[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor ...
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Ask HN: Why is TSMC so competitive in semiconductor fabrication?
They depend on ASML lithography machines, right? Intel, Samsung and
other foundries could/do also buy ASML's machines, so what gives
TSMC their advantage?
Author : YourDadVPN
Score : 117 points
Date : 2023-04-22 10:30 UTC (12 hours ago)
| GeekyBear wrote:
| They bet big on EUV at the right time?
|
| It was certainly said to be the next big thing for a very long
| time before it was finally ready to be used in production.
| cmarschner wrote:
| [flagged]
| re-thc wrote:
| TSMC isn't competitive. That's a misconception. Back in the days
| Intel was ahead and by a huge margin. TSMC go by the slow and
| steady model.
|
| Intel made mistakes and lost its gain and here we are today.
| Intel has always been a lot more aggressive and risk taken. They
| might catch up again. It's just a long process.
|
| As to Samsung etc they were never really in the game. They only
| got remotely competitive by heavy poaching and stealing of trade
| secrets from TSMC / Intel (and merging IBM fabs).
|
| At the end of the day it's not just ASML machines (that take
| forever to deliver). It's a huge investment.
| pohl wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand how they're not competitive. Staying
| steady while your opponent is making mistakes is, in fact, a
| competitive strategy -- straight out of Aesop's Fables. Intel
| doesn't get to be the "competitive" one just because they're
| playing the role of the Hare.
| re-thc wrote:
| Your example of Hare suggests Intel was sleeping. I don't
| think they were.
|
| And no, TSMC is staying steady no matter what. That's how
| they've been operating from the start - regardless of if the
| "opponent" is making mistakes. It's not a strategy in that
| sense where they're competing. They're doing their own thing
| and the competitors either died by themselves or failed.
|
| They're not competitive as in they aren't competing with
| Intel. Otherwise they'd go for counter measures or what not.
| That's never been their strategy. Cutting edge wasn't their
| core business originally.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| Competitive in economics and the market means they can
| provide a good at a lower price than competitors. Either
| TSMC has no competitors, or they are beating them. If they
| don't have competitors, it's a sign other newcomers can't
| compete, so they're still competitive.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| There are multiple reasons, but the single biggest reason is:
| Apple
|
| A customer that is willing and able to ramp to huge volume a
| small size chip (important for good yield), and even willing to
| ramp with relatively low yield (due to high iPhone margins).
|
| Time to volume production is generally gated by yield for
| foundries, and Apple provides an intermediate target with the
| small mobile chips.
| cjbprime wrote:
| TSMC's fabs are entire cities of manufacturing most of the
| necessary components right next to each other, along with
| millions of resident workers. You would have to replicate all of
| that, not just the assembly line.
| Nokinside wrote:
| Semiconductor industry has the deepest and most complex value
| chain in the economy.
|
| TSMC has always been pure fab company and it pays off now.
| Samsung and Intel are also in chip design business and do other
| things. They are less focused. TSMC's lead is not guaranteed. Any
| new technology node can fail and remove them from competition if
| they make wrong choices.
|
| I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new technology
| node for mass production is like a moon program. TSMC designs new
| node every few years, builds a fabs that cost 20+ billion. ASML
| machines are the most expensive tooling there but they are just
| part of the whole.
|
| Intel and Samsung are almost as good, but small differences have
| huge impact in the final result and timing. Small percentages in
| final yield can make a difference.
| Freire_Herval wrote:
| >I'm not exaggerating when I say that designing a new
| technology node for mass production is like a moon program.
|
| It's insane. I had a friend tell me about what goes on in these
| asml machines. Essentially the targeting system that moves the
| wafer around cannot have any vibration so I kid you not the
| platform is floating and controlled by magnets. And this is
| just the etching machine.
| prewett wrote:
| The etching process that uses a laser to blast a moving
| molten tin sphere to shape it so the next laser blast that
| vaporizes it produces parallel EUV light is pretty insane,
| too. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I worked on a campus where they were building prototype
| manufacturing processes with these tools.
|
| The building those tools were housed in had a foundation that
| was iirc 30' of a specialized concrete mix. I was chatting
| with some of the construction engineers over coffee and the
| consensus was that 10,000 years from now, some archeologists
| would be pondering wtf this giant concrete platform was for.
| YourDadVPN wrote:
| What is a node in this context and what does designing a new
| node entail? Does this design process mean TSMC can do
| something with ASML machines that another company with the same
| machine couldn't do?
| Nokinside wrote:
| https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node
| rayiner wrote:
| The important thing to understand is that at the level of
| chip manufacturing, you're doing advanced materials science.
| These aren't just abstract logic gates and structures built
| out of them, such as SRAMs. At the manufacturing level, the
| logic gates are nano-scale 3D structures made of different
| materials and in different shapes. For example, at this
| scale, the shape of the transistor gates has a big effect on
| performance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_field-
| effect_transistor. That materials science is highly guarded
| secret sauce in companies like TSMC. NVIDIA and Apple will
| tell TSMC what logic gates go where (or often at an even
| higher level--specifying certain SRAM blocks going here or
| there). But TSMC has to actually build the nano-scale
| material structures that comprise those logic gates.
