3 ms·

I apologize for my ignorance here. I know pretty much nothing about chip fabrication. My question is: How long is it expected that ASML will be the sole provid

I apologize for my ignorance here. I know pretty much nothing about chip fabrication. My question is: How long is it expected that ASML will be the sole provider _on the planet_ for these lithography machines? Is their secret sauce literally impossible to replicate? It’s fascinating how one of the most important pieces of tech regarding the future is held by one entity.

baybal2 6y ago
Canon, and Nikon definitely have money to catch up. What I believe made them to start to fall behind around the time of first immersion tools is unwillingness to work with academia, and general closednes. Too much NIH in other words. Latest litho equipment is a multidomain know how which is not humanly possible to internalise inside a single company these days. Japanese were fine when they were able to just ride on their superior optics expertise alone, and just put more, and more monstrous optics on the tool to achieve higher resolution. But that model definitely broke when optics alone became insufficient to achieve a shrink. Now, a node shrink is an industry-wide effort no company alone can sell as a single package. EUV is not only about a light source: Godly level of mechanical engineering to articulate wafer stages, and the reticle. Work with deep vacuum systems, and materials. New lithography chemistry, photoresists in particular. Mirrors manufacturing. Alignment tech. EUV Mask tech. EUV inspection, defectoscopy and metrology. EDAs, and cell design.
- smartbit 6y ago
  Thom Hogan for a few decades reports on Nikon product strategy & financials. From most recent article with comment on Nikons financial situation: > That said, if I were one of those financial rating companies, I'd be downgrading Nikon's rating at the moment. You know, from something like A to BBB (using Standard & Poor's rating board). (Nikon publishes their Japan Credit Rating Agency value, which is currently A+/Negative for long-term debt. That would be the third highest rating, or "a high level of certainty to honor the financial obligations," though the outlook [Negative] is that the rating might be lowered.) https://bythom.com/newsviews/archives/12-2020.html https://bythom.com/newsviews/archives/12-2020.html
joelbluminator 6y ago
The Chinese will try to replicate it for sure. Might take awhile though.
czierleyn 6y ago
There was an interview with the ASML CEO recently in Dutch newspapers and what he said was that the succes of ASML is that it created a very tight knit ecosystem of companies that are all very important for ASML's success. Copying the success of ASML is so difficult, because it's not just one company you need to copy, but a whole ecosystem of highly specialised companies.

baybal2 6y ago

Canon, and Nikon definitely have money to catch up. What I believe made them to start to fall behind around the time of first immersion tools is unwillingness to work with academia, and general closednes. Too much NIH in other words. Latest litho equipment is a multidomain know how which is not humanly possible to internalise inside a single company these days. Japanese were fine when they were able to just ride on their superior optics expertise alone, and just put more, and more monstrous optics on the tool to achieve higher resolution. But that model definitely broke when optics alone became insufficient to achieve a shrink. Now, a node shrink is an industry-wide effort no company alone can sell as a single package. EUV is not only about a light source: Godly level of mechanical engineering to articulate wafer stages, and the reticle. Work with deep vacuum systems, and materials. New lithography chemistry, photoresists in particular. Mirrors manufacturing. Alignment tech. EUV Mask tech. EUV inspection, defectoscopy and metrology. EDAs, and cell design.

smartbit 6y ago
Thom Hogan for a few decades reports on Nikon product strategy & financials. From most recent article with comment on Nikons financial situation: > That said, if I were one of those financial rating companies, I'd be downgrading Nikon's rating at the moment. You know, from something like A to BBB (using Standard & Poor's rating board). (Nikon publishes their Japan Credit Rating Agency value, which is currently A+/Negative for long-term debt. That would be the third highest rating, or "a high level of certainty to honor the financial obligations," though the outlook [Negative] is that the rating might be lowered.) https://bythom.com/newsviews/archives/12-2020.html https://bythom.com/newsviews/archives/12-2020.html

joelbluminator 6y ago

The Chinese will try to replicate it for sure. Might take awhile though.

czierleyn 6y ago

There was an interview with the ASML CEO recently in Dutch newspapers and what he said was that the succes of ASML is that it created a very tight knit ecosystem of companies that are all very important for ASML's success. Copying the success of ASML is so difficult, because it's not just one company you need to copy, but a whole ecosystem of highly specialised companies.