
A look inside TSMC - bdon
https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2019/12/18/a-look-inside-the-factory-around-which-the-modern-world-turns
======
seraphsf
[https://archive.is/NHfyj](https://archive.is/NHfyj)

------
notlukesky
“Samsung announced at the Foundry Forum earlier this year that it plans on
spending $116 billion over the next decade in an effort to develop the chip
production capacity and expertise that will serve the needs of key players in
the 5G, automotive, machine learning, blockchain, and high-performance
computing markets.”

From: [https://www.techspot.com/news/83331-samsung-
pouring-116-bill...](https://www.techspot.com/news/83331-samsung-
pouring-116-billion-towards-beating-tsmc-race.html)

------
taspeotis
The article mentions it obliquely but fewer companies than ever can fab at the
“edge.” [1] And Intel has faltered somewhat.

I can’t think of how there is going to be a new entrant to the market that
competes with the current three’s processes.

[1]
[https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_tr...](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node#Leading_edge_trend)

~~~
Fordec
I can think of a few.

Unbundling the engineering model as the current system is highly integrated -
do certain segments of the process better than the incumbents. This would be
primarily a business model innovation, not an engineering one.

New architectures, as Intel have shown lately, their architecture isn't
perfect. This requires a new set of design thinking from the ground up and
challenging existing assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and
instruction sets. Risc V gives some hope to this idea.

Non-silicon (Photonics, GaN, Diamond, Quantum, etc.) computing technology
would require new skills with different materials that the incumbents don't
possess. Still years away though.

Commodity EUV and further process simplification would greatly reduce the
barrier to entry but requires new uninvented engineering technology and
practices.

~~~
temac
Risc V is made to be boring. It does nothing to "challeng[e] existing
assumptions about Von Neumann architectures and instruction sets". It is also
very unlikely to become the next high perf ISA for tons of reasons, it is more
suited for embedded stuff.

~~~
Fordec
Risc V doesn't touch on Von Neumann architectures. That could be addressed by
tech like Memristors as an example but to put it lightly, they're not ready
yet.

But the belief that to be a competitive fab house you have to churn out _high_
performance chips is in itself one of the existing unquestioned assumptions of
chip manufacture which may not pan out in the longer term. The idea of the
generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious, wasteful idea once
Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years. Specialization will
breed new ISAs, even boring ones.

~~~
temac
> The idea of the generic CPU may very well become seen as a luxurious,
> wasteful idea once Moore's law properly runs out of road in a few years.
> Specialization will breed new ISAs, even boring ones.

This is already the case and I suspect the current general structure will
continue mostly unchanged: you will still need your general purpose high perf
generic CPU for the mostly the same workloads we use them for today (and
that's including to run legacy software), and for now there is kind of only
one broad successful approach to design them (for mass produced things, at
least). Then in embedded chips you can use basically anything, and you also
have way less stable ISA in chips more dedicated to massively parallel
compute.

Even with JIT you can not really multiply the basic GP CPU ISA ad infinitum,
because for bulk system code JIT is not that viable (even if it is for big
apps). Also, this is basically attempting to deport the stable interface
problem in another layer, but you can not _necessarily_ remove all the
features that made it possible to have a stable ISA, given tons of them are
also needed for perfs. And they are since a very long time. So for even just
semi-fast general purpose CPUs, I suspect the race is mostly over (hypothesis:
higher level computer topology unchanged -- if you switch to e.g. chip
stacking, things could change more)

For all the other cases, and you are right they are also massively important,
things will continue to evolve in tons of directions.

------
kken
When I read the title, I was actually hoping for a video tour of one of their
fully automated 300mm Fabs.

Unfortunately it seems that video material of cutting edge fabs on the web is
scarce, and what is available does not really show the fab as a whole, but
only details instead.

Well, I guess everybody is afraid of giving away IP...

Some examples:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoOAOOMjHo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoOAOOMjHo)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaASEMAMCNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaASEMAMCNM)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VIgU1hPok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VIgU1hPok)

Research labs

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PCQAJzHj8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_PCQAJzHj8)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD7JOwpNXo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttD7JOwpNXo)

------
sytelus
One thing I don't understand is why fabs got uprooted from USA. There doesn't
seem to be cost savings if you try to offshore a multi-billion dollar fab
because labor is not the main cost. So fab in China/Taiwan/USA should cost
more or less same money to run.

~~~
di4na
Environment protection laws. They all reject quite a lotbof nasty chemicals.

We can filter or recycle them but it cost a lot at scale. This is an open
secret in EE schools.