|
| The ASML machines perform the actual photolithography. They
| expose the die mask to the photoresist coated silicon wafer.
| Using that technique, you can built up complex 3D materials
| incorporating different layers and shapes. But the ASML
| machine doesn't know how to make a transistor. It's kind of
| like a 3D printer in that way.
| phkahler wrote:
| I like you 3d printing reference. You can have 2 people
| with the same printer trying to print the same part. What
| else goes into getting a good part? Proper bed leveling,
| bed heating, choice of material, part cooler, nozzle
| temperature, feed rate, speed, acceleration, layer
| thickness, infill pattern, and many other settings and
| choices. And that's just an off the shelf printer melting
| plastic...
| ryanschneider wrote:
| Ya this analogy really clicked with me. To really torture
| the analogy, Apple or any other TSMC customers hands them
| an .obj of their chip, and TSMC acts as the slicer and
| converts that into the GCode that ASML's "printers"
| understand. And just like how some slicers have better
| overhang and infill algorithms TSMC has their own secret
| sauce for telling the ASML machines what to "print".
|
| Does that expansion of the analogy work or did I just
| move the analogy further from the truth?
| anon84873628 wrote:
| It's a good analogy but there's one more major aspect.
| The silicon wafer doesn't sit under a single "printer"
| the whole time. It has to be moved around between
| countless different machines all doing different
| specialized tasks. So there is a huge logistical
| challenge as well. It is like combining 3D printing with
| an international airline.
| pen2l wrote:
| This might be pedantic nit-picking, but: I think bed
| leveling/heating, nozzle temperature, choice of material,
| etc. are parameters that the printer manufacturer should
| have optimized (and, IME, good ones do). I think the end
| user's chief responsibility is slicing (infill patterns,
| layer thickness, etc. as you noted), indeed it is in this
| sense the end user can be said to be in the same position
| as Intel/Samsung, not so much the hardware maintenance
| but knowing the slicing tricks for getting complicated
| geometry to come out just right.
|
| For example, when you're making a cube, the sharp ends
| are places where bad things happen. When making sharp
| movements, the nozzle will tend to leave ugly trails and
| in other times cause warping. So here you can do a trick
| to save yourself: mouse-ears (extra material around the
| important edge, so that the bad artifacts happen instead
| on additionally-created non-core-geometry). At ground
| level, you use brims.
| kayson wrote:
| > NVIDIA and Apple will tell TSMC what logic gates go where
| (or often at an even higher level--specifying certain SRAM
| blocks going here or there).
|
| That's not quite how design works; it's much much more
| detailed. At the end of the day, TSMC's customers send them
| a "GDS" file that is a complete physical representation of
| the die they want manufactured. It describes every top-to-
| bottom later of the manufacturing process. (TSMC will take
| the GDS layers and split them up or combine them or do
| other operations, depending on some process details, but
| the customer will also check and sign off on that).
|
| It's not just telling TSMC where to put standard cells or
| SRAM. And while TSMC does offer their own standard cells
| and SRAM, customers can and often do design and use their
| own. Analog/RF design is even more detailed, since that's
| done at an individual transistor level.
|
| TSMC is mainly in the business of design and selling a
| manufacturing process for making _transistors_ not logic
| gates.
| rayiner wrote:
| I was under the impression that it's unusual for fabless
| chipmakers to do transistor level design anymore, and
| that they mostly rely on the standard TSMC libraries. But
| I may be wrong about that. The critical point I was
| trying to make is that the ASML machine doesn't know how
| to make transistors. That's something TSMC does:
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16041/where-are-my-
| gaafets-ts...
| kayson wrote:
| No that's definitely not the case. For digital design, in
| general, you're not doing anything transistor-level. But
| those digital designers are using standard cell or memory
| libraries which are created at a transistor level. I
| believe the foundries also charge for their own standard
| cell libraries, and there are many other vendors that a
| design company can choose from like cadence, synopsys,
| even ARM.
|
| For analog/RF design, of which there is still an enormous
| amount, it's always transistor level.
| rayiner wrote:
| Since you seem to know a lot about this--could Apple (or
| Cadence or ARM) create custom transistors on TSMC's
| process?
| kayson wrote:
| Theoretically, yes, but in practice, no. Creating a
| manufacturing process is a very complex and time
| consuming process that takes a huge about of research and
| development, investment, etc to achieve profitable
| yields. For bulk CMOS processes, which is what digital
| circuits are made on, this is especially the case.
| Foundries like TSMC can't afford to let customers design
| custom transistors, and customers generally don't have
| the expertise to do so. There's a huge economies of scale
| benefit from having customers all use the same process.
|
| That being said, there is a little room for tweaking. The
| manufacturing process has a ton of variation in it, and
| the center point / average of that variation can be moved
| around a little. I think most companies just take what
| they get, but I'm betting the big players (Qualcomm,
| Apple, Nvidia, AMD) all do internal tracking of the
| process variation when they get product back, and give
| feedback to the foundries to make changes to optimize
| their own yield.
|
| There's also been a recent push in the very new and
| advanced processes for "Design-Technology Co-
| Optimization", where the digital circuit design (i.e.
