11 ms·

Whether it's Apple's latest M1 chip made by TSMC or Nvidia's latest GPU made by Samsung, it's needs to be manufactured using ASML's EUVs. The crazy part is, ASM

by httpz 5y ago

Whether it's Apple's latest M1 chip made by TSMC or Nvidia's latest GPU made by Samsung, it's needs to be manufactured using ASML's EUVs. The crazy part is, ASML was only able to ship 31 EUVs in 2020 and there was only about 100 EUVs in the world as of January this year.[1] [1] https://optics.org/news/12/1/28 https://optics.org/news/12/1/28

quickthrower2 5y ago
Is this something VC would help scale up? Or is it hitting some kind of hard limits of resources.
- klelatti 5y ago
  ASML has a market cap of c $350 billion. If they wanted to raise tens of billions on the public markets they could probably do it. Not VC territory at all. They're probably limited by the size of the market.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    Pure market forces don't seem to be enough in a bunch of places.
    - klelatti 5y ago
      That's probably true in general but ASML surely isn't a good example. Massive capital investment and extraordinary long term planning are the things that are sometimes considered to be difficult for the private sector.
      - narrator 5y ago
        Well SpaceX, but they mostly sell to the government though.
        youngtaff 5y ago
        Do they sell to the government or are they funded by the government i.e. without those government commitments would they exist? Same for much of US (and elsewhere's) private aerospace industries etc.
- cocoggu 5y ago
  My guess is that the limit is human resources. The machines are probably assembled by hand and they probably need highly-skilled and specialized engineers to work on it, such kind of profiles are rare. The demand is not large enough to industrialize the production of such a complex machine so you have to rely on humans.
- FastEatSlow 5y ago
  Each of their machines is custom and needs very specialised knowledge, so it's difficult to scale up. However, VC could encourage competition, which would help keep the chip industry healthy, as we all know what happens when a company has a monopoly in an industry.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    I'm a firm believer that at certain scales, competition becomes impractical to the point of irrelevance. The incentive structure has to exist to draw competitors into capital intensive markets like this and it just isn't there. As the article points out, this company has been pressured at geopolitical scales to deny China access. The fact the US government recognizes the value in denying China access because competition becomes impractical says a lot. China is filled with technical and engineering talent no different than the rest of the world and has its fair share of capital as an economic powerhouse. There's a lot of incentives for the government and people of China to develop their own competitor but it's recognized that this is impractical due to the level of proprietary knowledge, instruments, and skills needed to recreate the device. I'm confident they can produce a competitor if they choose but it'll be decades without any real competitor. Now pretend you're not the PRC but Joe Sixpack in the US and you want to enter the market. We need to drop these ridiculous ideas of competition regulating the markets. Even injecting VC money here is probably at irrelevant scale. I'm all for competition but we need to look for new models of market regulation. Competition just isn't it in many cases.
dmitriid 5y ago
Companies like these should be highlighted the next time there's a discussion on HN about Europe's lack of startups and unicorns.
- dtech 5y ago
  They are often mentioned in these context, along with Spotify, Adyen, SAP and a few others. It doesn't really fit the US-based narrative so is mostly ignored.
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  it was started 37 years ago and has a mkt cap of 350 bn. Not sure that qualifies as a startup, and neither does it serve as a counter pointer to "Europe's lack of startups and unicorns."
  - ren_engineer 5y ago
    and they are based on research done by the United States which they licensed, hence why the US is able to block them from exporting to China. All the UV lithography research was done by the US decades ago https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/ https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/
- fhe 5y ago
  these examples are so often named precisely because there are few others.
headmelted 5y ago
I do wonder if this is indicating a flaw in ASML’s business model more than anything else. The entire (massive) CPU business hinges on these machines in 2021 and given that I’m quite certain ASML hold substantial patents it seems like they should be offering these machines for per-wafer fees rather than selling them directly to TSMC and Samsung for them to print endless mountains of cash with them. AMD and Apple are utterly reliant on these devices, and no-one outside of tech even knows they exist. If no-one sees the massive value your company contributes that’s a problem with PR.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  EUV lithography is a strange beast. It requires extremely clean rooms and a lot of practical know-how and skills from the humans around it. Few companies are in position to actually use EUV machines to produce chips. So, in practice, ASML and the few companies are dependent on each other and probably found local optimum of coexistence. ASML does not want to push several top-level tech companies into search for alternatives and the top level tech companies do not want to waste their talent on replication of an already existing product unless necessary.
  - RandomWorker 5y ago
    This is very true, some one who has interacted with the tech in the past. It’s mind bending physics that if you do the cal a on a napkin you could do it, but all the materials have 1000 tweaks to deal with imperfections. They are also so far ahead, after uv it will be X-ray, and even electron etching. They are developing tech 10 years ago that still will get them further. At some point there will be enough power, for general consumer products to function just fine. Once a laptop can run email/web/word/excel smoothly, which I think is like 90% pc use, on a whole day battery. I think we don’t need more speed. It might be at that point, that some players step in. Try to build machines that work at similar quality. However, why not just get a second hand ASML? As far as I know once a new generation get bought the old goes to a lower tier processor manufacturers.
    - zardo 5y ago

by httpz 5y ago

quickthrower2 5y ago

Is this something VC would help scale up? Or is it hitting some kind of hard limits of resources.

