In the war of the nanometers not only Intel, TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Samsung fight; who rules in the shadow is ASML

The pie of semiconductor manufacturing is shared by just four companies. The constant economic effort that is necessary to assume to sustain innovation and maintain competitiveness has meant that only TSMC, Intel, Samsung and GlobalFoundries have relevance in this market. In fact, these companies produce virtually all the chips they use. advanced photolithographic techniques From the market.

The TSMC and GlobalFoundries model is essentially to manufacture semiconductors for other companies running the designs that have been developed by the latter. The TSMC client portfolio includes AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Apple, Sony or Huawei, among many other companies, and this is largely due to the fact that it has some of the semiconductor manufacturing nodes more advanced and a huge production capacity.

GlobalFoundries was born as AMD’s semiconductor foundry, but in 2009 it was spun off and consolidated as an independent company despite maintaining a close relationship with its former parent company. And from Samsung and Intel I think it is not necessary to add anything because they are well known. Just one more note: some of these companies share clients. NVIDIA, for example, is a customer of both TSMC and Samsung. And AMD is a customer of TSMC and GlobalFoundries.

The semiconductor crisis is raging, and these are two of its causes

The actual semiconductor crisis of which users are being largely victims is caused by the coincidence of several factors. Two of the most important are the enormous pressure they are exerting cryptocurrency miners on the market for graphics processors, and, on the other hand, the impact that the global pandemic is having on the production capacity of semiconductor foundries.

However, there is one more ingredient that is relatively little known, and which, curiously, plays an essential role in this recipe. That ingredient is ASML, the Philips-owned company from the Netherlands that designs and manufactures photolithographic equipment used by most semiconductor manufacturers in their foundries. In fact, TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Intel and Samsung are its clients, which reflects that ASML must have a say in this industry.

What ASML does and why it plays a crucial role in the semiconductor industry

Enthusiasts tend to pay attention to the integration technology used by the manufacturers of the semiconductors of our computers. And it is understandable that this is the case because photolithography often profoundly conditions performance / watt ratio that offers us a chip. The funny thing is that this technology largely comes from a single company. Therein lies the strength of ASML.

This company is fully aware of the nanometer war in which some of his clients are involved, so a few years ago he proposed a method that pursues objectively assess quality that have the photolithographic processes used by foundries. There is no doubt that the company that provides semiconductor manufacturers with the hardware, software and services they need to apply optical patterns to silicon wafers must have a say in this area.

His method of evaluating quality aims to bring order to a market in which each semiconductor manufacturer “sells” its technology to users without adhering to common rules. And so it is almost impossible compare photolithographs from different foundries. The formula proposed by ASML is complex, but if you want to know it, we can investigate it in another article dedicated specifically to this objective evaluation system.

This company is not the only one that manufactures photolithographic equipment for the production of semiconductors. In fact, some of its competitors are Canon, Nikon or Ultratech, but currently it is the one that has the most advanced machines, and this has caused the large semiconductor manufacturers to equip their foundries with their equipment.

One last note that illustrates the development of ASML technology very well: at the end of last year this company announced that he already has his first ones ready 1 nm photolithographic equipment, although we will still have to wait several years until they begin to be used commercially.

Cover image | Intel

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In the war of the nanometers not only Intel, TSMC, GlobalFoundries and Samsung fight; who rules in the shadow is ASML

was originally published in

Engadget

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Juan Carlos Lopez

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