| standard cells and memory) and the process technology
| design happens together. We got here because all of the
| low hanging fruit has been picked and now companies are
| chasing single digit percentages in yield and PPA (power,
| performance, and area) improvements. It's a collaboration
| between foundry and customer that happens before the
| process is even released, so again - big players only,
| and it's still more tweaking than custom transistors.
|
| For other types of processes, meaning non-bulk CMOS,
| customers can definitely design their own transistors.
| This is especially common in RF applications where you're
| often making chips with a few transistors. In some cases,
| it can be just changes in the shapes and/or dimensions of
| the transistors in the GDS, relative to what the foundry
| recommends. For this type of custom transistor, the
| foundry still controls the material science details of
| how the process happens. In other cases, though,
| customers are in control of everything from the
| transistor dimensions to the chemical concentrations and
| methods used for fabrication.
| efishnc wrote:
| So in that case there is no materials secret sauce
| guarded by TSMC, with the customer either submitting the
| GDS file with all the info, or signing off on the
| modified version.
| kayson wrote:
| Sorry my comment wasn't very clear about this. There's
| still secret sauce in the materials. The GDS is purely
| dimensional. It's just a bunch of shapes. But how those
| shapes get translated into actual silicon, and how
| various chemicals are used and in what concentrations to
| manipulate the silicon to make the transistors function
| is the secret sauce.
| SigmundA wrote:
| It's also important to note how crazy the ASML EUV machines
| are, they each take a megawatt of power to produce about
| 100 watts of EUV. The infrastructure just to run these
| machines is staggering. TSMC uses about 5% of Taiwans total
| power I believe.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Physical size as well! The machines are two stories high!
|
| Like a bus stood vertically on its nose.
| chasil wrote:
| The interview that I posted above discusses copper
| interconnects that IBM research introduced.
|
| TSMC had previously used a "spin-on" dialectic technique at a
| previous node, and reverted to CVD because of problems.
|
| They were able to beat all other manufacturers to market with
| copper interconnects (including IBM), because they avoided
| spin-on, which worked well in testing, but not in production.
|
| They had great luck in gaining this prior experience.
| elteto wrote:
| A bit of an aside, but your comment made me realize how much we
| don't know about the process used to create the technologies
| that underpin our civilization.
|
| We (laymen) have no idea about the incredible complexity behind
| manufacturing a single CPU chip.
| dstroot wrote:
| Many years ago I sat next to the CTO of Broadcom on a plane.
| We struck up a conversation and when I learned he worked for
| a chip designer I asked the question that I assumed was the
| most difficult part. I asked how the engineers laid out the
| circuits physically on the chip. He laughed and told me the
| engineers write software that defines the parameters and
| functions and the software lays out the chip (I know I am
| oversimplifying). I was dumbfounded to learn that hardware
| design was really software development. Today I think Google
| has an open chip design effort where you write chip specs in
| Python (from memory).
| cjbprime wrote:
| This was probably not true many years ago, or at least was
| a simplification. Even with some automated routing, there
| are many subtleties like high frequency electronics; not
| trying to have your radio equipment routing through your
| power supply, etc.
| acomjean wrote:
| They even have their own languages for coding the chip
| logic ( Verilog is one). My partner did chip design and
| layout. The used a tool call magma (We have some mugs from
| a conference she went to) but they got bought by synopsis.
| Very expensive, very specialized software
|
| https://www.synopsys.com/#
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Oh boy, you should check out the show "Connections" by James
| Burke
| qorrect wrote:
| I think you are really overshooting.
|
| Most people don't even know where their water comes from.
| Most people that drive do not know how a combustion engine
| works. Even people watching TV are only vaguely aware it's a
| series of static images chained together to make it look like
| its moving.
| elteto wrote:
| Wait, how am I overshooting? Reading your comment it seems
| like we are both in agreement. Or did I read you wrong?
| mst wrote:
| I think they're trying to say that "people don't
| understand CPUs" is almost over-optimistic given how many
| much simpler things they don't understand.
|
| Would perhaps have been better phrased as "Absolutely
| true, but it's even worse than that" ass-u-ming I parsed
| it right.
| kroltan wrote:
| People in general have a barely functional understanding
| of computing devices, let alone their operating systems
| or hardware components, at an usage level.
|
| Their fabrication process is so far removed that I don't
| think most people would even be able to know where to
| look for the information, even if they could access and
| understand all of it.
| diarrhea wrote:
| You're in agreement, they are additionally implying that
| the bar is _much_ lower than you set it though.
| qorrect wrote:
| Yes I'm agreeing with you, I think the situation is much
| worse than that though.
| elteto wrote:
| Ah I see now. Thanks to everyone else who chimed in.
| christophilus wrote:
| Reminds me of Jon Blow's talk about the collapse of
| civilization:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko&pp=ygUmam9uYXRoYW4.
| ..
| hnfong wrote:
| > we don't know about the process used to create the
| technologies that underpin our civilization.
|
| It's been like that for a while. That's why we need everyone
| else to function as a society.
|
| I've watched a couple blacksmithing videos on youtube but I
| still don't really know how smelting iron works, and I
| wouldn't be able to produce a steel if my life depended on
| it. That's literally 2500+ year old tech.
