Coding, Data Science, A.I. catch-All |ASML Origin Story (Advanced Microchips production)

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nycfan

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WSJ GIFT LINK —> https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/asml-eu...d0?st=5d3js5&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

I know very little about how microchips are manufactured and found this fascinating.

“… It’s the machine that produces the most advanced microchips on the planet. It was built with scientific technologies that sound more like science fiction—breakthroughs so improbable that they were once dismissed as impossible. And it has transformed wafers of silicon into the engines of modern life.

Even today, there are only a few hundred of these EUV machines in existence—and they are ludicrously expensive. The one that Hall maintains cost $170 million, while the latest models sell for roughly $370 million.

But maybe the most remarkable thing about these invaluable machines is that they’re all made by the same company: ASML.

ASML is the glue holding the chip business together. That’s because this one Dutch company is responsible for all of the EUV lithography systems that help make the chips in so many of your devices. Like your phone. And your computer. And your tablet. And your TV. Maybe even your car, too. …”
 
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“… The existential question of the semiconductor industry is how to pack more and more of those transistors on chips to make them faster and faster. The answer: shorter and shorter wavelengths of light. ASML’s first lithography tools created light at wavelengths of 436 nanometers. The current machines have shrunk that number to 13.5 nanometers. That allows them to fabricate chips at resolutions 10,000 times finer than human hair. …

And there are two things I learned about the EUV tool I saw that I can’t get out of my head:

  1. ASML teamed up with a German optical company to develop mirrors so flat that if they were scaled up to the size of Germany itself, their largest imperfection would be less than a millimeter.
  2. The precision of EUV machines is comparable to directing a laser beam from your house and hitting a ping-pong ball on the moon. …”
 
Should you ever want to know way more about this topic, I can't recommend this YouTube channel more:

 
Should you ever want to know way more about this topic, I can't recommend this YouTube channel more:

Thanks
 
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