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Intel does not have their own version of this machine. This ASML machine is a component in a very large system of machines from many manufacturers that runs wafers automatically from machine to machine until a month later a chip comes out the other end. That system is “18A”. Intel designs, builds and operates that system. Intel does not make the machines, they buy them and figure out how to configure and operate them as a part of the system.

by whazor11 hours ago|

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As I understand it, the machine also needs lots of 'normal parts' and can be designed differently to fit the factory and the automation. Like if you need a pipe, instead of buying it from ASML, you can buy it from a local hardware vendor. And parts of the ASML also break, and those parts would be directly shipped from the vendor that makes the part. ASML manages the integration between these parts and each part can have multiple vendors that makes them according to the specs.

by vrganj12 hours ago|

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Only the optics is an ... interesting way of phrasing it.

There was a great Economist article a while ago that talks about this. ASMLs moat isn't just the know-how to build the machines themselves. It's a network of suppliers all across Europe, specialized businesses doing one little part better than anyone else in the world.

This is the type of thing that Europe is still leading in, and it'll be incredibly hard to reproduce elsewhere.

You don't just need to figure out how to build an High-NA EUV machine. You need to figure out how to build or procure all of the parts that go into it. Many of these suppliers have exclusive contracts with ASML.

Here's the article, de-paywalled: https://archive.ph/jP1HX

by spwa412 hours ago|

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Yeah. ASML doesn't make the mirrors, but they have exclusive sales rights, exactly as you say. And yes, positioning them, for example, both in the fixed sense (mounting the mirrors in the machine) and in the dynamic sense (rapidly positioning wafers to nanometer-or-better accuracy below the beam, I forgot how quick exactly but it's 10s to 100s of times per second to maintain production rates) is very much not easy either. But it's "been done" (by teams of phds). Producing the mirrors has not been duplicated.

Of course, producing the EUV beam in the first place has also not been duplicated and it's Californian technology.

Intel 18A has a different strategy all together. I mean, it's not like they're saying much about it, but from the little we know, it's very different.

by namibj11 hours ago|

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No the beam source we know how to create; it's just that the way to do so requires a factory sized machine that better be feeding 10~30 steppers or a pair for uptime/maintenance windows and then probably more like 50 steppers.

Free electron lasers are not hard at "mere EUV", and the accelerators to feed aren't either, it's just that an efficient setup requires recycling the beam which means bending it back which means a large (factory hall sized) accelerator at the beam energies needed for good EUV light.

by lightedman6 hours ago|

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Uhh, you do not need an accelerator to generate EUV. It's literally just molten tin hit with a laser.

by johndear2236 hours ago|

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Weiss makes the mirrors.