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This is something I’ve noticed for a while now: All of the major semiconductor manufacturers use the same set of tooling. In particular, they all use EUV lithog

by _hypx 3y ago

This is something I’ve noticed for a while now: All of the major semiconductor manufacturers use the same set of tooling. In particular, they all use EUV lithography machines from ASML. So how can any one company maintain any sort of sustained lead? As a first order approximately, all of them should have the same level of fabrication capabilities. If TSMC tries to push too fast, they’ll run into major challenges. And if they figure something out, their competitors should match them in short order.

npunt 3y ago
Semiconductor tooling is of a level of complexity that there's a huge amount of skill, institutional knowledge, process, and some art in getting them doing what you want at yields that pay off and on fast schedules. Lead is maintained by having all of that. They're also extremely expensive ($10b+ to get to leading edge node), which is a huge barrier to entry and just about requires nation-state help, as is the case in Taiwan, Korea, and the US.
dvt 3y ago
That's like saying "all carpenters use the same hammers, how can one be better than the other?"—there's a lot more than goes into chip manufacturing than just the lithography machines. Not to mention that the lithography machines themselves are highly customizable and can technically work with different optical systems (not just the Carl Zeiss ones) and with different wafers (not just silicon ones), so there's a lot of room for experimentation.
- drlobster 3y ago
  [dead]
- _hypx 3y ago
  But we don’t live in a world where we expect carpenters to double the complexity of their output every 2 years. At some point, the theoretic limits of the tooling becomes a thing. I’m pretty sure you are confused about the optical system. All of the lithography machines have the same setup inside because only one company makes them (ASML). The next big upgrade involves upgrading the optics, but no one has that upgrade yet. We know, because again only company makes them and they haven’t produced them yet.
  - dvt 3y ago
    > All of the lithography machines have the same setup inside because only one company makes them (ASML). I've definitely read papers where universities fiddle with the internals of ASML machines, including the optics, to try out different things. I'd imagine R&D departments at Intel, Nvidia, etc. probably do the same, but I'm no expert.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    https://youtu.be/-EhDlXx3okU?t=203 https://youtu.be/-EhDlXx3okU?t=203 No, that's not how it works. Dialing in a process is extremely difficult, expensive, and iterative, and a fab has to do a lot of dialing in to make a billion chips per year that each have a billion transistors which will do a billion calculations per second for a billion seconds with zero errors. Give or take a few orders of magnitude here or there. It's a long tail that has to be chopped off -- so long that the number of players capable of chopping it off has gone from three digits to 3.
    - panarky 3y ago
      > It's a long tail that has to be chopped off Those ASML litho machines are astoundingly complex, with more parts and a more complex supply chain than a Boeing or Airbus commercial airliner. So many parts that each part and subassembly must have an outrageously long mean time between failure, something like 16 years, in order for the entire machine to be sufficiently reliable. No wonder only one company is able to make them.
  - ksec 3y ago
    Just a reminder you are on HN.
davnicwil 3y ago
I am far from an expert, mostly parroting what I've heard from actual experts, but I think it gets back perhaps to a similar question of why doesn't ASML 'just' start a fabrication business since they already have the tools, and at cost no less? The answer to that seemingly no brainer question is the exact same reason that TSMC have an edge over other fabs. There's a massive, incredible amount of complexity in the fabrication process, in particular doing it with economical yields - it's a completely separate business really. In fact it might be the latter that's the least copyable part. For sure once competitors see that something is possible, some valuable information has been exposed, but doing that economically at scale is another matter entirely - and that's where there's a business to compete with. That can't simply be reverse-engineered or copied because the myriad details of the process are incredibly closely guarded IP!
- akiselev 3y ago
  Even then getting ASML equipment at cost only saves a few hundred million. They'd still be left with almost $20 billion in other expenses like the hundreds of millions in robotics and material handling equipment (the most precise in the world), hundreds of millions in HVAC and electrical equipment (heavily specialized to fabs), hundreds of millions in chemical cleaning (ditto), hundreds of millions in structure dampening, hundreds of millions in doping and chemical vapor deposition equipment, all the permitting and civil infrastructure to support the fab (water and power), and so on and on for a very long list. The core competency of a semiconductor fab is getting all of that equipment to work together. It's more systems engineering (in the old school NASA sense) than anything else.
j_walter 3y ago
