A look inside TSMC(economist.com)
economist.com
A look inside TSMC
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2019/12/18/a-look-inside-the-factory-around-which-the-modern-world-turns
23 comments
lol, nobody who gets a look inside lives to tell the tale :/
“Samsung announced at the Foundry Forum earlier this year that it plans on spending $116 billion over the next decade in an effort to develop the chip production capacity and expertise that will serve the needs of key players in the 5G, automotive, machine learning, blockchain, and high-performance computing markets.”
From: https://www.techspot.com/news/83331-samsung-pouring-116-bill...
From: https://www.techspot.com/news/83331-samsung-pouring-116-bill...
I really found TSMC inspiring, the level of technology reached is amazing.
I only wish an effort from Europe to bring this expertise also in Europe.
I only wish an effort from Europe to bring this expertise also in Europe.
Two European companies are mentioned as producing critical hardware for the process.
Yes, it's ASML and their technology partners in Europe (Zeiss, Trumpf, many others).
ASML is really at the core of bleeding edge semi. Their lithography equipment is basically unchallenged in the industry. Noone can make a 7nm CPU without them.
ASML is really at the core of bleeding edge semi. Their lithography equipment is basically unchallenged in the industry. Noone can make a 7nm CPU without them.
And I am quite happy.
But still there is a huge difference between being a provider of technology and actually using that technology.
But still there is a huge difference between being a provider of technology and actually using that technology.
Disclaimer: I've worked in several semiconductor companies mentioned in this article as hardware guy.
Actually it's quite liberating to be the provider of technology. You control the whole market. Specially true for some of the companies which are virtual monopolies (over 95% of the market is owned by them). In EUV side, which is the future (happening now), some vendors are the only option. Fabs can pressure them, of course, but at the end of the day they are the only vendors available. I find it quite funny, on one hand TSMC is one of those "jump? Where and how high" kind of customer but OTOH there is no one else they can turn to. I find this kind of relationship quite funny and unique. I am not aware of any other industry where the vendor has this much power. All because they are the only supplier. Maybe in defense?
Actually it's quite liberating to be the provider of technology. You control the whole market. Specially true for some of the companies which are virtual monopolies (over 95% of the market is owned by them). In EUV side, which is the future (happening now), some vendors are the only option. Fabs can pressure them, of course, but at the end of the day they are the only vendors available. I find it quite funny, on one hand TSMC is one of those "jump? Where and how high" kind of customer but OTOH there is no one else they can turn to. I find this kind of relationship quite funny and unique. I am not aware of any other industry where the vendor has this much power. All because they are the only supplier. Maybe in defense?
Can you share more?
I would love to know better this kind of dynamics.
Why TSMC or other fabs don't develop the same technology in house? How the technology is protected? Why there are not other competitors?
Moreover, what that means from the company point of view? I guess there is not a big push to innovate, isn't it?
I would love to know better this kind of dynamics.
Why TSMC or other fabs don't develop the same technology in house? How the technology is protected? Why there are not other competitors?
Moreover, what that means from the company point of view? I guess there is not a big push to innovate, isn't it?
Developing a state of the art wafer scanner for EUV lithography would probably take decades, many billions of dollars (not tens but more likely closer to $100B), violate thousands of patents and the end result would 100% be inferior to what the entrenched players (which for EUV lithography is de facto only a single company, ASML) have on offer today, which means it would actually put you at a competitive disadvantage as a foundry, compared to competitors that just buy the state of the art machines. Add to that it already takes huge effort and investment to run a fab, semiconductor manufacturing isn’t a process where you just get some gear, then press a button and wait until the chips roll out. It takes billions and months to years to just switch to a new process node. That’s TSMC’s core business: using the tools to make chips, not make the tools themselves, and that’s already extremely hard. It’s not a coincidence there are basically only 3 big players left that can compete at the most advanced process nodes.
Development on ASML NXE EUV scanners started ~20 years ago and only since very recently are they being used for high volume production. There is literally zero chance anyone would be able to profitably build the same thing from scratch again, at least not unless they find some radically different way to make semiconductors.
Development on ASML NXE EUV scanners started ~20 years ago and only since very recently are they being used for high volume production. There is literally zero chance anyone would be able to profitably build the same thing from scratch again, at least not unless they find some radically different way to make semiconductors.
The article mentions it obliquely but fewer companies than ever can fab at the “edge.” [1] And Intel has faltered somewhat.
I can’t think of how there is going to be a new entrant to the market that competes with the current three’s processes.
[1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_tr...
I can’t think of how there is going to be a new entrant to the market that competes with the current three’s processes.
[1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_tr...
I can think of a few.
Unbundling the engineering model as the current system is highly integrated - do certain segments of the process better than the incumbents. This would be primarily a business model innovation, not an engineering one.
New architectures, as Intel have shown lately, their architecture isn't perfect. This requires a new set of design thinking from the ground up and challenging existing assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and instruction sets. Risc V gives some hope to this idea.
Non-silicon (Photonics, GaN, Diamond, Quantum, etc.) computing technology would require new skills with different materials that the incumbents don't possess. Still years away though.
Commodity EUV and further process simplification would greatly reduce the barrier to entry but requires new uninvented engineering technology and practices.
Unbundling the engineering model as the current system is highly integrated - do certain segments of the process better than the incumbents. This would be primarily a business model innovation, not an engineering one.
