CNBC
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2024
18:40 · 4.3M views · Mar 23, 2022
CNBC gets a tour of ASML's cleanrooms in the Netherlands to see how its roughly $200 million EUV lithography machines are built. It covers exploding molten tin, ultra-flat optics and why only one company can make these systems.
Frequently recommended as a good, approachable overview of ASML and semiconductor equipment.
4 comments from Hacker News
The entire video is pretty fascinating, but this direct link to the timestamp where they explain how the EUV 13nm wavelength light is created, is particularly incredible: this video
> "The most important decision was shifting to extreme ultraviolet lithography at a time when Intel thought it was much too expensive and difficult to implement; TSMC, backed by Apple’s commitment to buy the best chips it could make, committed to EUV in 2014, and delivered the first EUV-derived chips in 2019 for the iPhone. Those EUV machines are made by one company — ASML. They’re worth more than Intel too (and Intel is a customer)." CNBC toured ASML clean rooms in a very interesting video. IIRC, the only thing keeping ASML from exporting these machines to China is some EU/USA export control rule: this video
All of the above. You need thousands of highly skilled engineers to operate an advanced fab. You need extremely advanced and expensive specialized equipment - look up ASML for a general idea of what this equipment does. You need a huge, purpose-built cleanroom that is many orders of magnitude “cleaner” than an operating room. You need a structure (and location) that has virtually zero vibration or noise. You need an constant, high-volume supply of a bunch of resources including water, power, and sand. And the list goes on. Edit: Good video on ASML and semiconductor fabrication equipment in general: this video
'Why The World Relies On ASML For Machines That Print Chips' an 18 min CNBC piece is quite jolly this video