The tooling is only part of the equation...go read "Chip Wars" and it will give you a lot of insight into why TSMC is currently the leader. Your statements make a lot of assumptions and the landscape of semiconductor manufacturing is a lot more complex than you seem to realize.
ftxbro 3y ago
I heard it's so complicated that they have built up a reservoir of institutional knowledge and in-house expertise that would take ten years to reproduce. I've also heard this as the reason that if China were to capture Taiwan and TSMC intact (however likely that is or not) then they still couldn't run it competently without those people, or without those ten years of more work. I don't know if it's true or not, that's just what I heard.
mdasen 3y ago
First, I'd say that sometimes companies don't use the same tooling even if they could. One of the things that gave TSMC an advantage was that they did push EUV while Intel didn't. Intel did make some investments in EUV, but pushed off the commercialization of it. So even when companies ca use the same tooling, sometimes people think something is too expensive and that they can get more out of something cheaper. Beyond that, I'd say that we don't really want companies to have giant moats against competition. TSMC can keep an advantage as long as it keeps innovating. Having something a year before others can be important. Being able to produce better yields is important. Qualcomm and AMD wanted to move a bunch of their production to Samsung, but were disappointed in the yields despite Samsung having "the same process." > As a first order approximately, all of them should have the same level of fabrication capabilities Yes, but "approximately" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Each car manufacturer has "approximately" the same quality and value car. Windows/macOS/Linux are all "approximately" the same. One could easily reply that fabs are undifferentiated products and that is true to an extent, but there's a reason why Qualcomm and AMD went back to TSMC tail between their legs. > if they figure something out, their competitors should match them in short order. Again, I'd say "short order" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Are we talking a year? Two? Even when companies are using TSMC, they often can't get the latest process for a year or so after Apple because TSMC can't spin up capacity that fast - never mind a competitor that's trying to match TSMC. I think in basically any industry, it's hard to keep a lead unless you continue executing well. Of course, one could argue that it's easy to keep a lead - just not over a couple other extremely well-run companies. Intel, Samsung, and TSMC have a huge sustained lead over basically everyone else. Does that not count? It's not like we're seeing lots of companies going around grabbing ASML EUV machines and spinning up even 7nm fabs because it's "easy". Even 5nm has been around for 2.5 years now. In fact, why did AMD wait 2 years to get 5nm if they could have simply bought an ASML machine and started printing the chips? Ok, I should walk back from hyperbole. In some ways, I simply agree with you: they can't really have a sustained lead without continuing to put in work to stay 3-18 months ahead of the competition. However, I'd argue that a 6-12 month lead can be pretty big. Intel is looking to introduce new stuff like RibbonFET (a successor to FinFET) and PowerVia backside power delivery so there's a lot more than "just use ASML EUV machines" and there is a lot of space for companies to innovate and create leads. But we also don't necessarily want companies to have leads that are too durable. I guess: what is offering a durable lead to companies? Even companies that have well-differentiated products don't really survive well without continuous improvement. Some leads are more durable than others, but the investment and knowledge can be a durable lead. Heck, look at TSMC's efforts to build a US-based plant. It isn't "just ship them a machine to print chips." They're struggling to make it work despite the fact that there's literally nothing to "figure out" in terms of the technology. They're already producing 5nm chips. Why can't they just start doing that in the US? It's just ASML machines and knowledge they already have! If TSMC can't figure out how to make 5nm chips in the US easily, why would it be easy for another company to be able to produce 5nm chips at a different place just because they could similarly buy ASML equipment and "figure out" whatever TSMC has figured out? There's a lot more than just being able to order from the same parts bin.
1123581321 3y ago
The leading fabs have a closer relationship with TSMC that gets them working machines sooner and deeper knowledge transfer from staff. Plus what others have written.
ksec 3y ago
>In particular, they all use EUV lithography machines from ASML. So how can any one company maintain any sort of sustained lead? As a first order approximately Literally all modern Fabs uses DUV from ASML before EUV becomes a buzzword. So why did TSMC, or before that Intel has the lead? Why not Samsung Foundry, or Global Foundry? It is not first order approximation, it is a wrong assumption to begin with. We actually had a thread about it not long ago [1]. The common analogy would be you buy the same 3D printer and expect all the outcome from everyone to be the the same ( not roughly the same, but "the same"). But that is not how it works. And any TWINSCAN is millions times more complex. ( Some of these discussions and tones are really getting quite tiring ) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665076