| hexane360 wrote:
| What's even crazier is it's 2500+ year old tech that we
| turned into science in a period of about a hundred years
| (1860s-1960s).
| mantas wrote:
| More like labeled it as science.
| lmpdev wrote:
| Don't underestimate the psychological effects underlying vendors'
| convergence on TSMC
|
| It's like an extreme version of "nobody got fired for going with
| IBM"
|
| Decision makers, even and sometimes especially in groups are not
| always rational. There are many cognitive biases that might make
| going against TSMC too difficult to justify
|
| Also historically they have been the _only_ option for __nm
| manufacturing, although transistor size is beginning to become
| irrelevant <10nm with different tricks having more of an impact
| on performance and efficiency
| flipper88 wrote:
| [dead]
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| Read "Chip War" by Chris Miller.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| I highly recommend browsing through the videos in Asianometrys
| channel if you want easily digestible summaries on this topic:
| https://youtube.com/@Asianometry
|
| TSMC analysis playlist:
| https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5m...
| chasil wrote:
| A recent interview with Shang-Yi Chiang, former Vice President
| of R&D at TSMC (also held positions at TI, HP, and SMIC) had
| insightful commentary on the speed of bringing up a new node.
|
| "We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you
| guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked
| if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what
| not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That's not true."
| I think he probably implied we steal technology from customer,
| the way he talk.
|
| And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we develop
| one node, basically you have some learning cycles. First, you
| do some simulation. And you have some idea, then you run wafers
| to prove that. So, you run a group of wafers according to
| simulation and you have some splits. The wafer runs through the
| fab, they come out and you measure them, you analyze them, and
| you try to improve and you run this again. This again, you run.
| So, this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about six
| learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation." Of
| course, you had some short loops and not just one. I said that,
| "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than yours, because my
| R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one shift.
| So, your R&D wafer move eight hours a day, my work/move
| 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go three times faster, even if
| you are twice smarter than me, I still beat you up." <laughter>
|
| https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279267...
| marricks wrote:
| Even if they stole technology they'd need a time machine to
| be where they're at now since they're ahead of others. I
| wouldn't put it past Intel to imply they stole from their
| upcoming node but, if so, it's not like Intel has that out
| yet...
| nunuvit wrote:
| Manufacturing equipment isn't plug-and-play like an office
| laser printer. It's more like a paint brush and you're
| responsible for the results. It seems they spend more time
| learning how to get the most out of their tools.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Is he implying the same engineer works 3 shifts or that they
| have 3 shifts of engineers 24/7?
| tiernano wrote:
| 3 separate shifts iirc. But don't Intel run 24/7 too? Or is
| that just for prod? I remember some plant (not Intel, a
| memory plant) had an issue and lost power for a few hours
| and lost a shite load of memory wafers and took a couple
| days to come back into prod.
| marricks wrote:
| Intel certainly do run machines 24/7 but perhaps those
| R&D engineers/PhD's don't, so maybe only the techie's
| running the machines have full coverage...?
| jpgvm wrote:
| Essentially yeah. R&D at Intel/AMD/NVidia is 9-5 work.
|
| TSMC and SMIC are different beasts entirely. They push
| way harder on the gas and never let up.
|
| A lot of ex-TSMC are at SMIC now. They aren't doing
| cutting edge nodes for now but expect crazy things out of
| SMIC in 5-10 years.
| yladiz wrote:
| It'll be hard for SMIC to do too many crazy things
| without being able to get ASML machines, though.
| jpgvm wrote:
| As pure designers yeah but Chinese government is about to
| do to chips what they did to solar and batteries so I
| wouldn't count them out yet. Might be 5-10 years before
| they catch up but they are by no means out of the fight.
| tooltalk wrote:
| what did China do in battery? I thought China is still
| behind Japan and South Korea.
| epups wrote:
| Considering the overall investment goes into dozens of
| billions, it seems a little hard to believe they wouldn't
| source worldwide talent to make it 24/7 as well. Also
| they probably source top talent. I'm always skeptical of
| those "we just work a little harder" explanations.
| bunnie wrote:
| Except in manufacturing, getting your yield up and tuning
| a process is basically 'just work'. You define a space of
| parameters you want to explore and then you brute force
| it by building samples at each parameter step and then
| analyzing it.
|
| This can be pipelined and parallelized to some extent,
| but then you have to convince enough PhD level employees
| to do night shifts, because each process step is
| basically a miniature physics or chemistry experiment
| that has to be monitored and tuned constantly (at this
| stage).
|
| It's one thing to make one perfect transistor, it's a
| totally different ballgame to make 10 billion perfect
| devices with better than 90% tool uptime, and an
| essential component of closing that gap is brute force
| experimentation.
| epups wrote:
| I just think that if TSMC can find such PhD level
| employees in Taiwan, why couldn't other competitors find
| them in places way more abundant in those types of
| people? Convincing them is a matter of paying them more,
| there are plenty of highly educated physicians who work
| night shifts. And it's not like TSMC could hide this
| secret sauce either, so you would think that before
| dumping another 20 billion in a new investment, Intel
| would consider simply replicating what they could easily
| observe from TSMC.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| This is a made up explanation because:
|
| 1) All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7
|
| 2) Intel has consistently been the leader in process
| technology for 20+ years.
