I highly recommend browsing through the videos in Asianometrys channel if you want easily digestible summaries on this topic: https://youtube.com/@Asianometry
TSMC analysis playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5m...
TSMC analysis playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKtxx9TnH76SRC7ZbOu2Nsg5m...
"We all take two years to develop one generation, how come you guys can do it in one or one-and-a-half year?" And they asked if some of your customer transfer technology to you or what not? And I told him, "No," I told him that, "That's not true." I think he probably implied we steal technology from customer, the way he talk.
And I say, "I'll tell you why." I said that, "When we develop one node, basically you have some learning cycles. First, you do some simulation. And you have some idea, then you run wafers to prove that. So, you run a group of wafers according to simulation and you have some splits. The wafer runs through the fab, they come out and you measure them, you analyze them, and you try to improve and you run this again. This again, you run. So, this is learning cycle." At that time, "It takes about six learning cycle, roughly, to complete one generation." Of course, you had some short loops and not just one. I said that, "My R&D wafer in the fab run much faster than yours, because my R&D engineer works three shifts and you only work one shift. So, your R&D wafer move eight hours a day, my work/move 24-hours a day. So, my wafers go three times faster, even if you are twice smarter than me, I still beat you up." <laughter>
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10279267...
TSMC and SMIC are different beasts entirely. They push way harder on the gas and never let up.
A lot of ex-TSMC are at SMIC now. They aren't doing cutting edge nodes for now but expect crazy things out of SMIC in 5-10 years.
Not only do they currently have the largest share of current technologies they are going to be first to market with next-gen batteries too with CATL and BYD both entering mass production of sodium-ion batteries this year. These have lower energy density for now but that will likely chain as improvements land.
Japan and Korea dropped the ball is what happened, it wasn't any singular error but many unforced errors over a good 10 year period that led to them being now substantially behind.
>> Japan and Korea dropped the ball is what happened, it wasn't any singular error but many unforced errors over a good 10 year period that led to them being now substantially behind.<<<
You don't seem to understand the battery market. Japan and South Korea have been in the battery business at lease since the mid 1990's. Japan's manufacturing has declined over time, but LG Chem is the largest EV battery manufacturer in the world. Of course, that's the global market share, outside China -- ie, there won't be any Chinese battery in North America.
This can be pipelined and parallelized to some extent, but then you have to convince enough PhD level employees to do night shifts, because each process step is basically a miniature physics or chemistry experiment that has to be monitored and tuned constantly (at this stage).
It's one thing to make one perfect transistor, it's a totally different ballgame to make 10 billion perfect devices with better than 90% tool uptime, and an essential component of closing that gap is brute force experimentation.
1) All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7
2) Intel has consistently been the leader in process technology for 20+ years.
Why did this “3x shift advantage” deliver gains only in the past 5 years?
Also see his discussion of copper interconnects, which they delivered first, even before IBM.
He also concedes that Intel has led in "transistor performance," and they have never been equaled.
The interview also goes into the later scandal of his employment at SMIC, so he is a controversial figure, without doubt.
Winning in a complex business environment is very frequently both intentionally and unintentionally misattributed by the winner.
> All RnD fabs move wafers 24/7
Are you talking about the same thing? It's one thing to let an experiment run overnight with three technician shifts. It's another thing to have three research shifts.
It could also be a metaphor for doing more research than the competition on how to best use the same equipment, so I wouldn't get too hung up on it.
Intel did have a huge advantage on everyone else 20 years ago, but ten years ago they more or less started sitting on their asses, and the rest of the world caught up and is passing them by. I don't know why something simple like running 24/7 R&D would not explain it.
TSMC's decision to use "Black Diamond" CVD was driven by previous failures of "spin-on" dielectric that allowed them to deliver copper interconnects before anyone else.
However, the R&D cycle, which failed for "spin-on," otherwise allowed TSMC to deliver faster, as they ran in multiple shifts, allowing accelerated focus on the new node.
Intel, and the US, had an enormous head start. Gordon Moore started at Shockley, which was founded in 1955. William Shockley was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956 for inventing the solid state transistor. Moore then went to go help found Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, which invented the CMOS process. Intel was founded in 1968. TSMC wasn't founded until 1987.
In 1968 when Intel was founded, Taiwan was a poor country with little capital. Its GDP per capita was around $300. Taiwan's GDP per capita in 1987 was $5,300 in today's money. The US's was almost four times higher at $20,000.
At the end of this agreement, UMC had better technology at higher yields than RCA.
This technology transfer had a profound impact upon Taiwan.
"Taiwan managed to persuade RCA to agree in 1976 to transfer semiconductor technology."
I’m pretty sure the big players like Intel and Samsung put their r&d eggs into the G450C coalition to build bigger wafers. TSMC saw that as a threat, did not join and invested more on its own. In the meantime, the 450 thing collapsed for a variety of reasons and the billions of dollars invested went up in smoke and left Intel and other behind.