3 ms·

Engineering wise Intel was part of EUV LLC in the late 90s but sold off their portion later in the 2000s I believe. It was a public/private partnership to deve

by cma 3y ago

Engineering wise Intel was part of EUV LLC in the late 90s but sold off their portion later in the 2000s I believe. It was a public/private partnership to develop EUV lithography and is the reason the US is able to dictate EUV machines not go to China.

wslh 3y ago
How is your answer connected with my question?
- cma 3y ago
  They did some of the engineering behind the fundamental tech but later dissociated from it, then later didn't invest in buying and integrating it (EUV machines) when it was on the verge of production and missed out. I believe their first in-house fabbed chips with EUV only released within the last month or so, Meteor Lake. It takes ~3 years to stand up a fab and has only been 5-6 since EUV was proved out with first mass production.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  Trying to ELI5-style compress an answer to 'explain the chip industry' means you have to be very opinionated in a way that's uncomfortable, and the way the question was framed, part of the answer will sound wrong to you. TL;DR: TSMC bet on a particular manufacturing method (EUV), and it paid off. The company that makes the machines for that method is absurdly backordered. Also, people way overrate how ahead TSMC was/is, there was a halycon moment where Apple went ARM on desktop _and_ had exclusivity on TSMC's best node improvement in years. People were doing Apple's to oranges, ascribing the improvements from the die shrink to Apple's genius / TSMC's manufacturing. For verification dig into Apple community's in-depth reaction to recent M3 release, you'll find the take is generally def. not worth the upgrade if you have M2.
  - cma 3y ago
    iPod also won because of an exclusive deal on harddrives made by Toshiba and others with the iPod mini. Not Jony Ive design or the wheel interface.
- brudgers 3y ago
  If you are interested in a lay view of the semi-conductor industry, I suggest the rabbit-hole of Asianometry's back catalog.

by cma 3y ago

wslh 3y ago

How is your answer connected with my question?

cma 3y ago
They did some of the engineering behind the fundamental tech but later dissociated from it, then later didn't invest in buying and integrating it (EUV machines) when it was on the verge of production and missed out. I believe their first in-house fabbed chips with EUV only released within the last month or so, Meteor Lake. It takes ~3 years to stand up a fab and has only been 5-6 since EUV was proved out with first mass production.
refulgentis 3y ago
Trying to ELI5-style compress an answer to 'explain the chip industry' means you have to be very opinionated in a way that's uncomfortable, and the way the question was framed, part of the answer will sound wrong to you. TL;DR: TSMC bet on a particular manufacturing method (EUV), and it paid off. The company that makes the machines for that method is absurdly backordered. Also, people way overrate how ahead TSMC was/is, there was a halycon moment where Apple went ARM on desktop _and_ had exclusivity on TSMC's best node improvement in years. People were doing Apple's to oranges, ascribing the improvements from the die shrink to Apple's genius / TSMC's manufacturing. For verification dig into Apple community's in-depth reaction to recent M3 release, you'll find the take is generally def. not worth the upgrade if you have M2.
- cma 3y ago
  iPod also won because of an exclusive deal on harddrives made by Toshiba and others with the iPod mini. Not Jony Ive design or the wheel interface.
brudgers 3y ago
If you are interested in a lay view of the semi-conductor industry, I suggest the rabbit-hole of Asianometry's back catalog.