US Plans $825 Million Investment For New York Semiconductor R&D Facility (reuters.com) 26
The Biden administration is investing $825 million in a new semiconductor research and development facility in Albany, New York. Reuters reports: The New York facility will be expected to drive innovation in EUV technology, a complex process necessary to make semiconductors, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Natcast, operator of the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NTSC) said. The launch of the facility "represents a key milestone in ensuring the United States remains a global leader in innovation and semiconductor research and development," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. From the U.S. Department of Commerce press release: EUV Lithography is essential for manufacturing smaller, faster, and more efficient microchips. As the semiconductor industry pushes the limits of Moore's Law, EUV lithography has emerged as a critical technology to enable the high-volume production of transistors beyond 7nm, previously unattainable. As the NSTC develops capabilities and programs, access to EUV lithography R&D is essential to meet its three primary goals 1) extend U.S. technology leadership, 2) reduce the time and cost to prototype, and 3) build and sustain a semiconductor workforce ecosystem.
Seems like money well spent! (Score:2)
when the war starts and taiwan is cut off you when (Score:2)
when the war starts and taiwan is cut off you when your own local stuff
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It's R&D. Not manufacturing the EUV machines.
ASML makes the high-end EUV machines. But they use technology developed by the US. This is a facility to continue that innovation.
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Re:Seems like money well spent! (Score:5, Informative)
Seems like pandering for votes right before the election.
NY is solid blue.
Albany's congressional district is blue by a 16 percent margin.
So, no, this isn't pandering for votes.
Full circle (Score:5, Interesting)
Semiconductor lithography was invented in the US in the 50's, and we abandoned development in the field in the 90's, unable to compete with overseas companies who were investing way more into next generation technologies. Over 30 years later, we're trying to get back into the game - hopefully with sufficient funding that we can stay the course instead of throwing in the towel again.
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
"...Semiconductor lithography, the manufacturing process responsible for producing computer chips, has 70-year-old roots. Its origin story is as simple as today’s process is complex: the technology got its start in the mid-1950s, when a physicist named Jay Lathrop turned the lens in his microscope upside down.
Lathrop, who died last year at age 95, is scarcely remembered today. But the lithography process he and his lab partner patented in 1957 transformed the world. Steady improvement in lithographic methods has produced ever-smaller circuitry and previously unimaginable quantities of computing power, transforming entire industries and our daily lives... "
"...GCA, which remained America’s lithography champion, struggled to cope with the competition. Its lithography technology was widely recognized as top-notch, but the machines themselves were less reliable than those from its new Japanese and Dutch rivals. Moreover, GCA failed to anticipate a series of chip industry business cycles in the 1980s. It soon found itself financially overextended and, by the end of the decade, on the brink of bankruptcy. Bob Noyce tried to rescue the firm; as the head of Sematech, a government-backed semiconductor research institute intended to revitalize the US chip industry, he poured millions of dollars into GCA. Yet it wasn’t enough to stop the firm from hurtling toward collapse. The lithography industry thus entered the 1990s defined by three firms, two Japanese and one Dutch..."
"...As early as the 1990s, however, it was clear that a new light source with a smaller wavelength would be needed to continue manufacturing ever-smaller transistors. Intel, America’s biggest chipmaker, led the early investments into extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, using a type of light with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers. This was sufficiently exact to pattern shapes with roughly equivalent dimensions. But only one of the world’s remaining lithography companies, ASML, had the guts to bet its future on the technology, which would take three decades and billions of dollars to develop. For a long time, many industry experts thought it would never work. ..."
Intel has partnered with ASML to develop and refine EUV, but from what I can tell, they're reliant on ASML for the actual hardware, which everybody else needs as well. Hopefully we can build enough of a manufacturing ecosystem to bring some of that work to the US, so we can mitigate possible geopolitical concerns...
The scary part (Score:1)
China knows it would be shooting itself in the foot along with all the other advanced economies, if it invaded and those machines were scuttled.
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It is transparently obvious that China is scrambling at highest priority and fastest pace possible to replicate TSMC capabilities on the mainland to remove this barrier to war options.
From what I read that is an extraordinarily challenging task.
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Turning the microscope upside down would result in magnifying the mask. Rather, the microscope was just used in reverse.
But possibly a bigger early leap in semiconductor manufacturing was the realization that silicon dioxide could be used as a passivization layer on silicon wafers.
Like any other "breakthrough," actually many people contributed.
Re: NTSC? (Score:1)
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Then go back to Moscow, Russki.
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Yeah, because... (Score:2)
Please start counter-arguments with, "I'm all in favour of small gubbermint & the free market but..."
Great, but where is NY going to find talent? (Score:2)