Hacker News Reader

Comment by woudsma | Hacker News Reader

Apparently the machines are pretty hard to replicate, the company (ASML) has had to deal with a couple of corporate espionage cases in the past[0].

[0]: https://nos.nl/artikel/2280228-wat-heeft-de-chinese-overheid... (in Dutch)

View on HN

What I meant was TSMC uses these machines. Anyone else (except the Chinese I guess?) can also use these machines. What is the TSMC secret sauce that no one else can match?

Think of these machines as being what a paint brush is to an artist; it's just a tool. Anyone can buy a paintbrush, but it takes much skill and experience to paint a masterpiece.

Even if you have a masterpiece in your possession to try and copy, you will fail.

It's not a single thing, it's everything. State of the art fabs require precision control of an incredible number of process steps each with an incredible number of tunable dimensions. These machines are just one piece of the puzzle. A key piece, but buying the machines does not a fab make.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loiltpe6q-s&t=3s

fantastic channel that goes in depth on chip industry

It's one (well, few) step of the process, albeit probably the most important.

Semiconductor manufacturing seems to have a very big winner-takes-all advantage, it takes enormous amounts of capital and 3-5 years to start a new fab, and the incumbents own a complicated web of secrets and patents that are basically impossible to navigate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com