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ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

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Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#211

Post by tstenner »

varispeed wrote: post #158
rgalate wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best explanation as to why ASML is so dominant is that they have locked out the best suppliers by signing exclusivity deals with them. If you want to compete with ASML you have to vertically build: the best lenses, the best lasers, the best metrology. A new entrant would need to replace ten different world-class vendors simultaneously. Unlike common business wisdom that dictates having multiple suppliers to mitig…

> best suppliers by signing exclusivity deals with them In the UK, if you are a supplier and lock in an exclusivity deal, and also you are small business, they don't treat you as legitimate business and company revenue gets taxed as employment income (IR35). I wonder why regulators don't look into that. If they have exclusive deal, are they really in business or is it just some sort of tax structure masqueraded as su…

It's hard to qualify Zeiss as a "small business". Also, they pay their own employees wages and deduct taxes and social insurance so it's not like they pretend to be an independent contractor to save some money.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#212

Post by ag8 »

I find this paragraph to be odd: "Wavelengths as low as 13.5 nanometers can achieve more precise patterns in a single exposure. In fact, extreme ultraviolet lithography can combine three or four photolithography patterning cycles into a single one on a seven-nanometer node. Without EUV, producing five-nanometer nodes might require as many as one hundred different steps."

But a five-nanometer node has a gate pitch of 45nm and a metal pitch of 20nm! Using different forms of the word "nanometer" in the same paragraph is very confusing...

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#213

Post by tstenner »

SR2Z wrote: post #170
Therenas wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I‘d probably call it the most complex commercially available machine. You can‘t buy a Space Shuttle, or an LHC. You can buy a TSMC lithography machine, and it‘ll be delivered to you in much the same way as other equipment. Also, I think the axis it‘s probably most complex on is precision of individual parts and of their combination. Arguably chips themselves are more precise as their 'parts' are so small, but they ar…

> You can buy a TSMC lithography machine, and it‘ll be delivered to you in much the same way as other equipment. Each one of these machines costs half a billion dollars and is protected by some of the most stringent export controls on the planet. It does raise an interesting philosophical question: if I bolt two ASML lithography machines together, is the resulting machine more complicated?

I asked the ASML rep at KubeCon who they were there for as nobody I knew had a quarter billion to spare. He told me they were just interested customers, but if I didn't want the newest machine I could get one for 70 million euros.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#214

Post by pfortuny »

kryogen1c wrote: post #147
pfortuny wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An aircraft carrier would like a word.

>> nuclear sub >aircraft carrier Having served on both, this is actually a pretty interesting comparison (at least to me). Carriers are simply larger, so they likely win by scale, but im not sure on a more per-(sub)system basis. Carriers have a lot of aircraft handling systems that subs dont, elevators and hangers. Also the carrier has group c&c stuff. Subs have a lot of stealth systems carriers don't, being that the…

Wow, I could not imagine getting this response from someone with real experience! Thanks!!

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#215

Post by mytailorisrich »

otterley wrote: post #78
mytailorisrich wrote: post #11

It is unavoidable that, at some point, China will have its own matching or better machine because they obviously how incredibly strategically important it is.

That question is discussed in the article. “Retaining the best workers is especially crucial in an area like photolithography, where a huge amount of tacit knowledge is used to assemble its machines. An ASML engineer once told He Rongming, the founder of Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment, one of China’s top ASML competitors, that the company wouldn’t be able to replicate ASML’s products even if it had the blueprin…

They are saying trying to exactly copy the machine by poaching employees or spying is impossible because it is too complex.

This does not mean that China cannot or will not have something similar at some point, probably sooner than later.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#216

Post by aa-jv »

wahern wrote: post #131
rigonkulous wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASML's supply chain is deep and complex - and secret . But if it were F/OSS (just imagine it) from sand to chip, that complexity would have a wider scope of human attention applied to it. What is happening with ASML now, once happened with the wheel. Think about that .

Patents are supposed to be the antidote to industrial secrets. Of course, it doesn't really work out that way because in addition to patent writers hiding the ball or strategically layering patents and secrecy, things like tacit knowledge and organization play a huge role in exploring, building, and applying solutions. FOSS doesn't really help with the tacit stuff. It's partly why it's so difficult for projects to su…

.. all the more reason to support approaches which reduce dependency on an elite group of knowledge-holders.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#217

Post by robocat »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #90
_nhacker wrote: post #52

Hey, author of the piece here. Glad people seem to have enjoyed it. If you're looking for more sources on ASML/EUV I put together a bibliography of things I looked at while writing the piece https://neilhacker.com/2026/04/28/asml-article-bibliography/

Excellent article, Mr. Hacker :) >ASML started off life within Philips, the Dutch consumer electronics giant. Who started with light bulbs which were using the electrons for direct visual and UI/UX purposes. Some of the most simple electronic components, but quite a bit like appliances themselves. No surprise a lamp in English means either a bulb, an appliance, or both. Vacuum tubes were the next step up in complexit…

Many modern electronics still contain a vacuum because MEMS gyroscopes use a high vacuum.

The search response also said MEMS oscillators (modern performance replacements for quartz crystals) use a high vacuum but given the iPhone 8 was famously "bricked" by Helium affecting a MEMS oscillator - I'm unsure about that!

https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-a-helium-leak-disabled-e...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_system_...

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#218

Post by robocat »

ghc wrote: post #113
IAmBroom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big gambles have big risks. It's the gambler's folly, after a big win (ASML's EUV) to say, gee, we should have bought more lottery tickets! Next time, it all goes on red! What is no longer mentioned is that ASML made another big gamble at the time they started on EUV. They decided to make an all-in-one chip making machine that took silicon and output chips (instead of matrices of chip circuits laid out on a wafer). O…

Let's not forget the really big gamble (inventing EUV) was made in the 1990s by US national labs: Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and Lawrence Berkeley.

Every country tries to claim critical dependency for innovations. I guess you parochially mention that one because you remember that narrative (maybe because it makes you feel better).

I maliciously searched for examples of the French thinking they invented the transistor.

Turns out the French do have a claim of inventing it simultaneously (at the same time as Bell) and the French even commercialised their version since their tech had different parameters (Apparently it was two German inventors working for Westinghouse in France on a project for French telecoms as I recall). The history of invention/commercialisation is usually wierd.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#219

Post by jpfromlondon »

random3 wrote: post #141
quanto wrote: post #133

I have an interesting discussion with a senior colleague: why ASML? why are they by far the best? Their competitors are a few generations behind. The colleague claimed that there is no special magic. It's not that ASML is using some otherwise unknown laws of physics nor is any single step or component particularly special or novel. It's just that they meticulously optimized each step, and the sum of such steps is the…

Veritasium has a nice video about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0 Obviously, there are a lot of reasons why. But it boils down to having the vision, the belief and the strength to follow through over many years. It's important to not confound vision with random Kool-Aid. Instead it's grounded in research. That research is itself grounded in a strong vision and belief — it got laughed by the entire phys…

it's hard to recommend Veritasium on this subject when Asianometry exists... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsn1CUyXWs&list=PLKtxx9TnH7...
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