Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–77 of 77 posts

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

#71

Post by armada651 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #39
armada651 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually relatively easy to make a lithography machine that can etch features beyond what EUV can do. You simply use an electron scanning beam rather than photons. It's what the industry uses to create the masks used in lithography machines, but it could just as easily be used to make the actual chip. The problem is that it doesn't scale, at all. A scanning process is way too slow to be useful in mass productio…

Interesting! Makes me think of old 1990s X-Files episodes with chips under a microscope “smaller than we can produce”. I wonder if the government makes small batches of bespoke chips that are super miniature based on non scalable processes, and how far back in time would they have been able to develop 1nm chips for example?

The node sizes have become more of marketing term, so it's more useful to look at the half-pitch resolution when doing comparisons. In 2007 researchers demonstrated they could reach a 15nm half-pitch using an electron scanning beam. [1] Whereas ASML reliably achieved this resolution using EUV around 2017.

Thus in the early 2000s you would be about 10 years ahead using electron scanning beam lithography. However that assumes you have all the tooling and transistor designs to actually create a working chip at that resolution. Showing you can etch a feature at nanometer scale is one thing, actually using it to create a working chip is a whole other ball game.

[1] https://spie.org/news/0599-double-exposure-makes-dense-high-...

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

#72

Post by fennecbutt »

ugh123 wrote: post #68
klelatti wrote: post #27

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!

This is 100% a scam or vaporware. What a waste of investment dollars.

Money laundering. Or more of the usual, in that the rich have so much money that they've never had to invest intelligently. Just scream for endless growth and throw darts at the dart board.

That way when you hit the bullseye, you'll make da hueg profitz while all the employees of the company can't afford to buy houses.

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

#73

Post by fennecbutt »

armada651 wrote: post #35
cowthulhu wrote: post #4

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.

It is actually relatively easy to make a lithography machine that can etch features beyond what EUV can do. You simply use an electron scanning beam rather than photons. It's what the industry uses to create the masks used in lithography machines, but it could just as easily be used to make the actual chip. The problem is that it doesn't scale, at all. A scanning process is way too slow to be useful in mass productio…

Lmao no it's not "relatively easy"

Funnily enough Asianometry just did a video on tsmcs new masks and how the machines involved WERE particularly hard to develop, "Multi-Beam Mask Writer" that uses hundreds of thousands of electron beams (after splitting) to accomplish its task.

Nothing about that industry is easy.

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

#74

Post by fennecbutt »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #60
DeonRob wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this has 0 to do with price and if they win the fact that the US will choose its local competitor over them wouldnt be because of price

> local competitor Meh, ASML could be ordered to move to the US and they would comply. It's not necessary, cf. Nexperia.

I should hope that they wouldn't. In fact I presume they wouldn't. Without ASML or TSMC, some of the most valuable American companies would be fucked.

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

#75

Post by LarsDu88 »

armada651 wrote: post #35
cowthulhu wrote: post #4

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.

It is actually relatively easy to make a lithography machine that can etch features beyond what EUV can do. You simply use an electron scanning beam rather than photons. It's what the industry uses to create the masks used in lithography machines, but it could just as easily be used to make the actual chip. The problem is that it doesn't scale, at all. A scanning process is way too slow to be useful in mass productio…

At best they will manufacture masks. But that was already the "easy" part right?

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

#76

Post by smartbit »

jgon wrote: post #6

Just a few days ago this company came up on HN as part of a substack post which pointed out the numerous warning signs that this company is likely a scam, so its crazy to see them given so much credulous reporting from mainstream media. After persuasively demonstrating an inability to ship a fancy alarm clock even with 100MM in funding at his last startup, the founder has now decided to turn his attention to easily s…

> the decades of insane hard science and engineering

Don’t forget the Century of engineering knowledge at Zeiss who deliver the mirrors in the ASML machines. See below https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45745536#45813952

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

#77

Post by armada651 »

fennecbutt wrote: post #73
armada651 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually relatively easy to make a lithography machine that can etch features beyond what EUV can do. You simply use an electron scanning beam rather than photons. It's what the industry uses to create the masks used in lithography machines, but it could just as easily be used to make the actual chip. The problem is that it doesn't scale, at all. A scanning process is way too slow to be useful in mass productio…

Lmao no it's not "relatively easy" Funnily enough Asianometry just did a video on tsmcs new masks and how the machines involved WERE particularly hard to develop, "Multi-Beam Mask Writer" that uses hundreds of thousands of electron beams (after splitting) to accomplish its task. Nothing about that industry is easy.

Emphasis on the "relative", I meant relative to actually developing a successor to EUV that can be used in mass production.
Post reply on HN