4 ms·

From my experience, no offense, when you pool together a bunch of also-ran teams together to catch up to the industry leader, you'd just get a larger also-ran t

From my experience, no offense, when you pool together a bunch of also-ran teams together to catch up to the industry leader, you'd just get a larger also-ran team. I also have reservations on whether the academia can surpass the speed of commercial R&D teams on semiconductor tech. I will believe it when I see it.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
Also rans? Are you implying that thr U.S. and Japan are "behind" Taiwan? If so, I don't think that is very accurate. The machines that allow Taiwanese companies to create computer circuits come from a Dutch company ASML (with the second most advanced machines coming from Nikon Japan). ASML's machines have over 4,000 parts in their own supply chains. Many of these are high technology which even ASML does not know how to produce. Many of them come from the U.S. and Europe. The EUV process ASML uses in its most advanced machines was only possible due to investments made by the U.S. government and U.S. companies. What is happening here is not an attempt by the U.S. and Japanese governments to compete with Taiwan. It's an investment to ensure the next generation of lithographic technology plays out much like the current generation. Meaning the U.S. it's allied governments and many of their respective companies invest enough to acquire leverage over the technology and thus are able to locked China and other countries out of it. Fabrication is far easier to catch up than bootstrapping. If a country started today, they could subsidize fabrication and within eighteen months they could be making strides to deliver more chips from within. It might literally take a decade or two for a new company to build ASMLs supply chains and replicate one of their machines and that would be 10-20 with no production growth, they would just at that point be getting started.
- terrorOf 4y ago
- freemint 4y ago
  While ASMLs machines are a critical element in the production chain of sub 7nm chips at scale however it is far from the only critical component. Reducing all of Taiwan's leadership to be about access to these machines is beyond ignorant. It is TSMC who integrates the ASML machine into a node. A node being made of dozens of machines performing hundreds of discrete steps with right parameters in the right order. It is TSMC who build fabs with enormously short lead times.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    I didn't do that. You put words into my mouth. I said the fabrication problem is easier to catch up on than the bootstrapping problem which is just obviously true. Chips are fabricated all over the world. TSMC obviously is an incredible company and has difficult challenges but the difference between them and other foundries is mostly about scale. Scale is something that typically you can invest in and pretty quickly make measurable progress. Bootstrapping a whole new lithographic process is not. That is something you would have to invest in for years with essentially nothing to show for it. That is a harder problem from a market standpoint and a political standpoint. But we're not talking generally about chip fabrication here. We're talking about what is going on with the investments from the U.S. and Japan in next generation chip production. And the bottom line is the investment here is made relatively unrelated to "competing" with Taiwan as a global chip exporter. The most likely thing is that the technology invested here will be used in Taiwan to fabricate chips.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cma 4y ago
EUV LLC, which eventually became ASML's tech, was created through government research labs partnered with the major semiconductor companies in the US: https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/asml-joins-euv-llc-team-0001 https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/asml-joins-euv-llc-team-... It's history as a government/corporate collaboration is the reason ASML can't export EUV machines to China without US permission.
kalleboo 4y ago
Japan's original chip industry lead was created by the government funding a bunch of also-rans to cooperate (and have each participant focus on one part of the job) instead of compete (where every team is spread too thin trying to do the whole hog) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwhU9goCiaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwhU9goCiaI
- rasz 4y ago
  Japan's electronic industry was build with tariffs, import restrictions, currency quotas, ownership limits, strict financial regulation, central planning and indirect subsidies. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43294946 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43294946 tldr just like China today you couldnt just import western electronics to Japan, or gasp own a controlling stake in Japanese companies. And this was the result: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/09/30/japan-and-the-big-squeeze/0fb1617e-8756-4390-a776-f1619d59869a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/09/30/j... "JAPAN AND THE BIG SQUEEZE September 30, 1990. HOW DID Japan destroy the American television industry? The secret history of that strategy reveals how Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese government first created an anti-competitive cartel ..." "Japan's raid on the American market dates back to 1956, when the largest Japanese manufacturers formed the Home Electronic Appliance Market Stabilization Council, an illegal production cartel. The intent of the cartel was to monopolize the domestic market for television receivers, radios and other home electric products and to exclude foreign imports. Once their home market was secure, they would launch a drive against the far richer American market." Frontline: Coming From Japan [The Fall Of The US Television Industry] (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    Well yeah, just like everyone else's industries. And the US government was silently encouraging it to create a Capitalist bulwark against Communism in Asia. That doesn't change that in the mid-70's the Japanese chip manufacturers were failing, and by "pooling together a bunch of also-ran teams together" they actually made better quality chips than the US, not just cheaper ones.