|
| Why did this "3x shift advantage" deliver gains only in the
| past 5 years?
| tcpekin wrote:
| The others might move wafers 24/7 but they don't have three
| shifts of R&D scientists and engineers working to
| continuously analyze the results/improve yield/performance
| 24/7. TSMC does.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| It's not the whole story, sure, things are complex... but I
| think you calling it "made up" is a bit absurd. I'd
| attribute most of the lack of competition with Intel to a
| lack of capital; which, thanks to the success of TSMC's
| largest customers (who directly compete with Intel) Apple
| and AMD is no longer a problem.
|
| Intel did have a huge advantage on everyone else 20 years
| ago, but ten years ago they more or less started sitting on
| their asses, and the rest of the world caught up and is
| passing them by. I don't know why something simple like
| running 24/7 R&D would not explain it.
| worrycue wrote:
| I read it could also be volume. Higher volume means more
| data to learn from.
| chasil wrote:
| In one way, you are correct.
|
| TSMC's decision to use "Black Diamond" CVD was driven by
| previous failures of "spin-on" dielectric that allowed
| them to deliver copper interconnects before anyone else.
|
| However, the R&D cycle, which failed for "spin-on,"
| otherwise allowed TSMC to deliver faster, as they ran in
| multiple shifts, allowing accelerated focus on the new
| node.
| tehbeard wrote:
| Maybe a leader in 14nm developments...
| chasil wrote:
| What would cause the VP of R&D to make such a false claim?
|
| Also see his discussion of copper interconnects, which they
| delivered first, even before IBM.
|
| He also concedes that Intel has led in "transistor
| performance," and they have never been equaled.
|
| The interview also goes into the later scandal of his
| employment at SMIC, so he is a controversial figure,
| without doubt.
| kortilla wrote:
| >What would cause the VP of R&D to make such a false
| claim?
|
| Winning in a complex business environment is very
| frequently both intentionally and unintentionally
| misattributed by the winner.
| chasil wrote:
| Agreed, history is written by those who prevail.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's a lot of weird politics in that business.
|
| I'm pretty sure the big players like Intel and Samsung put
| their r&d eggs into the G450C coalition to build bigger
| wafers. TSMC saw that as a threat, did not join and
| invested more on its own. In the meantime, the 450 thing
| collapsed for a variety of reasons and the billions of
| dollars invested went up in smoke and left Intel and other
| behind.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Why did this "3x shift advantage" deliver gains only in
| the past 5 years?
|
| Intel, and the US, had an enormous head start. Gordon Moore
| started at Shockley, which was founded in 1955. William
| Shockley was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956 for inventing
| the solid state transistor. Moore then went to go help
| found Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, which invented the
| CMOS process. Intel was founded in 1968. TSMC wasn't
| founded until 1987.
|
| In 1968 when Intel was founded, Taiwan was a poor country
| with little capital. Its GDP per capita was around $300.
| Taiwan's GDP per capita in 1987 was $5,300 in today's
| money. The US's was almost four times higher at $20,000.
| chasil wrote:
| However, in the end stages of RCA, they engaged in a
| semiconductor technology sharing agreement with a
| consortium of Taiwanese companies (that did not include
| TSMC, which did not yet exist).
|
| At the end of this agreement, UMC had better technology
| at higher yields than RCA.
|
| This technology transfer had a profound impact upon
| Taiwan.
|
| "Taiwan managed to persuade RCA to agree in 1976 to
| transfer semiconductor technology."
|
| https://history-computer.com/taiwans-chip-industry/
| nunuvit wrote:
| > my R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one
| shift
|
| > All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7
|
| Are you talking about the same thing? It's one thing to let
| an experiment run overnight with three technician shifts.
| It's another thing to have three research shifts.
|
| It could also be a metaphor for doing more research than
| the competition on how to best use the same equipment, so I
| wouldn't get too hung up on it.
| jprd wrote:
| I imagine moving the wafers means just that, the wafers
| don't stop or they become trash.
| DeBraid wrote:
| Strongly recommend this deep dive podcast from Acquired
| https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc
| shanghaikid wrote:
| [flagged]
| icapybara wrote:
| Thanks ChatGPT
| pavlov wrote:
| These ChatGPT reply bots are actually kind of useful to
| remind one of what a limited perspective these generic AI
| models can offer without prompt engineering.
|
| Compare this answer to the one given by Nokinside. It's much
| more like storytelling, highlighting the possibility of
| failure lurking behind every process node success. The
| ChatGPT one is basically just a string of meaningless fluff
| words like "competitive edge" and "pushing the boundaries".
| civilized wrote:
| Why does every ChatGPT answer sound like it's just about to
| say "buy my ebook, 10 Secrets of SEO and Social Media
| Marketing"
| obscurette wrote:
| Because most of these books are actually generated?
| govolckurself wrote:
| [dead]
| bick_nyers wrote:
| If TSMC wasn't around, I think it could be argued that China
| would have tried to take over/invaded long before now. So if you
| are the government of Taiwan, helping TSMC out is in your best
| interest.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| So are you saying that the US is actively trying to get invaded
| by moving TSMC out of Taiwan?