klelatti 5y ago
ASML has a market cap of c $350 billion. If they wanted to raise tens of billions on the public markets they could probably do it. Not VC territory at all. They're probably limited by the size of the market.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  Pure market forces don't seem to be enough in a bunch of places.
  - klelatti 5y ago
    That's probably true in general but ASML surely isn't a good example. Massive capital investment and extraordinary long term planning are the things that are sometimes considered to be difficult for the private sector.
    - narrator 5y ago
      Well SpaceX, but they mostly sell to the government though.
      - youngtaff 5y ago
        Do they sell to the government or are they funded by the government i.e. without those government commitments would they exist? Same for much of US (and elsewhere's) private aerospace industries etc.
cocoggu 5y ago
My guess is that the limit is human resources. The machines are probably assembled by hand and they probably need highly-skilled and specialized engineers to work on it, such kind of profiles are rare. The demand is not large enough to industrialize the production of such a complex machine so you have to rely on humans.
FastEatSlow 5y ago
Each of their machines is custom and needs very specialised knowledge, so it's difficult to scale up. However, VC could encourage competition, which would help keep the chip industry healthy, as we all know what happens when a company has a monopoly in an industry.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  I'm a firm believer that at certain scales, competition becomes impractical to the point of irrelevance. The incentive structure has to exist to draw competitors into capital intensive markets like this and it just isn't there. As the article points out, this company has been pressured at geopolitical scales to deny China access. The fact the US government recognizes the value in denying China access because competition becomes impractical says a lot. China is filled with technical and engineering talent no different than the rest of the world and has its fair share of capital as an economic powerhouse. There's a lot of incentives for the government and people of China to develop their own competitor but it's recognized that this is impractical due to the level of proprietary knowledge, instruments, and skills needed to recreate the device. I'm confident they can produce a competitor if they choose but it'll be decades without any real competitor. Now pretend you're not the PRC but Joe Sixpack in the US and you want to enter the market. We need to drop these ridiculous ideas of competition regulating the markets. Even injecting VC money here is probably at irrelevant scale. I'm all for competition but we need to look for new models of market regulation. Competition just isn't it in many cases.

dmitriid 5y ago

Companies like these should be highlighted the next time there's a discussion on HN about Europe's lack of startups and unicorns.

dtech 5y ago
They are often mentioned in these context, along with Spotify, Adyen, SAP and a few others. It doesn't really fit the US-based narrative so is mostly ignored.
strikelaserclaw 5y ago
it was started 37 years ago and has a mkt cap of 350 bn. Not sure that qualifies as a startup, and neither does it serve as a counter pointer to "Europe's lack of startups and unicorns."
- ren_engineer 5y ago
  and they are based on research done by the United States which they licensed, hence why the US is able to block them from exporting to China. All the UV lithography research was done by the US decades ago https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/ https://www.eetimes.com/u-s-gives-ok-to-asml-on-euv-effort/
fhe 5y ago
these examples are so often named precisely because there are few others.

headmelted 5y ago

I do wonder if this is indicating a flaw in ASML’s business model more than anything else. The entire (massive) CPU business hinges on these machines in 2021 and given that I’m quite certain ASML hold substantial patents it seems like they should be offering these machines for per-wafer fees rather than selling them directly to TSMC and Samsung for them to print endless mountains of cash with them. AMD and Apple are utterly reliant on these devices, and no-one outside of tech even knows they exist. If no-one sees the massive value your company contributes that’s a problem with PR.

inglor_cz 5y ago
EUV lithography is a strange beast. It requires extremely clean rooms and a lot of practical know-how and skills from the humans around it. Few companies are in position to actually use EUV machines to produce chips. So, in practice, ASML and the few companies are dependent on each other and probably found local optimum of coexistence. ASML does not want to push several top-level tech companies into search for alternatives and the top level tech companies do not want to waste their talent on replication of an already existing product unless necessary.
- RandomWorker 5y ago
  This is very true, some one who has interacted with the tech in the past. It’s mind bending physics that if you do the cal a on a napkin you could do it, but all the materials have 1000 tweaks to deal with imperfections. They are also so far ahead, after uv it will be X-ray, and even electron etching. They are developing tech 10 years ago that still will get them further. At some point there will be enough power, for general consumer products to function just fine. Once a laptop can run email/web/word/excel smoothly, which I think is like 90% pc use, on a whole day battery. I think we don’t need more speed. It might be at that point, that some players step in. Try to build machines that work at similar quality. However, why not just get a second hand ASML? As far as I know once a new generation get bought the old goes to a lower tier processor manufacturers.
  - zardo 5y ago