8 ms·

"looking to mass produce state-of-the art 2 nanometer logic chips in 2027 from an initial starting point of zero" They have bold goals

porphyra 3y ago
Historically, Canon and Nikon were some of the leading suppliers of photolithography equipment. However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech. Recently Canon is trying to make a comeback [1]. [1] https://arstechnica.com/reviews/2024/01/canon-plans-to-disrupt-chipmaking-with-low-cost-stamp-machine/ https://arstechnica.com/reviews/2024/01/canon-plans-to-disru...
- sexy_seedbox 3y ago
  Both Canon and Nikon were sleeping at the wheel when GoPro and DJI both dominated the action/sports camera and drone business.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And yet it was Sony that hurt their camera market shares the most, action cams are a nieche product. None of those have anything to do with chip making so.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >And yet it was Sony that hurt their camera market shares the most, action cams are a nieche product. Mirrorless/DSLRs and compacts have been further niche-ified by mobile phones. Many who previously would step up from compacts to a Mirrorless/DSLR have stopped and just use their (now vastly improved) phone cameras. And mirrorless and DSLRs are maybe more of a niche than action cameras (which tons of average Joes buy, not just extreme sports fans).
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    Canon and Nikon make more than half of their revenue from industrial or healthcare products. They sure wished for more profit on the customer business as well, but that's not their core competency anymore.
- baq 3y ago
  ASML took 20 years… even if they can do it twice as fast (not impossible but I have my reservations) it still means a fab is operational in about 2035-2040… better late than never I guess?
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Why just twice as fast? Once you know that something is doable, it works and the rough direction things can get done really really fast. The Bannister effect is a real thing that can be observed in so many areas. Chinese leaped ahead once the US banned exports to certain Chinese companies, Turks have become top players in the military drone business after the West didn't sell them the drones. I mean, obviously there's lots of work to be done but I think people who believe that others can’t do things they can do are very misguided. Laws of physics is the same everywhere and scientific research is quite open, engineers are everywhere and it only takes someone to invest resources to do something.
    - baq 3y ago
      When you look at what it takes to successfully manufacture chips at these feature sizes you start to believe in the anthropic principle, or maybe I should call it semiconductoric. Veterans in the field can hardly believe its at all possible. > Why just twice as fast? Once you know that something is doable, it works and the rough direction things can get done really really fast. I agree on the first part. The second part is full of details. The mirrors have to be just right. The lasers have to be just right. The timings have to be just right. There's a million other things that have to be just right and the path to get there may not be very parallelizable.
      - mrtksn 3y ago
        Sure its still hard but unlike those who did it first, those coming after don't have to guess as much and spend resources on dead ends. This is not Taliban getting into semiconductors, this is Japan who is already into semiconductors but lost its edge in this particular field but its leading in some other fields. Therefore they already have a considerable know how on mirrors and laser that they will have to improve on. IMHO the catch up will be much quicker and much cheaper than what the Europeans and Americans spent on to explore the path leading to what we have today.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Rapidus buys ASML machines, because it's the only available option and developing national machine isn't their focus
- formerly_proven 3y ago
  ASML productivized (in a two decade process with many partners) foundational research licensed from US national labs, research which the Japanese (Nikon & Canon) were barred from licensing due to their then-dominant position. Though it seems unlikely to me that Canon would've gone for it, considering that they never got into ArF lithography.
  - corford 3y ago
    I would love to know more about the inside history and origin story of ASML. Does anyone know of any good podcasts or blogs/interviews covering some of this?
    - tim333 3y ago