New architectures, as Intel have shown lately, their architecture isn't perfect. This requires a new set of design thinking from the ground up and challenging existing assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and instruction sets. Risc V gives some hope to this idea.
Non-silicon (Photonics, GaN, Diamond, Quantum, etc.) computing technology would require new skills with different materials that the incumbents don't possess. Still years away though.
Commodity EUV and further process simplification would greatly reduce the barrier to entry but requires new uninvented engineering technology and practices.
Risc V is made to be boring. It does nothing to "challeng[e] existing assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and instruction sets". It is also very unlikely to become the next high perf ISA for tons of reasons, it is more suited for embedded stuff.
Risc V doesn't touch on Von Neumann architectures. That could be addressed by tech like Memristors as an example but to put it lightly, they're not ready yet.
But the belief that to be a competitive fab house you have to churn out high performance chips is in itself one of the existing unquestioned assumptions of chip manufacture which may not pan out in the longer term. The idea of the generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious, wasteful idea once Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years. Specialization will breed new ISAs, even boring ones.
But the belief that to be a competitive fab house you have to churn out high performance chips is in itself one of the existing unquestioned assumptions of chip manufacture which may not pan out in the longer term. The idea of the generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious, wasteful idea once Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years. Specialization will breed new ISAs, even boring ones.
> The idea of the generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious, wasteful idea once Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years. Specialization will breed new ISAs, even boring ones.
This is already the case and I suspect the current general structure will continue mostly unchanged: you will still need your general purpose high perf generic CPU for the mostly the same workloads we use them for today (and that's including to run legacy software), and for now there is kind of only one broad successful approach to design them (for mass produced things, at least). Then in embedded chips you can use basically anything, and you also have way less stable ISA in chips more dedicated to massively parallel compute.
Even with JIT you can not really multiply the basic GP CPU ISA ad infinitum, because for bulk system code JIT is not that viable (even if it is for big apps). Also, this is basically attempting to deport the stable interface problem in another layer, but you can not necessarily remove all the features that made it possible to have a stable ISA, given tons of them are also needed for perfs. And they are since a very long time. So for even just semi-fast general purpose CPUs, I suspect the race is mostly over (hypothesis: higher level computer topology unchanged -- if you switch to e.g. chip stacking, things could change more)
For all the other cases, and you are right they are also massively important, things will continue to evolve in tons of directions.
This is already the case and I suspect the current general structure will continue mostly unchanged: you will still need your general purpose high perf generic CPU for the mostly the same workloads we use them for today (and that's including to run legacy software), and for now there is kind of only one broad successful approach to design them (for mass produced things, at least). Then in embedded chips you can use basically anything, and you also have way less stable ISA in chips more dedicated to massively parallel compute.
Even with JIT you can not really multiply the basic GP CPU ISA ad infinitum, because for bulk system code JIT is not that viable (even if it is for big apps). Also, this is basically attempting to deport the stable interface problem in another layer, but you can not necessarily remove all the features that made it possible to have a stable ISA, given tons of them are also needed for perfs. And they are since a very long time. So for even just semi-fast general purpose CPUs, I suspect the race is mostly over (hypothesis: higher level computer topology unchanged -- if you switch to e.g. chip stacking, things could change more)
For all the other cases, and you are right they are also massively important, things will continue to evolve in tons of directions.
> I can’t think of how there is going to be a new entrant to the market that competes with the current three’s processes.
There will probably be a continuing growth of demand for making chips, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some folks get into the market with "old" tech. So it's unlikely any one will jump in right at the bleeding edge, they may work their way up to more modern processes over time.
I could see a niche of 'home grown' fabs in various countries / regions that server local demand that is paranoid about supply chain security.
Depending on how automated you make the fabs, I wonder if it would be possible to sell "limited runs" of chips to people, kind of like book self-publishing but with VHDL/Verilog.
There will probably be a continuing growth of demand for making chips, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some folks get into the market with "old" tech. So it's unlikely any one will jump in right at the bleeding edge, they may work their way up to more modern processes over time.
I could see a niche of 'home grown' fabs in various countries / regions that server local demand that is paranoid about supply chain security.
Depending on how automated you make the fabs, I wonder if it would be possible to sell "limited runs" of chips to people, kind of like book self-publishing but with VHDL/Verilog.
[deleted]
"Balanced on a 5nm point, the world could fall either way."
[deleted]
When I read the title, I was actually hoping for a video tour of one of their fully automated 300mm Fabs.
Unfortunately it seems that video material of cutting edge fabs on the web is scarce, and what is available does not really show the fab as a whole, but only details instead.
Well, I guess everybody is afraid of giving away IP...
Some examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoOAOOMjHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaASEMAMCNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VIgU1hPok
Research labs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PCQAJzHj8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD7JOwpNXo
Unfortunately it seems that video material of cutting edge fabs on the web is scarce, and what is available does not really show the fab as a whole, but only details instead.
Well, I guess everybody is afraid of giving away IP...
Some examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoOAOOMjHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaASEMAMCNM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VIgU1hPok
Research labs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PCQAJzHj8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD7JOwpNXo
It set up the stage with the construction of the fab, the market, the international tension -- and then nothing.
I would've really loved some insight about what the international influences mean for day to day operation, some technical challenges etc.
(Or this would be the perfect setup for a murder mystery. One of the key engineers is found dead, and her ex-boyfriend, US and Chinese spies all could have a hand in it. My fantasy running wild again... :D )