4 ms·

The death of Moore's Law will have as much to do with CFOs deciding that the investment isn't worth the return as it will with technological innovation. When In

by kurthr 10y ago

The death of Moore's Law will have as much to do with CFOs deciding that the investment isn't worth the return as it will with technological innovation. When Intel decided to layoff 12k last year, it seemed like the writing was on the wall. ITRS seemed to think so, anyway: https://www.hpcwire.com/2016/07/28/transistors-wont-shrink-beyond-2021-says-final-itrs-report/ https://www.hpcwire.com/2016/07/28/transistors-wont-shrink-b... Going from Tick-Tock to Tick-Tock-Tweak... and this year to Tick-Tock-Tweak-Tuck the fourth year of 14nm (still as compact as other companies 10nm) makes the slowdown palpable. Perhaps they will manage a 2.7x shrink at their "10nm node" with or without EUV, but it's not the straight scaling of yesteryear.

deepnotderp 10y ago
It's partially that, but EUV litho is REALLY hard to make at a low enough resolution.
- kurthr 10y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. EUV at 13nm (Extreme UV, after marketing with the name X-Ray Lithography failed) is much easier to make work at 10nm than the current multi-patterned immersion technology based on 193nm ArF excimer. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-good-progress-still-not-ready-for-prime-time http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-go... The problem with EUV is that the source power (laser excitation of plasma) is too low, making exposure times too long for the expense of the equipment.
  - dbcooper 10y ago
    "Shot noise" is a problem too, due to the high energy of the EUV photons.
  - deepnotderp 10y ago
    Yes that's true, but shot noise is a real problem.
    - kurthr 10y ago
      Yes, shot noise... secondary electrons, resist issues, mask issues are all real. Similar issues come up for immersion at these scales. It's no panacea (and hasn't even reached tact time parity), but nothing is at this point. What is amazing is that the investment in EUV has been going on for decades and still hasn't reach production. If they could run the EUV sources at 4 times their current power, there would be huge increases in equipment sales and conversely exposure and mask complexity would decrease substantially. Increased exposure dose could deal with some of the shot noise effects (only 3% at 10nm so less than 8% ITRS spec?). We would also probably see equipment free up to allow 14/20/28nm litho costs go down. So it's a win-win.
heisenbit 10y ago
Yeah. There are plenty of distress signs in the semiconductor ecosystem. Toshiba selling due to inability to invest, Mentor going to Siemens and Intel buying small tooling companies who are unable to sustain investment due to their customers having merged or gone out of business. It happens across the whole value chain. A few vertical integrated businesses are able to keep up for the time being. Whether for one, two or three generations remains to be seen.
- tarlinian 10y ago
  To be fair Toshiba's sale has nothing to do with their semi business (they lost so much money in their nuclear misadventure that they have to sell the only profitable portion of their business to pay off remaining debts)...and the semiconductor manufacturing has been consolidating for 20 years. I actually think that there is a chance for some newer customers to spring up in China due to the massive investment being underwritten by the Chinese government. The existing companies involved in chip manufacturing will be kept from merging by regulatory fiat (see AMAT-TEL, Lam-KLA getting squashed on the equipment side)...there's no way that TSMC, Intel or Samsung will be allowed to buy any of their competitors, and they can't sell to China because of CIFUS (or the Taiwan/Korea equivalent) interference. This means that if China is serious about getting into wafer manufacturing, they have to start from scratch. Since NAND is likely supply constrained for at least another 5 years, there is a chance they can pull it off.
  - heisenbit 10y ago
    The semiconductor business is increasingly becoming more capital intensive. Toshiba needs capital to plug holes elsewhere but they also need to invest otherwise their healthy chip business would fall back quickly. You are right, there is more than one reason for the sale.

by kurthr 10y ago

deepnotderp 10y ago

It's partially that, but EUV litho is REALLY hard to make at a low enough resolution.

kurthr 10y ago
I'm not sure what you mean. EUV at 13nm (Extreme UV, after marketing with the name X-Ray Lithography failed) is much easier to make work at 10nm than the current multi-patterned immersion technology based on 193nm ArF excimer. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-good-progress-still-not-ready-for-prime-time http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-go... The problem with EUV is that the source power (laser excitation of plasma) is too low, making exposure times too long for the expense of the equipment.
- dbcooper 10y ago
  "Shot noise" is a problem too, due to the high energy of the EUV photons.
- deepnotderp 10y ago
  Yes that's true, but shot noise is a real problem.
  - kurthr 10y ago
    Yes, shot noise... secondary electrons, resist issues, mask issues are all real. Similar issues come up for immersion at these scales. It's no panacea (and hasn't even reached tact time parity), but nothing is at this point. What is amazing is that the investment in EUV has been going on for decades and still hasn't reach production. If they could run the EUV sources at 4 times their current power, there would be huge increases in equipment sales and conversely exposure and mask complexity would decrease substantially. Increased exposure dose could deal with some of the shot noise effects (only 3% at 10nm so less than 8% ITRS spec?). We would also probably see equipment free up to allow 14/20/28nm litho costs go down. So it's a win-win.

heisenbit 10y ago

Yeah. There are plenty of distress signs in the semiconductor ecosystem. Toshiba selling due to inability to invest, Mentor going to Siemens and Intel buying small tooling companies who are unable to sustain investment due to their customers having merged or gone out of business. It happens across the whole value chain. A few vertical integrated businesses are able to keep up for the time being. Whether for one, two or three generations remains to be seen.

tarlinian 10y ago
To be fair Toshiba's sale has nothing to do with their semi business (they lost so much money in their nuclear misadventure that they have to sell the only profitable portion of their business to pay off remaining debts)...and the semiconductor manufacturing has been consolidating for 20 years. I actually think that there is a chance for some newer customers to spring up in China due to the massive investment being underwritten by the Chinese government. The existing companies involved in chip manufacturing will be kept from merging by regulatory fiat (see AMAT-TEL, Lam-KLA getting squashed on the equipment side)...there's no way that TSMC, Intel or Samsung will be allowed to buy any of their competitors, and they can't sell to China because of CIFUS (or the Taiwan/Korea equivalent) interference. This means that if China is serious about getting into wafer manufacturing, they have to start from scratch. Since NAND is likely supply constrained for at least another 5 years, there is a chance they can pull it off.
- heisenbit 10y ago
  The semiconductor business is increasingly becoming more capital intensive. Toshiba needs capital to plug holes elsewhere but they also need to invest otherwise their healthy chip business would fall back quickly. You are right, there is more than one reason for the sale.