Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon

Intel Starts Shipping High-NA EUV Silicon(morethanmoore.substack.com)

57 points by zdw 3 days ago | 12 comments

rando1234 43 minutes ago |

Amazing looking machine! $380 million a pop. Must surely be one of the most sophisticated machines humanity has ever built? A great achievement of European science and technology (ducks).

spwa4 29 minutes ago | |

That's what makes this hard to interpret. The whole strategy of intel is that they have their own version of this machine, part of their "18A" design. The only reason they need the ASML machine is because of the "optics" (between quotes because at the frequencies they work at no optics work - only (bad) mirrors do. However you need make the mirrors accurate enough - we're talking far more accurate than the chips, as in sub-nanometer max deviation, they can function as optics with high losses, but low enough that exposure works). No American company can achieve even 10 times lower accuracy at the moment.

So is this giving up on their own version? That would mean their stock price is absolutely not justified at $110, and it should be more like $60-70 if not lower. Or is this "we have technical reasons to use this. We're still going to do 18A and it's still going to beat 2nm", which would mean their stock price is easily justified at $200 and it's high time to buy.

vrganj 19 minutes ago | | |

Only the optics is an ... interesting way of phrasing it.

There was a great Economist article a while ago that talks about this. ASMLs moat isn't just the know-how to build the machines themselves. It's a network of suppliers all across Europe, specialized businesses doing one little part than anyone else in the world.

This is the type of thing that Europe is still leading in, and it'll be incredibly hard to reproduce elsewhere.

You don't just need to figure out how to build an High-NA EUV machine. You need to figure out how to build or procure all of the parts that go into it. Many of these suppliers have exclusive contracts with ASML.

Here's the article, de-paywalled: https://archive.ph/jP1HX

dyauspitr 2 hours ago |

Im rooting for Intel. I hate the current paradigm where all the best chips are made in one factory in Asia.

fsuts 1 hour ago | |

Tsmc are opening 10 factories in USA at cost of $265bn

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-tsmc-us-investment...

Intel staying strong is still vital for competitiveness though

matwood 1 hour ago | | |

Until they are built, it's all talk.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-b...

p_l 48 minutes ago | | |

TSMC also AFAIK is forbidden from setting up bleeding-edge fabs outside of Taiwan?

nasretdinov 1 hour ago | |

IMO it's competition that makes better products in the end. If either party becomes a full monopolist the progress will stall (as already happened with Intel I guess)

jbstack 1 hour ago | | |

> as already happened with Intel I guess

In which sense? Intel is neither a full monopolist (AMD, ARM) nor has progress stalled (we're still getting a regular cycle of new generation CPUs which improve on the previous).