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How An ASML Lithography Machine Moves a Wafer [video]
- baq 3y agoThe last bit blew me socks off. LOC count in the billions? Holy npm Batman.
- avs733 3y agoIts worth noting...there are sub systems upon subsystems at play here. I'll bet there are probably around 100 discrete computers within a modern lithography tool. It is more like (well...literally is) a network as opposed to a single computer.
- 0xDEADFED5 3y agoi usually skip over video links, but this is exceptional. it's a great explanation with detailed pictures/charts/etc.
- epistasis 3y agoAsianometry is really great. Some of the points in the DNA sequencing videos, an area I know well unlike chip fabbing, had very slight inaccuracies or maybe just incorrect focus, but they are so much better than other sources that I trust all his videos. The detail was fantastic and my harshest complaints were minor.
- andbberger 3y agothe brain like computer one was also quite off. however neuroscience is both vastly more complex and less accessible to the layman than photolithography, so i'm all too happy to let the Gell-Mann amnesia wash over me and enjoy some decent infotainment
- cf1241290841 3y agoIts worth mentioning that blu ray players and burners work at 150nm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high-definition_optical_disc_formats#/media/File:Comparison_CD_DVD_HDDVD_BD.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_high-definition_... There is a paper from 10 years ago where someone used one for making 450nm lithography https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/High-resolution%2C-low-cost-laser-lithography-using-a-Rothenbach-Gupta/4daf4b2b878204f9cfc2126cda0966655b000c63 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/High-resolution%2C-low...
- ur-whale 3y ago1.2B lines of code (end of video) strikes me as really a whole lot for an industrial control system. Yes, these machines are awfully complex, but 1.2 billion ? Really ?
- cf1241290841 3y agoASML have a defacto monopoly. These machines being this complicated is a giant plus for them. edit: To give an example from another industry, Dave from EEVBlog has a nice teardown for a DLP projector from the upper price segment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3eGqjV9yG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3eGqjV9yG0 You can argue that an important design criteria building this was often the pricetag of the end product.
- baq 3y agoOTOH the reason for their monopoly isn’t for the lack of trying from the competition… it’s amazing they got EUV to work at commercial scale.
- cf1241290841 3y agoMost definitively, every new generation they put out is a technological marvel.
- danpalmer 3y agoThis equates roughly to 1k developers writing net 1000 lines per day, every day for 5 years. While it's unlikely, the numbers aren't actually as far off as I expected. Maybe they have 10k developers. Maybe the systems have been worked on for 20 years, maybe devs are only doing 100 lines a day. Lots of combinations come to the right order of magnitude here. However, most engineers in teams of 1k-10k aren't this productive (not necessarily their fault), and much development is rewrites, so I suspect that the actual amount is about an order of magnitude lower. What might make up the numbers in order for this to be the "headline" summary number, could be that only net lines were counted, or that they use some sort of monorepo where they have e.g. all of Python committed in, all of GCC/LLVM or other toolchains, etc. Add a few toolchains like that and you'll quickly make up the numbers I'm sure.
- contingencies 3y agoAs an Australian, great to see the tree kangaroo reference.
- bufferoverflow 3y agoI wish videos were to the point. I really wanted to know how the wafer is moved. But it goes on and on about history and what the machines are like and light sources.
- sergj 3y agoTrue, but the comparison with old technology makes the video more interesting. The replacement for the hydraulic actuators and also the twin scanning system are motivated by the historical development.
- whywhywhywhy 3y agoI just wanted to see it moving but the video doesn't ever deliver on that.
- heisenbit 3y agoDetails were missing and it was surprising that 120 wafers per hour boils down to 1 every two minutes. I got further confused when an earlier x/y positioning was related to a later vertical positioning in context of magnetic levitation.
- dirtyhippiefree 3y ago> 120 wafers per hour boils down to 1 every two minutes Unsure if I’m missing something, but the math looks inverted…120 an hour is two per minute, by the numbers…
- mathematicaster 3y agoTo deal with that I often watch at 2x and scroll aggressively.
- bob1029 3y agoIf you think this is cool, you should see the system responsible for moving the wafers between the tools. In the industry, the robotic system that moves the lots through the factory is what makes all of the economics viable. If a human has to move wafers between tools manually, none of us would be using the devices we have today. The AMHS is where all the magic comes together. It's really easy to get laser focused on one dimension, tool or metric, but that makes it hard to understand the entire game. Semiconductor mfg is all about a system of systems taken to the extreme and the robot that ties all the physical tools together is doing a ton of heavy lifting with regard to integration.
- schiffern 3y agoBut, how do workers fall in love while handing each other wafers?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wrsZog8qXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wrsZog8qXg
- bob1029 3y agoIf those wafers were a modern process node, they would have to be scrapped immediately after that kind of handling.
- ravetcofx 3y agoI think even back when that was filmed it was silly. It was just some cute scene that would have no reality in any foundry
- vanderZwan 3y agoWeirdly appropriate for a romantic fantasy
- vanderZwan 3y agoCan't believe that that song is already almost of legal drinking age (in the US)
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- yetihehe 3y agoI'm distantly remembering old video about someone shouting at hard disk rack. Those machines are probably acting like a giant microphones when just moving air around is enough to have a too big effect on position measurements. [Engineer monitors a EUV machine] [Distant farting sound, machine instantly flashes yellow light for a brief moment] Carl [shouts back]: Bob, for fsck sake, told you to stop with the beans! [Machine throws red light and discards current wafer]. Carl [whispers to himself]: Ah crap.
- efm 3y agoBrendan Greg, illustrating the effectiveness of dtrace, by shouting in a datacenter[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4
- qwertox 3y agoIt's a bit scary to think how much depends on the expertise of this company and their ability do produce those machines. I recently got recommended the video "Imaging at ASML" [0] and it absolutely blew my mind. If you decide to watch it, don't ditch it before you see the animations of the light waves and the problems that need to be solved. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlZ8KYVtPU
- vanderZwan 3y agoHuygens Optics is a great YT channel for anyone interested in deep dives into optics, btw.
- cf1241290841 3y agoI especially liked his ZEISS videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUOfNa8n6mQ&list=PLaLGh7vzNIRScvMxObGCKbyZE85mVRJZT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUOfNa8n6mQ&list=PLaLGh7vzNI... The stuff you find on ebay is just amazing.
- alephnerd 3y ago> expertise of this company and their ability do produce those machines The core IP for EUV Lithography is still owned by the US DoE (LLNL, LBL, and Sandia), and they licensed it to Applied Materials a couple years ago. They even released an EUV Lithography etcher last year that doesn't compete with ASML's IP but complements and simplifies the process. Applied Materials and ASML don't directly compete in the EUV Lithography space, but in a couple years there will be less dependence on ASML alone.
- miohtama 3y agoOver 1.2B lines of code. Nice.
- client4 3y agoI used to work for SemiTool (now Applied Materials) in high school and it's amazing how big each machine is. I was tasked with disassembling a SUV sized machine that was used to coat the wafer in copper. Only one of hundreds used in a fab line.