by _hypx 3y ago

npunt 3y ago

Semiconductor tooling is of a level of complexity that there's a huge amount of skill, institutional knowledge, process, and some art in getting them doing what you want at yields that pay off and on fast schedules. Lead is maintained by having all of that. They're also extremely expensive ($10b+ to get to leading edge node), which is a huge barrier to entry and just about requires nation-state help, as is the case in Taiwan, Korea, and the US.

dvt 3y ago

That's like saying "all carpenters use the same hammers, how can one be better than the other?"—there's a lot more than goes into chip manufacturing than just the lithography machines. Not to mention that the lithography machines themselves are highly customizable and can technically work with different optical systems (not just the Carl Zeiss ones) and with different wafers (not just silicon ones), so there's a lot of room for experimentation.

drlobster 3y ago
[dead]
_hypx 3y ago
But we don’t live in a world where we expect carpenters to double the complexity of their output every 2 years. At some point, the theoretic limits of the tooling becomes a thing. I’m pretty sure you are confused about the optical system. All of the lithography machines have the same setup inside because only one company makes them (ASML). The next big upgrade involves upgrading the optics, but no one has that upgrade yet. We know, because again only company makes them and they haven’t produced them yet.
- dvt 3y ago
  > All of the lithography machines have the same setup inside because only one company makes them (ASML). I've definitely read papers where universities fiddle with the internals of ASML machines, including the optics, to try out different things. I'd imagine R&D departments at Intel, Nvidia, etc. probably do the same, but I'm no expert.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/-EhDlXx3okU?t=203 https://youtu.be/-EhDlXx3okU?t=203 No, that's not how it works. Dialing in a process is extremely difficult, expensive, and iterative, and a fab has to do a lot of dialing in to make a billion chips per year that each have a billion transistors which will do a billion calculations per second for a billion seconds with zero errors. Give or take a few orders of magnitude here or there. It's a long tail that has to be chopped off -- so long that the number of players capable of chopping it off has gone from three digits to 3.
  - panarky 3y ago
    > It's a long tail that has to be chopped off Those ASML litho machines are astoundingly complex, with more parts and a more complex supply chain than a Boeing or Airbus commercial airliner. So many parts that each part and subassembly must have an outrageously long mean time between failure, something like 16 years, in order for the entire machine to be sufficiently reliable. No wonder only one company is able to make them.
- ksec 3y ago
  Just a reminder you are on HN.

davnicwil 3y ago

I am far from an expert, mostly parroting what I've heard from actual experts, but I think it gets back perhaps to a similar question of why doesn't ASML 'just' start a fabrication business since they already have the tools, and at cost no less? The answer to that seemingly no brainer question is the exact same reason that TSMC have an edge over other fabs. There's a massive, incredible amount of complexity in the fabrication process, in particular doing it with economical yields - it's a completely separate business really. In fact it might be the latter that's the least copyable part. For sure once competitors see that something is possible, some valuable information has been exposed, but doing that economically at scale is another matter entirely - and that's where there's a business to compete with. That can't simply be reverse-engineered or copied because the myriad details of the process are incredibly closely guarded IP!

akiselev 3y ago
Even then getting ASML equipment at cost only saves a few hundred million. They'd still be left with almost $20 billion in other expenses like the hundreds of millions in robotics and material handling equipment (the most precise in the world), hundreds of millions in HVAC and electrical equipment (heavily specialized to fabs), hundreds of millions in chemical cleaning (ditto), hundreds of millions in structure dampening, hundreds of millions in doping and chemical vapor deposition equipment, all the permitting and civil infrastructure to support the fab (water and power), and so on and on for a very long list. The core competency of a semiconductor fab is getting all of that equipment to work together. It's more systems engineering (in the old school NASA sense) than anything else.

j_walter 3y ago

The tooling is only part of the equation...go read "Chip Wars" and it will give you a lot of insight into why TSMC is currently the leader. Your statements make a lot of assumptions and the landscape of semiconductor manufacturing is a lot more complex than you seem to realize.