      'Why The World Relies On ASML For Machines That Print Chips' an 18 min CNBC piece is quite jolly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVHp6CAyQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVHp6CAyQ8
      - tim333 3y ago
        Update - I just watched it through and it's actually pretty interesting. A bit on the history, then how the tech works, then on the geopolitics of not supplying China with EUV and the like. Interviews the CEO and the Chip Wars guy. The tech's quite cool in the latest one with 13nm UV. It's absorbed by all known substances so has to operate in a vacuum and the light is produced by them squirting liquid tin at 4000 psi and then zapping the droplets with a 30 KW laser. The machine takes three fully loaded 747s to ship. I think this stuff may be a bit of a bottle neck with Sam Altman's proposal to invest $7tr in chip making - they are the only people making the state of the art machines and are pretty much flat out already.
        corford 3y ago
        Will watch. Thanks!
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech. Licensing: > To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government, but licensed and distributed under approval by DOE and Congress.[8] The CRADA consisted of a consortium of private companies and the Labs, manifested as an entity called the Extreme Ultraviolet Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC).[9] > Intel, Canon, and Nikon (leaders in the field at the time), as well as the Dutch company ASML and Silicon Valley Group (SVG) all sought licensing. Congress denied the Japanese companies the necessary permission as they were perceived as strong technical competitors at the time, and should not benefit from taxpayer-funded research at the expense of American companies.[10] In 2001 SVG was acquired by ASML, leaving ASML as the sole benefactor of the critical technology.[11] […] > This made the once small company ASML the world leader in the production of scanners and monopolist in this cutting edge technology and resulted in a record turnover of 18.6 billion € in 2021, dwarfing their competitors Canon and Nikon who were denied IP access. […] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithograph...
  - Andrex 3y ago
    First I've heard of this, that's absolutely awful.
    - Chris2048 3y ago
      Why?
      - Andrex 3y ago
        Do you think monopolies are generally bad or generally good?
        3y ago
senectus1 3y ago
of all the countries in the world capable of pulling something like that off. Japan is right up there.
- pas 3y ago
  Unfortunately very unlikely. What's more probable is they'll end up with someone taking the blame / escaping the madness through suicide because the miracle was not delivered on time. I'm rooting for them, but without even a working sub-10nm fab there ... well, it's the uphill battle of uphill battles. Are they willing to ask for outside guidance and accept it? Getting training from IBM seems like getting training from an old gas station clerk who used to work in the big fancy factory. (And TSMC is already building fabs, but that just means they will compete with them for labor, and those 100 veterans will just go and work there.) Luring legacy operations, sure, why not, but ... it doesn't make much sense. It's race to the bottom. If they want to do geopolitically useful thing they should put down their feet and spend on defense of Taiwan. "If chip supplies from Taiwan halt, ..." yes, economies will collapse. Chips will be the least of our problems. Unless they mean chips for smart bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants#Open_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    > Getting training from IBM seems like getting training from an old gas station clerk who used to work in the big fancy factory. IBM still does a lot of research in chip manufacturing, they revealed a 2nm chip 3 years ago. Arguably they don't do large scale production, and the 2nm isn't mass production technology, but they aren't exactly at the retired gas station clerk level. Honestly they might be a good choice, because who else? Why would TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Intel help a potential competitor?
    - blagie 3y ago
      Honestly, for Intel, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to get in on this game. It's just a question of getting the right deal. I really doubt they can compete with TSMC, Samsung, and GlobalFoundaries alone.
Detrytus 3y ago
In 2027 "2 nanometer" will be like 2 generations behind the state of the art... At least if you believe current Intel and TSMC roadmaps.
Night_Thastus 3y ago
Hahahahaha... Oh god, they're serious. To catch up to TSMC would take decades at this point, dumping endless money into it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it absolutely cannot be done in 3 years.

