Seeker
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2019–2023
11:52 · 4.6M views · Oct 27, 2019
Seeker's Focal Point short documentary on ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which make the most advanced chips. It shows how plasma-generated 13.5 nm light is used to push Moore's Law forward.
HN links it in semiconductor threads as an accessible overview of why EUV lithography is so hard.
9 comments from Hacker News
I don't understand callous contempful comments against Intel's manufacturing capabilities. There are incredible people making things possible fomr both sides in one of the most advanced manufacturing processes in the world. I've worked inside a fab and I can tell you that the industry is much more appreciative of each other's competitors than the outside fanboys who are largely pissed off at the executive decisions (lawsuits , etc). This article is about TSMC's technical achievements and your comment has not added anything to the discussion, time and again I see this rooting for "underdog" behavior all too the same (just flipped the sides) from 2006. I wrote about it here: [LINK] If you'd like to know what goes into shriking a process node from lithography standpoint, I implore you to watch this: this video and be in complete utter awe... Tell me if they are "Sitting on their asses"?
I think the culture is improving despite of cashing it out in the 90's and 2000's during the Ballmer / Jack Welsch era. Semiconductor industry hasn't done a good job of cultivating a good, positive company culture and making it less regimented. We need to make it cool to work in a semiconductor company. I can assure you that there are so many incredible challenges that exist - with good definition/funding to tackle them from materials to marketing (direly needs to revamped). Imagine running a portion of the world's most advanced manufacturing processes. Ultra high volume (thousands of wafer starts per week), mind you. Perhaps videos such as these are shining a positive light on the entire semiconductor goodwill: this video
Cant answer the question and my knowledge is only from 'one interested' but from how long (~20 years) it took to build the current EUV source and how complicated the alternatives look this is for sure no easy feat. Can recommend [1] as the title say about the light source. Very interesting even for a non professional (and [2] as on high level overview of the machine and [3] as longer documentation inside ASML). [1] [LINK] "The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source" [2] this video "The Extreme Physics Pushing Moore’s Law to the Next Level" [3] [LINK] "ASML's Secret: An exclusive view from inside the global semiconductor giant"
Each additional step requires solving a lot of new engineering problems and usually some new physics too, and it's not a linear process: many techniques are proposed that become cost effective only when previous techniques hit their size limits, and then a lot of research is done and most techniques are never gotten to work at scale and just a few pan out and become the next process. This is a great talk on the history of chip processes: [LINK] This is about some of the challenges that had to be solved for a current modern process: this video
Seeker released a very insightful feature about the ASML Extreme UV / soft X-ray (13.5 nanometers) photolithography system that is being referred to in the article. this video