| bick_nyers wrote:
| No... China doesn't want TSMC they want Taiwan... and
| thrusting the world into the technological dark ages for a
| decade by blowing up the leading semiconductor factory isn't
| a favorable political stance to take.
| Freire_Herval wrote:
| China won't invade the US for the same reason the US won't
| invade China. It's just another cold war.
| futhey wrote:
| I'm not arguing with your point, but the impact moving a
| small amount of chip production to the US will have.
|
| "Let's just move TSMC to the US" is a naive solution to the
| problem most people with little industry experience arrive
| at. No real effort is being made to move any significant
| portion of final fabrication out of Taiwan and into the US,
| and the latest and greatest processes are being developed
| exclusively in Taiwan. Progress on 5nm fabs in AZ will
| probably be excruciatingly slow, dependent on significant
| numbers of Taiwanese worker exchanges, and produce a chip 2
| generations behind cutting edge by the time it's operational.
|
| There's some backlash in Taiwan over "piercing the silicon
| shield", but it looks like it could end up being a way to get
| the US and Taiwan to cooperate even more intensely than they
| already do.
| mdasen wrote:
| It think I'd start by saying that TSMC hasn't historically been
| in the position it currently occupies and that while TSMC has a
| good lead, it's not like Samsung isn't close.
|
| A big part of TSMC's current status is probably Apple. Back in
| 2015, TSMC was slightly behind. The iPhone 6S was dual-sourced
| from TSMC and Samsung with the TSMC chips being 16nm and the
| Samsung ones being 14nm. Intel had launched 14nm parts a year
| earlier.
|
| We don't know what agreements that Apple has made with TSMC, but
| it seems reasonable to think that Apple made a big multi-year
| commitment to TSMC potentially with up-front money that TSMC
| could use to get to the position it now occupies. Apple's ability
| to commit years in advance can really change things. TSMC could
| confidently invest in their future without wondering "will
| someone pay for it?"
|
| Samsung has been struggling a bit with its foundry and I think
| part of that is that companies don't want to commit to Samsung.
| While Qualcomm and others would like an alternative to TSMC,
| they're not looking to commit to Samsung. They'd rather take a
| wait-and-see approach, keep their options open, and bail on
| Samsung at the first sign of trouble. That leaves Samsung unable
| to make the kind of long-term planning that TSMC can. In a way,
| this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy since Samsung simply
| won't have the same commitment.
|
| Apple decided that they wanted state-of-the-art foundry access
| and they chose TSMC to become that. That's not to say that TSMC
| isn't talented - Apple wouldn't choose a company that wasn't.
| It's simply to note that they have a very symbiotic relationship.
| Apple has the margins and commitment to pay for new advances so
| TSMC can confidently spend money knowing it has a guaranteed
| buyer at high rates. Once it has that advance, it can sell that
| capacity to other companies a year later at lower rates and make
| more money. This becomes self-reinforcing.
|
| Now, many companies that have such a great self-reinforcing
| profit maker end up stumbling or resting on their laurels. Intel
| did. So it's not guaranteed that being the big fish means you'll
| continue being the big fish. TSMC seems reasonably committed to
| continuing to spend the money necessary to remain in its position
| and keep Apple happy.
|
| Intel got taken over by bean-counters who preferred the short-
| term profits one could get by not investing as much in the future
| of their foundry. Even if you have the ability to spend money to
| remain competitive, that doesn't matter if you decide not to. For
| a while, this was fine for Intel. They were making good money,
| AMD was a mess, and x86/x64 was still king. Of course, not
| investing in the future will eventually bite any company.
|
| With Samsung, there have been complaints from Samsung and AMD
| about their yields on the latest processes, but I think it's
| reasonable to think some of that is because Samsung can't
| confidently invest in new processes like TSMC can. That's not to
| say it isn't hard work for TSMC, but a lot of work is easier when
| you know it will pay off. "If you build it they will come," is
| sometimes true. TSMC hasn't needed to take that gamble since
| their Apple partnership started - Apple is guaranteed business.
| When we're talking about stuff that requires very long-term
| investments, having basically guaranteed business is a huge
| advantage.
|
| TSMC has executed very well and I don't want to take that away
| from them. At the same time, they benefitted from an Intel run by
| bean-counters who wanted to milk profits from x86/x64 dominance
| rather than investing in their foundry and the fact that Apple
| doesn't want to use Samsung as much as possible and could make
| huge commitments years in advance.
|
| I guess I might reframe the question: if you were Samsung, how
| would you remain competitive with TSMC? Sure, you can spend
| money, but will the customers come? Likewise, if you're Intel,
| the question is: how long will it take to regain our
| competitiveness? TSMC didn't build its company in a day. It was
| many years of top-notch execution. It will take Intel several
| years to get back on track - and it's not like TSMC will be
| resting during those years either.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Because they took upon a very hard task, and kept punching it
| year, after years, through, low margins, highly cyclical market,
| extremely low returns on capital, tricky clients, and a marathon
| like RnD expenditures.