porphyra 3y ago

Historically, Canon and Nikon were some of the leading suppliers of photolithography equipment. However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech. Recently Canon is trying to make a comeback [1]. [1] https://arstechnica.com/reviews/2024/01/canon-plans-to-disrupt-chipmaking-with-low-cost-stamp-machine/ https://arstechnica.com/reviews/2024/01/canon-plans-to-disru...

sexy_seedbox 3y ago
Both Canon and Nikon were sleeping at the wheel when GoPro and DJI both dominated the action/sports camera and drone business.
- hef19898 3y ago
  And yet it was Sony that hurt their camera market shares the most, action cams are a nieche product. None of those have anything to do with chip making so.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >And yet it was Sony that hurt their camera market shares the most, action cams are a nieche product. Mirrorless/DSLRs and compacts have been further niche-ified by mobile phones. Many who previously would step up from compacts to a Mirrorless/DSLR have stopped and just use their (now vastly improved) phone cameras. And mirrorless and DSLRs are maybe more of a niche than action cameras (which tons of average Joes buy, not just extreme sports fans).
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  Canon and Nikon make more than half of their revenue from industrial or healthcare products. They sure wished for more profit on the customer business as well, but that's not their core competency anymore.
baq 3y ago
ASML took 20 years… even if they can do it twice as fast (not impossible but I have my reservations) it still means a fab is operational in about 2035-2040… better late than never I guess?
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Why just twice as fast? Once you know that something is doable, it works and the rough direction things can get done really really fast. The Bannister effect is a real thing that can be observed in so many areas. Chinese leaped ahead once the US banned exports to certain Chinese companies, Turks have become top players in the military drone business after the West didn't sell them the drones. I mean, obviously there's lots of work to be done but I think people who believe that others can’t do things they can do are very misguided. Laws of physics is the same everywhere and scientific research is quite open, engineers are everywhere and it only takes someone to invest resources to do something.
  - baq 3y ago
    When you look at what it takes to successfully manufacture chips at these feature sizes you start to believe in the anthropic principle, or maybe I should call it semiconductoric. Veterans in the field can hardly believe its at all possible. > Why just twice as fast? Once you know that something is doable, it works and the rough direction things can get done really really fast. I agree on the first part. The second part is full of details. The mirrors have to be just right. The lasers have to be just right. The timings have to be just right. There's a million other things that have to be just right and the path to get there may not be very parallelizable.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      Sure its still hard but unlike those who did it first, those coming after don't have to guess as much and spend resources on dead ends. This is not Taliban getting into semiconductors, this is Japan who is already into semiconductors but lost its edge in this particular field but its leading in some other fields. Therefore they already have a considerable know how on mirrors and laser that they will have to improve on. IMHO the catch up will be much quicker and much cheaper than what the Europeans and Americans spent on to explore the path leading to what we have today.
fomine3 3y ago
Rapidus buys ASML machines, because it's the only available option and developing national machine isn't their focus
formerly_proven 3y ago
ASML productivized (in a two decade process with many partners) foundational research licensed from US national labs, research which the Japanese (Nikon & Canon) were barred from licensing due to their then-dominant position. Though it seems unlikely to me that Canon would've gone for it, considering that they never got into ArF lithography.
- corford 3y ago
  I would love to know more about the inside history and origin story of ASML. Does anyone know of any good podcasts or blogs/interviews covering some of this?
  - tim333 3y ago
    'Why The World Relies On ASML For Machines That Print Chips' an 18 min CNBC piece is quite jolly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVHp6CAyQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSVHp6CAyQ8
    - tim333 3y ago
      Update - I just watched it through and it's actually pretty interesting. A bit on the history, then how the tech works, then on the geopolitics of not supplying China with EUV and the like. Interviews the CEO and the Chip Wars guy. The tech's quite cool in the latest one with 13nm UV. It's absorbed by all known substances so has to operate in a vacuum and the light is produced by them squirting liquid tin at 4000 psi and then zapping the droplets with a 30 KW laser. The machine takes three fully loaded 747s to ship. I think this stuff may be a bit of a bottle neck with Sam Altman's proposal to invest $7tr in chip making - they are the only people making the state of the art machines and are pretty much flat out already.
      - corford 3y ago
        Will watch. Thanks!
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
throw0101c 3y ago
> However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech. Licensing: > To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government, but licensed and distributed under approval by DOE and Congress.[8] The CRADA consisted of a consortium of private companies and the Labs, manifested as an entity called the Extreme Ultraviolet Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC).[9] > Intel, Canon, and Nikon (leaders in the field at the time), as well as the Dutch company ASML and Silicon Valley Group (SVG) all sought licensing. Congress denied the Japanese companies the necessary permission as they were perceived as strong technical competitors at the time, and should not benefit from taxpayer-funded research at the expense of American companies.[10] In 2001 SVG was acquired by ASML, leaving ASML as the sole benefactor of the critical technology.[11] […] > This made the once small company ASML the world leader in the production of scanners and monopolist in this cutting edge technology and resulted in a record turnover of 18.6 billion € in 2021, dwarfing their competitors Canon and Nikon who were denied IP access. […] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithograph...
- Andrex 3y ago
  First I've heard of this, that's absolutely awful.
  - Chris2048 3y ago
    Why?
    - Andrex 3y ago
      Do you think monopolies are generally bad or generally good?
      - 3y ago

senectus1 3y ago

of all the countries in the world capable of pulling something like that off. Japan is right up there.

pas 3y ago
Unfortunately very unlikely. What's more probable is they'll end up with someone taking the blame / escaping the madness through suicide because the miracle was not delivered on time. I'm rooting for them, but without even a working sub-10nm fab there ... well, it's the uphill battle of uphill battles. Are they willing to ask for outside guidance and accept it? Getting training from IBM seems like getting training from an old gas station clerk who used to work in the big fancy factory. (And TSMC is already building fabs, but that just means they will compete with them for labor, and those 100 veterans will just go and work there.) Luring legacy operations, sure, why not, but ... it doesn't make much sense. It's race to the bottom. If they want to do geopolitically useful thing they should put down their feet and spend on defense of Taiwan. "If chip supplies from Taiwan halt, ..." yes, economies will collapse. Chips will be the least of our problems. Unless they mean chips for smart bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants#Open_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
- mrweasel 3y ago
  > Getting training from IBM seems like getting training from an old gas station clerk who used to work in the big fancy factory. IBM still does a lot of research in chip manufacturing, they revealed a 2nm chip 3 years ago. Arguably they don't do large scale production, and the 2nm isn't mass production technology, but they aren't exactly at the retired gas station clerk level. Honestly they might be a good choice, because who else? Why would TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Intel help a potential competitor?
  - blagie 3y ago
    Honestly, for Intel, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to get in on this game. It's just a question of getting the right deal. I really doubt they can compete with TSMC, Samsung, and GlobalFoundaries alone.

Detrytus 3y ago

In 2027 "2 nanometer" will be like 2 generations behind the state of the art... At least if you believe current Intel and TSMC roadmaps.

Night_Thastus 3y ago

Hahahahaha... Oh god, they're serious. To catch up to TSMC would take decades at this point, dumping endless money into it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it absolutely cannot be done in 3 years.