> TSMC pumps out close to 60 per cent of the semiconductor chips used around the world and makes 90 per cent of the most advanced technology used in phones and laptops all the way to missile systems.
I knew TSMC was dominant but not that dominant. Couple that with ASML in the Netherlands which makes the chip making machines, and I'm wondering if there has been any time in history when so much of our critical technology in our world has been concentrated in so few producers.
TSMC is dominant, and we could imagine that in a wartime scenario maybe that'd matter (big maybe, why would a military need mass production of chips that didn't exist a few years ago?). But for anything else, capitalism will happen and 60% market share is impressive but not concerning. The current strategy of trying to restrict China's access to chips might easily spur some competition.
> I'm wondering if there has been any time in history when so much of our critical technology in our world has been concentrated in so few producers.
Nuclear bombs? And I'd assume this happens all the time. Any cutting edge market, in fact, seems like it should often start with one big player that has a better understanding of new research that is then slowly worn down by competition as the knowledge spreads.
To quote:
To make these EUV mirrors, each 2 to 4 nanometer layer of molybdenum and silicon has to be deposited one by one. Fifty times, without fatal defects.
After that, each mirror has to be painstakingly polished. The acceptable surface deviation metric is 50 picometers, or 50 trillionths of a meter. That is a staggering number.
To put that into perspective. 50 picometers on a mirror that is 450 millimeters wide. If that 450 millimeter mirror was blown up to the size of the United States, 4,500 kilometers or 2,800 miles wide, then 50 picometers would be just 0.5 mm tall.
It has so many of the electronics under its hostage, no one can make a deal if it went out of control, except by violence.
Yet, still being a respected company is marvelous. Imagine how crap the world becomes if it comes under Chinese or Russian control.