|
| They are the leader because everybody else dropped out, and went
| to make money on something easier, like making Wordpress
| websites.
| Freire_Herval wrote:
| The US moved up the stack. We are a nation of software
| engineers who are losing the knowhow and knowledge on how to
| build the things that actually enable software.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| The short answer is during a time of massive profits of semi
| companies, most cashed out. One (TSMC) has kept reinvesting gains
| into R&D for the last 20 years. Lithography via ASML is the
| cutting edge advance, but there are many other small details too.
| Both in the technology itself but also in the complexity of
| integrating that technology to work together in one process.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I think that one of the greatest advantages that Korean,
| Chinese, and Taiwanese companies have is that most of them seem
| to be somewhat immune to Harvard Business School ideas, and
| Jack Welch was never worshipped as he was in the West.
|
| Keeping the bean counters under leash is good for building
| long-term value.
| sigbottle wrote:
| What's the difference between HBS ideas and these Asian
| companies? I have no background in economics so idk. Like
| what advantages do both have?
|
| From this comment it reads like HBS has no merit at all but
| I'd imagine that's not the entire picture
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Business schools teach efficiency. Efficient as in 'put in
| a dollar, what gets you the most back in the shortest time
| period?' It is oriented to appeasing stockholders
| (investors), who want to see earnings grow. If your company
| is losing money, cut cost centers and maximize revenue to
| up the profits for the quarter so that the stock doesn't go
| down. This usually means cutting jobs, defunding research,
| and making things cheaper. Another way to accomplish this
| is to sell off specialized parts of the company for a quick
| cash infusion. Another big thing is the need to quantify --
| you need to be able to put the numbers on a chart and if
| you can't then it is worthless. R&D cannot be quantified
| like that so it, along with things like IT and information
| security are seen as cost sinks ready to be slashed.
|
| All of these add up to have terrible effects on companies
| that rely on research and having a workforce of highly
| trained professionals who are entrenched in your
| institutional knowledge. For example, you can't just fire a
| materials science engineer who is a specialist in silicon
| crystal seeding to save money one quarter and then hire
| another one when needed.
| NeverFade wrote:
| > _It is oriented to appeasing stockholders (investors),
| who want to see earnings grow._
|
| This strategy appeases short-term shareholders, at the
| cost of significantly penalizing long-term holders. It's
| not a simple case of "appeasing shareholders".
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Maybe I should have said 'stock traders'?
| NeverFade wrote:
| My point is that shareholder capitalism doesn't
| necessarily lead to the short-term focus you describe.
| Shareholders can in fact be the group with the longest-
| term focus of all. They can still be there and care about
| the company long after the current C-suite are all gone.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| I don't think I have communicated what I meant. Stock
| traders would be people who trade stocks looking for
| return on investment through trading, not from investing
| in a company by holding stock.
| NeverFade wrote:
| Sure, but there's no fundamental reason for them to be
| the primary shareholders. The average holding time in the
| 1970s was 5 years.
| Nokinside wrote:
| Business school type leadership rarely works in high tech.
| Important decisions are technological decisions.
|
| It's easier to pick senior engineers from the industry and
| give them business education than vice versa. There is also
| special field called industrial engineering that trains
| people to manage and lead industrial processes.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Rarely work in growing healthy tech. But one or two
| generations later...
| jpgvm wrote:
| That is how they stop growing in the first place. Bean
| counters is how you get Intel instead of TSMC.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Samsung, as a conglomerate with all the affiliates makes up
| 20% or so of Korea's economy. The entire state is motivated
| to keep it going,so a financial analysis of some 20 year old
| in wall Street don't have such a huge impact. TSMC is the
| same, it's a strategic company in taiwan,so again the entire
| country ensures it's not going anywhere. In the west, GE and
| similar companies are important, but not that important,so
| idiots like Jack Welch get more mileage than they'd get in
| Asia.
| User23 wrote:
| I suspect this is due to those bad ideas mainly being spread
| in English.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| That theory fails to account for Japan's failed
| semiconductor industry.
| jpgvm wrote:
| Japan got destroyed by the Plaza Accord.
|
| Also their industry still survived despite the massive
| bubble popping etc. Instead of making fabs they build
| most of the important tooling and chemicals in semi-
| conductor manufacturing. Namely the photo resists and the
| specialised tooling for inspecting and repairing masks,
| including the insane EUV masks.
| bjourne wrote:
| That theory fails to account for Japan's failed semiconductor
| industry.
| tacostakohashi wrote:
| No it doesn't, because Japanese companies aren't Korean,
| Chinese, or Taiwanese.
| bjourne wrote:
| So? What's the evidence for Japanese companies being more
| susceptible to "Harvard Business School ideas" than
| Korean, Chinese, or Taiwanese companies?
| TrianguloY wrote:
| Definitely not the tooling.
|
| Seriously, it's really horrible. Is there no competition to force
| them to improve it?