~~~
sytelus
I'm doubtful Taiwan has such loose laws that would make up the cost
difference.

~~~
baybal2
Indeed, running a public company in Taiwan is known not to be a pleasant
thing.

Taiwan government is very activist when it comes to henpecking corporations on
"governance standards." Boards of a lot of important companies are de-facto
micromanaged by the state.

A stark contrast to the US, where laxity on that front is negated by
mindbogglingly complex securities regulations.

For US, you can still play your game, just pay enough for lawyers. For Taiwan,
not so much. Choose your poison.

------
perlgeek
The article ended right when it promised to get interesting.

It set up the stage with the construction of the fab, the market, the
international tension -- and then nothing.

I would've really loved some insight about what the international influences
mean for day to day operation, some technical challenges etc.

(Or this would be the perfect setup for a murder mystery. One of the key
engineers is found dead, and her ex-boyfriend, US and Chinese spies all could
have a hand in it. My fantasy running wild again... :D )

------
siscia
I really found TSMC inspiring, the level of technology reached is amazing.

I only wish an effort from Europe to bring this expertise also in Europe.

~~~
barrkel
Two European companies are mentioned as producing critical hardware for the
process.

~~~
siscia
And I am quite happy.

But still there is a huge difference between being a provider of technology
and actually using that technology.

~~~
newswasboring
Disclaimer: I've worked in several semiconductor companies mentioned in this
article as hardware guy.

Actually it's quite liberating to be the provider of technology. You control
the whole market. Specially true for some of the companies which are virtual
monopolies (over 95% of the market is owned by them). In EUV side, which is
the future (happening now), some vendors are the only option. Fabs can
pressure them, of course, but at the end of the day they are the only vendors
available. I find it quite funny, on one hand TSMC is one of those "jump?
Where and how high" kind of customer but OTOH there is no one else they can
turn to. I find this kind of relationship quite funny and unique. I am not
aware of any other industry where the vendor has this much power. All because
they are the only supplier. Maybe in defense?

~~~
siscia
Can you share more?

I would love to know better this kind of dynamics.

Why TSMC or other fabs don't develop the same technology in house? How the
technology is protected? Why there are not other competitors?

Moreover, what that means from the company point of view? I guess there is not
a big push to innovate, isn't it?

~~~
w0utert
Developing a state of the art wafer scanner for EUV lithography would probably
take decades, many billions of dollars (not tens but more likely closer to
$100B), violate thousands of patents and the end result would 100% be inferior
to what the entrenched players (which for EUV lithography is de facto only a
single company, ASML) have on offer today, which means it would actually put
you at a competitive disadvantage as a foundry, compared to competitors that
just buy the state of the art machines. Add to that it already takes huge
effort and investment to run a fab, semiconductor manufacturing isn’t a
process where you just get some gear, then press a button and wait until the
chips roll out. It takes billions and months to years to just switch to a new
process node. That’s TSMC’s core business: using the tools to make chips, not
make the tools themselves, and that’s already extremely hard. It’s not a
coincidence there are basically only 3 big players left that can compete at
the most advanced process nodes.

Development on ASML NXE EUV scanners started ~20 years ago and only since very
recently are they being used for high volume production. There is literally
zero chance anyone would be able to profitably build the same thing from
scratch again, at least not unless they find some radically different way to
make semiconductors.

------
qaq
A look inside without a single photo ...

~~~
0-_-0
5 nm is not visible to the naked eye

------
dotnetcore
TSMC = 80% foreign investment. its hardly Taiwanese at this point...

~~~
PhantomGremlin
TSMC is a Taiwanese company.

The people in the C-suite are Taiwanese.

The fabs are in Taiwan. The people who operate the fabs are in Taiwan.

The people who do the R&D for all the processes live in Taiwan. The people who
create the Intellectual Property live in Taiwan.

Analogously, many decades ago Mitsubishi Group, a Japanese company, bought
Rockefeller Center. Ha ha. Good luck with that. If things didn't work out it's
not like they could disassemble 30 Rock and put it on a boat to Japan.
Unsurprisingly they no longer own it.

It's not like before WWII when the Japanese bought one of the elevated subway
lines in NYC and disassembled it for steel and shipped it back home to build
battleships.

TSMC's assets are in fabs that are difficult to disassemble without great
expense. And the other important assets go home every night. "Foreign
investment" isn't able to spirit them out of the country.

TSMC is a Taiwanese company. Who gives a fuck what some bookkeeping entries in
some computer ledgers say about "foreign investment".

~~~
vladimirralev
Sooner or later TSMC will build next-gen R&D facilities and fabs. Shareholders
will be able to vote for the new locations.

~~~
draugadrotten
Shareholders of such things are sometimes proxies for the true powers hidden
behind. Money is not a democracy. There are national interests at stake here,
and then I'm not talking about Taiwan's national interest.

------
purpleidea
lol, nobody who gets a look inside lives to tell the tale :/

------
cedivad
"Balanced on a 5nm point, the world could fall either way."