DubiousPusher 4y ago

Also rans? Are you implying that thr U.S. and Japan are "behind" Taiwan? If so, I don't think that is very accurate. The machines that allow Taiwanese companies to create computer circuits come from a Dutch company ASML (with the second most advanced machines coming from Nikon Japan). ASML's machines have over 4,000 parts in their own supply chains. Many of these are high technology which even ASML does not know how to produce. Many of them come from the U.S. and Europe. The EUV process ASML uses in its most advanced machines was only possible due to investments made by the U.S. government and U.S. companies. What is happening here is not an attempt by the U.S. and Japanese governments to compete with Taiwan. It's an investment to ensure the next generation of lithographic technology plays out much like the current generation. Meaning the U.S. it's allied governments and many of their respective companies invest enough to acquire leverage over the technology and thus are able to locked China and other countries out of it. Fabrication is far easier to catch up than bootstrapping. If a country started today, they could subsidize fabrication and within eighteen months they could be making strides to deliver more chips from within. It might literally take a decade or two for a new company to build ASMLs supply chains and replicate one of their machines and that would be 10-20 with no production growth, they would just at that point be getting started.

terrorOf 4y ago
freemint 4y ago
While ASMLs machines are a critical element in the production chain of sub 7nm chips at scale however it is far from the only critical component. Reducing all of Taiwan's leadership to be about access to these machines is beyond ignorant. It is TSMC who integrates the ASML machine into a node. A node being made of dozens of machines performing hundreds of discrete steps with right parameters in the right order. It is TSMC who build fabs with enormously short lead times.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  I didn't do that. You put words into my mouth. I said the fabrication problem is easier to catch up on than the bootstrapping problem which is just obviously true. Chips are fabricated all over the world. TSMC obviously is an incredible company and has difficult challenges but the difference between them and other foundries is mostly about scale. Scale is something that typically you can invest in and pretty quickly make measurable progress. Bootstrapping a whole new lithographic process is not. That is something you would have to invest in for years with essentially nothing to show for it. That is a harder problem from a market standpoint and a political standpoint. But we're not talking generally about chip fabrication here. We're talking about what is going on with the investments from the U.S. and Japan in next generation chip production. And the bottom line is the investment here is made relatively unrelated to "competing" with Taiwan as a global chip exporter. The most likely thing is that the technology invested here will be used in Taiwan to fabricate chips.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cma 4y ago

EUV LLC, which eventually became ASML's tech, was created through government research labs partnered with the major semiconductor companies in the US: https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/asml-joins-euv-llc-team-0001 https://www.photonicsonline.com/doc/asml-joins-euv-llc-team-... It's history as a government/corporate collaboration is the reason ASML can't export EUV machines to China without US permission.

kalleboo 4y ago

Japan's original chip industry lead was created by the government funding a bunch of also-rans to cooperate (and have each participant focus on one part of the job) instead of compete (where every team is spread too thin trying to do the whole hog) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwhU9goCiaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwhU9goCiaI

rasz 4y ago
Japan's electronic industry was build with tariffs, import restrictions, currency quotas, ownership limits, strict financial regulation, central planning and indirect subsidies. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43294946 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43294946 tldr just like China today you couldnt just import western electronics to Japan, or gasp own a controlling stake in Japanese companies. And this was the result: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/09/30/japan-and-the-big-squeeze/0fb1617e-8756-4390-a776-f1619d59869a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/09/30/j... "JAPAN AND THE BIG SQUEEZE September 30, 1990. HOW DID Japan destroy the American television industry? The secret history of that strategy reveals how Japanese manufacturers and the Japanese government first created an anti-competitive cartel ..." "Japan's raid on the American market dates back to 1956, when the largest Japanese manufacturers formed the Home Electronic Appliance Market Stabilization Council, an illegal production cartel. The intent of the cartel was to monopolize the domestic market for television receivers, radios and other home electric products and to exclude foreign imports. Once their home market was secure, they would launch a drive against the far richer American market." Frontline: Coming From Japan [The Fall Of The US Television Industry] (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c
- kalleboo 4y ago
  Well yeah, just like everyone else's industries. And the US government was silently encouraging it to create a Capitalist bulwark against Communism in Asia. That doesn't change that in the mid-70's the Japanese chip manufacturers were failing, and by "pooling together a bunch of also-ran teams together" they actually made better quality chips than the US, not just cheaper ones.