TSMC making their own pellicles has little to do with minimizing how much the masks travel and everything to do with ASML/Mitsui´s pellicles being years late. And even so ASML won´t require shipping the masks all the way back to NL for installation as that can be done in-fab or in a mask shop closer to the fab.
ArF mask cleaning and pellicle processing is usually done in-fab anyway so EUV changes little the flow of masks traveling back and forth to external sites for regular maintenance (mask repair would still require going back to the original mask shop for repairing patterns or capping layers).
I don't think EUV masks can really be repaired. They are super thin, about 10nm thick, with a thin thermal layer, usually made from graphene or carbon nanotubes. Trying to repair these would introduce defects. They are deposited on a substrate through Chemical Vapor Deposition. And then there's a layer between the substrate (usuallly a wafer) and the chemical layer, a "foaming" agent, that is heated and evaporates to separate the two layers. Then they are attached to a frame, which could be a wafer, or a foamed, sinted version of copper (due to the vacuum that it operates in) which supports the euv pellicle about 50nm above the actual mask.
Well, the questions were all very general, I thought--but I did think that Zhang has a good grasp of TSMC's businesses because as SVP of business development he's signing up new business, primarily--and he has the requisite background to be very good at it. I thought the "we're one company" Q&A was amusing...Intel is spread all over the place geographically like peanut butter on a slice of bread--but nobody accuses Intel of "being more than one company." Yea, that's a lot of fluff, imo. Still, no one will deny that Intel is rife with internal turf wars as are most large companies--but it just seems there's less of that in the whole TSMC picture. I would like to have heard a bit more about their US FABs & plans in that direction...but probably that is outside the immediate job scope of either of the interviewees. I thought the interview was fine for the highly generalized topics discussed.
Great interview, Ian, particularly on such a tight working schedule. Thirty minutes isn't a lot of time, but it's fantastic that you were able to secure it, and there were some interesting responses as well.
Looking forward to more of these as time rolls on. Any chance you could bend the ear of someone at a company like Cerebras? I've always found their technology to be particularly intriguing, and while you've covered their announcements, it'd be lovely to have a deep dive or other exploration of the ways in which their stuff differs from traditional compute architectures (to say nothing of the hardware itself).
Every briefing I have with Andrew Feldman at Cerebras is 20 minutes of amusing banter and 10 minutes of 'oh right I still have to tell you about this new thing we're talking about'. He's a great laugh :). When we all get flying again, I've an open invitation to go by their Santa Clara offices, so it might be worth waiting until later in the year when I can get hands on with a WSE2 and we can do an interview in person, between myself, Andrew, and Natalia Vassilieva.
Sounds like a great time and a great plan, and I'll look forward to it hopefully happening! We've got plenty to occupy ourselves with in the interim this year for tech news and reviews, but those WSEs are so far outside of the norm that reading anything about them is a guaranteed treat.
nothing surprising but at least cements some ideas out there. we also have to consider Apple and AMD as one of their largest customers, controlling or having input to TSMCs direction especially on packaging/integration.
That's just wrong. They likely did this to put off their competitors.
They announcted in October of 2019 earnings that they had their own pellicle and produce their own pellicle. Everything else was just smoke and mirrors.
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Arsenica - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
TSMC making their own pellicles has little to do with minimizing how much the masks travel and everything to do with ASML/Mitsui´s pellicles being years late. And even so ASML won´t require shipping the masks all the way back to NL for installation as that can be done in-fab or in a mask shop closer to the fab.ArF mask cleaning and pellicle processing is usually done in-fab anyway so EUV changes little the flow of masks traveling back and forth to external sites for regular maintenance (mask repair would still require going back to the original mask shop for repairing patterns or capping layers).
