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US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

reuters.com

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#41

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker? https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su... Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!

It is wild that the founders have very little experience in the space, and that their claims are based on sparse research. That said, the Substack article doesn't seem any more credible. Other than the name DC Fusion LLC, I missed any indications that the founder was working on a fusion startup. The article correctly identifies as an opinion piece but doesn't seem worthy of credible referencing.

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about the technical details of lithography, but I do know that EUV lithography is very new tech that has been in production for less than 10 years and the current machines are basically rube goldberg devices. Given my lack of technical knowledge here, I can't say whether or nor this startup in particular is legit, but it does seem very much like the type of thing that could be disrupted by someone w…

EUV machines were in development for nearly 20 years before they could reach actual chip production. The secret sauce was not getting it to work, but getting it to work stable enough such that it can be sustained millions of times per second. I am sure there were other huge challenges in bringing to market though, I am not an expert on this either.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. The design is so complicated that the hard part is actually getting it to work reliably in production. So it could just be that the current way is the only fundamental design that works and there is no radically simpler way to make EUV lithography work, but 99% of the time there is.

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#43

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker? https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su... Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!

Already in bed with Peter Thiel, and by his twitter, ingratiating himself with Vance, Trump and Lutnick.

Breathless branding with the word "America" in every other sentence.

How long before the Trump admin decides to throw federal funds into the grift so these "investors" get paid?

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#44

This doesn’t seem plausible. Leading edge lithography requires you to be at (or beyond) the cutting edge in many realms - even with a breakthrough in one realm, I don’t understand how a startup could expect to catch up to ASML across the board in a few years. Their website is light on technical details and heavy on nationalistic fluff, which does not lend much confidence.

> investments from the Central Intelligence Agency-backed nonprofit firm In-Q-Tel

The CIA has stolen trade secrets in the past and the only thing that stopped them in recent history is their own policies. The CIA has a new director that has been violating international law more openly than ever.

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#45

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker? https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su... Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!

It is wild that the founders have very little experience in the space, and that their claims are based on sparse research. That said, the Substack article doesn't seem any more credible. Other than the name DC Fusion LLC, I missed any indications that the founder was working on a fusion startup. The article correctly identifies as an opinion piece but doesn't seem worthy of credible referencing.

I don’t have the expertise to say whether I agree with the conclusions of the post but the experience and track records of the founders are surely relevant? Happy to be shown evidence that these sections of the post are wrong.

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#46

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker? https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su... Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!

Already in bed with Peter Thiel, and by his twitter, ingratiating himself with Vance, Trump and Lutnick. Breathless branding with the word "America" in every other sentence. How long before the Trump admin decides to throw federal funds into the grift so these "investors" get paid?

They are called 'freedom chips'

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#47
post #2

Somewhere along the line people have to realise most of the cost in chip design goes to software. So while it is nice to have some competition to ASML, it wouldn't change the cost equation as much as people expect. And yes, ASML also have their own version using X-Ray in the pipeline.

You mean the cost of EDA software directly (paying Synopsys/Cadence for the software used to design, verify, and synthesize your own chips)? Or the actual R&D cost to design the chip itself? Or paying for prepackaged IP blocks (major ones like CPU cores, or lesser ones like I/O)?

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#48
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"X-ray" is just a word for light that falls within an arbitrary band of wavelength.

I think you have it backwards - light is a term used for specific bands of the EM spectrum. Nobody is calling their FM radio waves light emissions. Unless this is a naming collison with the already established x-rays.

It's an established term in physics. E.g., https://lightsources.org/

Re: US startup Substrate announces chipmaking tool that it says will rival ASML

#50

The same guys who couldn’t develop a sleep tracker? https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su... Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!

Thanks for this. I now know anyone supporting these guys are either dumb, getting scammed or part of the scam.
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