The technology behind the technology
At the beginning of the year I released two predictions (see "What's the market up to in 2020") for the IT industry: 1)Everyone will find their way to the cloud and 2)AI will take over the world. The second point led me to a quick note of how the US-China commercial "war" translates to AI. On that note, my second point was focused on the high pressure put by the US on a company called ASML. Who were they? and why do they seem to be so relevant in the tech world and to AI?. Here is why.
Let's see. ASML is a world leader in lithography. Lithography is a critical part of the chip-making process. ASML uses lithography to manufacture and supply components to the main chip manufacturers of the world. Chips for all kinds of systems: from cellphones to HPC, including AI. That's the short answer. You can now continue with your life. But, if you want to nerd out what else is there, keep reading.
When I say chip, it means any chip, from high-end computing all the way down to the chip in your cellphone or in appliances at home and any other connected device. But here is the catch: the US sanction was focused on canceling ASML's sales to Chinese customers of its "most advanced/next-generation machine", which refers to machines able to perform EUV lithography. What's so special about EUV Lithography?
EUV stands for Extreme Ultra-Violet Lithography and is used to manufacture processors and any integrated circuits. This is how the lithography process works: A laser shines ultra-violet light through a mask, which is the blueprint for the chip, and the image of that blueprint gets recorded in light-sensitive chemicals on the piece of silicon called the wafer.
Now, note that an integrated circuit is not manufactured as a separate piece, but several of them are built on a silicon wafer. So, the process mentioned before is repeated many-many- many times.
Until the buffer is ready
Here is a picture of a real-life wafer. Quite old but picture but it still gives you an idea
Here is a close up:
And here is a super close-up
All those lines are circuits. But you can not even start to imagine how small they are.
When that's done, the individual circuits are cut from the wafer, and the pieces you get are called a "die". What's a die good for? well, the core of a processor (a CPU core, or a GPU core) sits on a die. And the advantage of circuits/wafers/dies made using EUV lithography is that they enable faster cores (therefore faster processors, either CPUs or GPUs). And processors that also use less power.
Where do you find them in real life? well, let's take two examples. One of a processor with just one core, and another with two cores. Here is an Intel Pentium. This is how it looks like in real life.
And here are the up and bottom sides:
By the way, what seems to be golden dots on the right side picture, are actually heat sinks.
Now, focus on the right-side picture and imagine that you take out that golden box in the center, this is what you would see:
That right there is the Intel Pentium CPU die, which contains the circuits the processor needs to work. Keep in mind, that die was part of a wafer, which was created through a lithography process. A very old one, because that's the Pentium processors are from 1992. Processors today are smaller and have different heat sinks, but the principle remains the same: They sit on a die.
Modern CPUs have multiple cores, that are independent processing units. Vendors can manufacture cores as independent dies on the same package, or on the same die. Here is a CPU Package containing 2 separate dies:
And here one die with multiple cores:
Now, back to business. Who has this technology? Well, all have them. Intel has it. Samsung also has it. TSMC also has it. And this is the tricky and interesting part, because the three of them are ASML investors, which means they own a part of ASML. And they agreed on investing on ASML some years ago. So, all of them have access to the same technology. But here is the catch: Not all of them are using it already in manufacturing. Some are still developing it. For instance, Intel is not using it in manufacturing yet. TSMC, which manufactures chips for AMD, NVIDIA, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Apple, etc has announced that some of its client's chips will be partially made with EUV tools. And Samsung, which in addition to its own chips, has manufactured chips for Qualcomm, Apple and others, announced in 2018 that the galaxy note 10 launched with the Exynos 9825 processor, which was Samsung's first product partially made with EUV.
So, all of the companies mentioned above use tools made by ASML. That's why ASML role here is key. And that's why, to some extent, all of these companies have collaborated with ASML to design the machines that can handle the EUV process. The question is then if everyone has access to the same components, why aren't they using it at the same level? well, that's because the components ASML provides the basis only. On top of that, each company has to decide how they want to handle some other factors, like how small they want the transistors to be (transistor size is an important part of improving computer technology. The smaller your transistors, the more you can fit on a chip, and the faster and more efficient your processor can be). Here is a pin pointing to a transistor in a wafer:
Just to give you an idea, a modern desktop chip contains 3 to 4 BILLION transistors. Another factor can be the painting that is used on the silicon wafer to the resist light-sensitive chemicals. That paint can be different from company to company. The mask is another factor that varies from company to company since each manufacturer has its own masks (remember the mask is the blueprint used to create all the chips). Consider that a modern chip can require around 50 masks. And because EUV allows smaller and faster circuits, we could cut down the number of masks needed by a quarter.
In any case, I got pretty entertained with all the technical aspects. Beyond who does what and who sanctions who, it is clear to me that there is not only a commercial war between China and the US, but the "war" is even more clear in the AI space. China is aggressively investing in AI, as the US is doing too. And that will continue. "Pero eso es pelea de gringos" -as we say in spanish. What about regular people? well, the lesson learned to me here is that ASML and similar companies (yes, there are more) are on their way to becoming providers of very valuable commodities for the IT industry. Why very valuable? because as I said at the beginning of this article and at the beginning of the year: AI will take over the world. And all AI-leading vendors will continue growing. This means that their providers, such as ASML will continue doing so as well.
Now you know. It's not only about NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Apple, or Samsung, but it is also about who is behind the scene. Who rolls up the curtain so the actors can perform? well, that guy is also important because, without him, there is simply no show.
That's it for today. I hope you had a great weekend.
David
Header picture: The first marathon I ran, the 2018 Athens marathon
Sources:
EUV Lithography: This is the best "long" video I found on the topic.
Intel chip making: This is the best short-length video I found on the topic