ftxbro 3y ago

I heard it's so complicated that they have built up a reservoir of institutional knowledge and in-house expertise that would take ten years to reproduce. I've also heard this as the reason that if China were to capture Taiwan and TSMC intact (however likely that is or not) then they still couldn't run it competently without those people, or without those ten years of more work. I don't know if it's true or not, that's just what I heard.

mdasen 3y ago

First, I'd say that sometimes companies don't use the same tooling even if they could. One of the things that gave TSMC an advantage was that they did push EUV while Intel didn't. Intel did make some investments in EUV, but pushed off the commercialization of it. So even when companies ca use the same tooling, sometimes people think something is too expensive and that they can get more out of something cheaper. Beyond that, I'd say that we don't really want companies to have giant moats against competition. TSMC can keep an advantage as long as it keeps innovating. Having something a year before others can be important. Being able to produce better yields is important. Qualcomm and AMD wanted to move a bunch of their production to Samsung, but were disappointed in the yields despite Samsung having "the same process." > As a first order approximately, all of them should have the same level of fabrication capabilities Yes, but "approximately" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Each car manufacturer has "approximately" the same quality and value car. Windows/macOS/Linux are all "approximately" the same. One could easily reply that fabs are undifferentiated products and that is true to an extent, but there's a reason why Qualcomm and AMD went back to TSMC tail between their legs. > if they figure something out, their competitors should match them in short order. Again, I'd say "short order" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Are we talking a year? Two? Even when companies are using TSMC, they often can't get the latest process for a year or so after Apple because TSMC can't spin up capacity that fast - never mind a competitor that's trying to match TSMC. I think in basically any industry, it's hard to keep a lead unless you continue executing well. Of course, one could argue that it's easy to keep a lead - just not over a couple other extremely well-run companies. Intel, Samsung, and TSMC have a huge sustained lead over basically everyone else. Does that not count? It's not like we're seeing lots of companies going around grabbing ASML EUV machines and spinning up even 7nm fabs because it's "easy". Even 5nm has been around for 2.5 years now. In fact, why did AMD wait 2 years to get 5nm if they could have simply bought an ASML machine and started printing the chips? Ok, I should walk back from hyperbole. In some ways, I simply agree with you: they can't really have a sustained lead without continuing to put in work to stay 3-18 months ahead of the competition. However, I'd argue that a 6-12 month lead can be pretty big. Intel is looking to introduce new stuff like RibbonFET (a successor to FinFET) and PowerVia backside power delivery so there's a lot more than "just use ASML EUV machines" and there is a lot of space for companies to innovate and create leads. But we also don't necessarily want companies to have leads that are too durable. I guess: what is offering a durable lead to companies? Even companies that have well-differentiated products don't really survive well without continuous improvement. Some leads are more durable than others, but the investment and knowledge can be a durable lead. Heck, look at TSMC's efforts to build a US-based plant. It isn't "just ship them a machine to print chips." They're struggling to make it work despite the fact that there's literally nothing to "figure out" in terms of the technology. They're already producing 5nm chips. Why can't they just start doing that in the US? It's just ASML machines and knowledge they already have! If TSMC can't figure out how to make 5nm chips in the US easily, why would it be easy for another company to be able to produce 5nm chips at a different place just because they could similarly buy ASML equipment and "figure out" whatever TSMC has figured out? There's a lot more than just being able to order from the same parts bin.

1123581321 3y ago

The leading fabs have a closer relationship with TSMC that gets them working machines sooner and deeper knowledge transfer from staff. Plus what others have written.

ksec 3y ago

>In particular, they all use EUV lithography machines from ASML. So how can any one company maintain any sort of sustained lead? As a first order approximately Literally all modern Fabs uses DUV from ASML before EUV becomes a buzzword. So why did TSMC, or before that Intel has the lead? Why not Samsung Foundry, or Global Foundry? It is not first order approximation, it is a wrong assumption to begin with. We actually had a thread about it not long ago [1]. The common analogy would be you buy the same 3D printer and expect all the outcome from everyone to be the the same ( not roughly the same, but "the same"). But that is not how it works. And any TWINSCAN is millions times more complex. ( Some of these discussions and tones are really getting quite tiring ) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35665076