple vendors that makes them according to the specs.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#18

Post by Orygin »

matwood wrote: post #6
fsuts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tsmc are opening 10 factories in USA at cost of $265bn https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-tsmc-us-investment... Intel staying strong is still vital for competitiveness though

Until they are built, it's all talk. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-b...

They are built, at least one in Phoenix:

> As of 2025, the first fab has been completed and is producing four-nanometer (nm) chips.

Re: Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

#19

Post by mDyJzDPmBdG »

rando1234 wrote: post #9

Amazing looking machine! $380 million a pop. Must surely be one of the most sophisticated machines humanity has ever built? A great achievement of European science and technology (ducks).

Depends on definition of machine. Do ISS, LHC or ITER count?
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