Semiconductor Supply Chain Explorer (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Semiconductor Supply Chain Explorer (2022)

chipexplorer.eto.tech

70 pointsjstrieb11 comments

An accompanying blog post that explains the origins of the supply chain explorer site:

https://eto.tech/blog/introducing-supply-chain-explorer-adva...

What I miss in this overview is the whole of analog IC design. I get the usual tendency to focus on digital logic (higher volumes, etc), but analog design has a large importance in fields like aviation and defence, for security, communications, radar, etc.

Aren’t old line companies like TI and ADI king in that market?

They are the dominant players for sure. I think the biggest reason is that they do everything mostly the same, there is no reason to talk about how deep trench was done independently if Intel did it 10 years before. Or that x technology allows for higher performance. It's all not important to the product offerings and hype train.

> Only U.S. firms can produce EDA software with the full-spectrum capabilities engineers need to design leading-edge chips.

Why is that?

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/18/1058116/eda-soft...

> On August 12 [2022], the US Commerce Department announced a multilateral export control on certain EDA tools, blocking China and over 150 other countries—essentially any country that isn’t a traditional US ally—from accessing them without specially granted licenses ... how has the industry become so American-centric, and why can’t China just develop its own alternative software?

The software is complex and you need to work closely with existing fabs.

See this video from asianometry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihz2WY-E2C8

> you need to work closely with existing fabs

It's mostly this part.

The fabs are using the EDA companies the same way PC manufacturers used Microsoft in the 1990s. There is only really one company for each particular piece of the EDA toolchain -- Cadence and Synopsys don't really compete directly now that they've run everybody else out of business (or bought them up). "Using" here is in the symbiotic sense.

I think Siemens deserves to be on the list but your main point remains. They all really excel at one step or another in the EDA chain. Even they do compete generally across the all broad scopes it sometimes feels like it is not a serious effort. Sometime I wonder which is cause and which is effect, is the reason some fabs simply don't provide PDK support for all options with each company because the tools are lacking or are the tools lacking because the fab does not want to provide support.

Very interesting. I was actually hoping that UK makes a lot of stuff in the supply chain, turns out we barely make anything. Great.

The UK has the largest IP supplier - ARM… otherwise, just a handful of niche suppliers.

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