Fataliity - Monday, June 14, 2021 - link
I don't think EUV masks can really be repaired. They are super thin, about 10nm thick, with a thin thermal layer, usually made from graphene or carbon nanotubes. Trying to repair these would introduce defects. They are deposited on a substrate through Chemical Vapor Deposition. And then there's a layer between the substrate (usuallly a wafer) and the chemical layer, a "foaming" agent, that is heated and evaporates to separate the two layers. Then they are attached to a frame, which could be a wafer, or a foamed, sinted version of copper (due to the vacuum that it operates in) which supports the euv pellicle about 50nm above the actual mask.Hulk - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
Wow, great interview. Full of actual technical information, which is in stark contract to the Intel interviews that are full of useless PR fluff.Arsenica - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
Not really, most of this is still just fluff.WaltC - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
Well, the questions were all very general, I thought--but I did think that Zhang has a good grasp of TSMC's businesses because as SVP of business development he's signing up new business, primarily--and he has the requisite background to be very good at it. I thought the "we're one company" Q&A was amusing...Intel is spread all over the place geographically like peanut butter on a slice of bread--but nobody accuses Intel of "being more than one company." Yea, that's a lot of fluff, imo. Still, no one will deny that Intel is rife with internal turf wars as are most large companies--but it just seems there's less of that in the whole TSMC picture. I would like to have heard a bit more about their US FABs & plans in that direction...but probably that is outside the immediate job scope of either of the interviewees. I thought the interview was fine for the highly generalized topics discussed.GeoffreyA - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
It's Christmas at Anandtech. Thanks, Ian!spaceship9876 - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
do you have that part 2 interview with jim keller?NeuralNexus - Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - link
I would like to check that out as well.Ian Cutress - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
Sorry, Computex hit last week and some other things running to deadlines. Trying to catch up ASAPSlash3 - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
Great interview, Ian, particularly on such a tight working schedule. Thirty minutes isn't a lot of time, but it's fantastic that you were able to secure it, and there were some interesting responses as well.Looking forward to more of these as time rolls on. Any chance you could bend the ear of someone at a company like Cerebras? I've always found their technology to be particularly intriguing, and while you've covered their announcements, it'd be lovely to have a deep dive or other exploration of the ways in which their stuff differs from traditional compute architectures (to say nothing of the hardware itself).
Ian Cutress - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
Every briefing I have with Andrew Feldman at Cerebras is 20 minutes of amusing banter and 10 minutes of 'oh right I still have to tell you about this new thing we're talking about'. He's a great laugh :). When we all get flying again, I've an open invitation to go by their Santa Clara offices, so it might be worth waiting until later in the year when I can get hands on with a WSE2 and we can do an interview in person, between myself, Andrew, and Natalia Vassilieva.Slash3 - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
Sounds like a great time and a great plan, and I'll look forward to it hopefully happening! We've got plenty to occupy ourselves with in the interim this year for tech news and reviews, but those WSEs are so far outside of the norm that reading anything about them is a guaranteed treat.six_tymes - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
they act as if they were first to use FinFet. a smug remarkzodiacfml - Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - link
nothing surprising but at least cements some ideas out there. we also have to consider Apple and AMD as one of their largest customers, controlling or having input to TSMCs direction especially on packaging/integration.garaldas - Sunday, June 13, 2021 - link
" Frederick Chen
Advanced Memory Development at Winbond Electronics
They previously chose differently:
https://esg.tsmc.com/csr/en/update/greenManufactur...
"TSMC has chosen EUV mask without pellicle to enhance optical transmittance, thus reducing energy loss during exposure process." "
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activi...
Fataliity - Monday, June 14, 2021 - link
That's just wrong. They likely did this to put off their competitors.They announcted in October of 2019 earnings that they had their own pellicle and produce their own pellicle. Everything else was just smoke and mirrors.
garaldas - Wednesday, June 16, 2021 - link
https://esg.tsmc.com/csr/en/update/greenManufactur...
THEN WHAT ABOUT THE STATEMENT IN THE THIRD TAB IN THE TOP GRAPHICS.