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| Interesting article in Wired this month:
| https://www.wired.com/story/i-saw-the-face-of-god-in-a-tsmc-...
| AChamarthy wrote:
| TSMC shares deep history with ASML via Philips (Philips was the
| first investor in TSMC, and ASML was started off as a Philips
| spin off).
|
| Most of today's advanced litho (EUV) was actually
| funded/developed in American labs (Berkeley lab etc). The US was
| ahead in litho for awhile...but GCA folded and ASML acquired
| Cymer (based in San Diego, develops light sources for EUV) and
| SVG.
|
| TSMC has a couple of advantages: 1) Focus exclusively on
| manufacturing, not design, 2) Large volume customers/products
| (Apple, AMD, NVIDIA etc), but especially Apple/iPhone. The
| process technology /manufacturing is tightly coupled to design
| specs. This provides a faster manufacturing learning curve.
|
| -Intel screwed up by missing mobile / pushing out EUV adoption.
| Since they also design their own chips, they compete with any
| potential foundry customers in several markets (ex: data center),
| which is why they haven't been able to grow their foundry
| services division that much. TSMC is friendly with everyone and
| does one thing: manufacture chips in the fab.
|
| Intel is attempting to catch up now by placing several orders for
| the next version of EUV, High NA EUV. They've also stated that
| with their planned process innovations ("RibbonFET" and
| "PowerVIA"), they will have a better process than TSMC at the 18A
| node (1.8 nm).
|
| -For Samsung, their core business is more memory/displays. Memory
| lags logic in process technology innovation.
|
| On the logic side, Samsung has made the leap to Gate-all-around
| transistors (next evolution of transistor, succeeding FinFET)
| before Intel/TSMC but seems to be facing yield problems.
|
| TSMC is the top dog now, but things are going to get interesting
| as we go <3, 2 nm...
| adastra22 wrote:
| It's not how big your machine is, it's how you use it. TSMC has
| the know-how.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Taiwan has invested in it like it was it's military.
|
| And it worked, they got to the point that the US would defend
| them from a Chinese invention.
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| The US has been an ally of Taiwan since before the CCP existed.
| yccs27 wrote:
| "Being an ally" and "Ready to defend against China" are very
| different qualities.
| qwytw wrote:
| The main reason Taiwan is still independent is that US was
| willing to defend it for all those years.
| rowls66 wrote:
| Before the CCP existed, Taiwan was part of China, and was
| occupied for many years by Japan. After the Chinese civil war
| and the rise of the CCP, the defeated nationalist government
| moved to Taiwan. It is only then that any US alliance with
| Taiwan began.
| prewett wrote:
| The US had a strategically ambiguous alliance with Taiwan a
| long time before TSMC. Take a look at a map of the Pacific.
| Color China red, color Taiwan blue. That really bottles up
| China's navy. Change Taiwan to red: now China has easy access
| to the Pacific.
| worrycue wrote:
| Their fabs would be instantly destroyed in the invasion. If
| China's attacks don't destroy them, the US will to avoid the
| tech entering China's hands.
|
| Frankly, the whole idea that the US is only defending Taiwan
| because of TSMC is ridiculous.
|
| Losing access to cutting edge nodes will screw some businesses
| over but it hardly the end of the world.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| Are you saying that once the US has moved TSMC over to the US
| then the US will stop caring about Taiwan?
| breadwinner wrote:
| "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests"
| -- Henry Kissinger
| adventured wrote:
| That's not something that Kissinger has ever gotten to
| decide and he has historically been frequently wrong.
| Kissinger is about as meaningless of a reference point as
| you could use in that sphere.
|
| He hasn't had potent influence over US foreign policy in
| over four decades. They barely pay attention to anything he
| has said in the last several decades, and the left
| certainly ignores him.
|
| Might as well quote Robert E Lee on US policy.
| breadwinner wrote:
| I interpreted that quote as more of an observation by
| Kissinger, as opposed to statement of official US foreign
| policy.
| Macha wrote:
| I think there's a good chance of markedly decreased interest,
| yes.
| nerfbatplz wrote:
| Is that not obvious? The US State department is pretty clear
| about their self-serving intentions.
| eternalban wrote:
| It was never about the chips. The technology is strategic but
| can possibly be replicated.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain
|
| China is surprisingly confined in its waters. Strange as it
| seems with all that coast line, China (and thus a huge chunk
| of world trade) has to transit confined sea pathways before
| it can reach oceans.
|
| Conversely, should China ever gain control over Taiwan, that
| fact and the implied retreat of Western navies (US primarily)
| from those waters would make China's Navy the guarantor of
| the global (trade) order in its most important economic
| region. Today, it is the US Navy that fills that role.
|
| Geography remains hugely important in shaping history. Per
| some views, the very rise of Europe was primarily due to
| navigational advances. Technologies that allowed
| circumventing strategic geographical realities that had stood
| for thousands of years: the land corridors of Asia and the
| Mediterranian sea & ports.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I think it's a mistake to focus on ASML. Manufacturing silicon
| chips is incredibly complex, yes some of the complexity is
| handled by ASML but that's one tool in a massive chain. Think
| about it partly in the same way as car manufacturers, point at a
| part in my car? Bosch probably made it. That doesn't mean my car
| is a Bosch. TSMC is about bringing together the entire tool
| chain. To compare them to their biggest competitors- the reason
| Intel failed partly because they made a bet on technology for the
| next generation of chips and it didn't pan out, but the
| underlying reason was their processes failed.
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