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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

#241

Post by MarleTangible »

jltsiren wrote: post #193
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is preventing Zeiss from paying higher salaries to mirror grinders, so that young people consider that career over alternatives?

Uncertain long-term career prospects that depend on a single employer. If you pay enough to make long-term prospects irrelevant, you may end up attracting the wrong kind of people. People who can't be trained do the job well enough, or people who will quit after earning enough. And you may end up losing your existing employees. They may quit if they don't get paid as much as the new hires, or they may FIRE if they do…

Surely you would increase the salary of the current employees if you're hiring new people with higher salaries.

Also, it sounds like the entire premise is "people don't want to work because they're not being paid enough" which is enough of a good reason by itself.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#242

Post by MarleTangible »

aa-jv wrote: post #54
xattt wrote: post #48

> To ship one requires 40 freight containers, three cargo planes, and 20 trucks. Is this just restating the size of the same shipment three times?

No, its emphasizing that the size of the shipment necessitates multiple high capacity logistic steps.

So 40 containers carried transported by 20 trucks and then by 3 cargo planes?

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#243

Post by MarleTangible »

ag8 wrote: post #212

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…

I agree, for anyone who's not familiar with it, one is a marketing term while the other is the actual measurement.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#244

Post by lotsofpulp »

jltsiren wrote: post #201
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come FAANG companies don't have this same problem of people quitting after earning enough? They get paid much more, even without taking on the risk of being tied to a single employer. The answer is that some people do quit and retire early, but even more are attracted to that career like moths to a flame, and work until they can't. I do think they should raise pay for their existing employees at the same time. In…

It's a more diverse industry with many companies and many types of jobs. If you don't like one job, you can quit and try another. Which people tend to do multiple times in their careers. Software industry has always been plagued by attrition. Some companies pay well and mostly employ younger people. Older employees eventually filter out, either because they have already earned enough and prefer better work-life balan…

>And if you pay ridiculous money, you risk ridiculous consequences.

And if they do not, they risk ridiculous consequences. If Zeiss cannot afford to pay more, then it is underpricing its products.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#245

Post by skew-aberration »

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…

ASML actually did develop new (understanding of the) laws of physics, the so called Extended Nijboer-Zernike theory in the early 2000's (which extended diffraction optics to work in the high-NA regions relevant to modern lithography) and subsequently patented its application.

Zernike, a Nobel prize winning physicist who worked on optics, was also Dutch, and developed the original Zernike theory of aberrations in the mid 20th century. This was a vast improvement over previous theories as it was far more useful for optical design and analysis.

So the Dutch have a rich history of developing the most advanced physical theories for optical engineering (all the way back to Huygens even)

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#246

Post by KellyCriterion »

locallost wrote: post #182
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carl Zeiss Meditec /= Carl Zeiss. $AFX is the publicly traded non-semis division. Carl Zeiss AG is the parent company which is private

Correct. Funny enough though, their corporate structure and the name AG means they do have stocks, but they are not traded and 100% privately owned. For some reason I see this often with German companies, e.g. the German railway. Not sure why that is, although for the railway plausible since they are owned by the state that might eventually want to sell parts of it.

You create a German AG entity to make it easier to onboard new shareholders/offboard old shareholders.

In most entity types, this involves a lot of paperwork while its quite easy within an AG.

AG does not mean necessarily its publicly traded.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#247

Post by KellyCriterion »

quanto wrote: post #205
ijidak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the quant competitor Renaissance? The Medallion Fund?

No, not Rentech. While Rentech is truly marvelous, it has been around for a while. There is a new kid in town, and this kid is very very good. To the point that it drove out other veteran shops out of the same market it traded.

Who is this new kid in town?

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#248

Post by KellyCriterion »

kens wrote: post #82

Is the ASML machine actually the world's most complex machine under some metric, or is this a claim that someone made up? I.e., did someone actually compare the ASML machine to the Space Shuttle, LHC, Internet, and so forth and show that it is more complex under some definition? (I've done various historical questions, so I'm sensitive to how statements are sourced.) An orthogonal question is what makes sense as a me…

haha, I actually had exactly this question for myself and I asked Gemini in comparison to Falcon/Musk Rockets.

It said that from a complexity level to construct, the ASML Twin:EXE machine is much more complicated, esp. much more freh research was required to achieve their nanometer structures - a Falcon is a complex vehicle, but compared to "how much do we need to know to create it on an industrial scale",the ASML devices seems to be more complex.

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#249

Post by KellyCriterion »

GuB-42 wrote: post #150
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that US nuclear subs actually take the crown, but the design is so secret, that there's no way to verify.

I doubt that anything in the military is that advanced or complex, including nuclear subs. A big part of it is the secrecy itself. Things get difficult when you can't communicate. Your pool of candidates for the job is limited: you may not want people with foreign connections, some people don't want to work for the military, don't like the paperwork, don't like the idea that they can't value their skills for another…

> I doubt that anything in the military is that advanced

So they are not Cloud-native and there is no Slack?

/s

:-D

Re: ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips

#250

Post by infinite8s »

quanto wrote: post #205
ijidak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the quant competitor Renaissance? The Medallion Fund?

No, not Rentech. While Rentech is truly marvelous, it has been around for a while. There is a new kid in town, and this kid is very very good. To the point that it drove out other veteran shops out of the same market it traded.

QRT?
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