Post by: Lucifer on July 06, 2021, 12:54:58 PM
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I’ve written about this before but yesterday the NY Times published an interesting piece on the EUV lithography machines produced by ASML and how those machines really determine who can manufacture cutting edge microchips.
As you probably know, there’s a concept called Moore’s Law which suggests that the complexity of microchips doubles every two years while the cost of the chips is cut in half. And for the most part that has held true since the first CPUs were introduced in the 1970s.
(https://hotair.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/moores-law.jpg)
But cramming more and more transistors into the same physical space gets harder to do over time. With each successive generation of chips, the number of transistors packed into a square millimeter has to climb. Actually making that happen turns out to be massively difficult. In fact, it required expertise from different companies around the world to allow for the creation of the world’s first EUV lithography machines. The machine itself is about the size and shape of a bus and costs $150 million dollars each.
Inside are a series of mirrors which reflect ultraviolent light through an image of the chip, shrinking it down so many copies can be printed onto a single silicon wafer. ASML partnered with German optical company Zeiss to produce the high end optics for the machines. But it turns out that even the best mirrors aren’t that reflective to the ultraviolet wavelengths needed to produce the small traces on the latest chips. So the light source has to be very bright to compensate. In the end, ASML settled on a design which sprays tiny droplets of molten tin. Those droplets are then hit with a powerful laser which instantly turns them into a plasma that releases a lot of ultraviolet light.
To say it’s a complicated system is underselling it substantially. An IBM senior VP calls it the most complicated machine ever built by humans. ASML has only made about 100 of them and can only make a maximum of about 50 of them in a year. But thanks to the Trump administration, China can’t buy one.
The tool, which took decades to develop and was introduced for high-volume manufacturing in 2017, costs more than $150 million. Shipping it to customers requires 40 shipping containers, 20 trucks and three Boeing 747s.
The complex machine is widely acknowledged as necessary for making the most advanced chips, an ability with geopolitical implications. The Trump administration successfully lobbied the Dutch government to block shipments of such a machine to China in 2019, and the Biden administration has shown no signs of reversing that stance.
Manufacturers can’t produce leading-edge chips without the system, and “it is only made by the Dutch firm ASML,” said Will Hunt, a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, which has concluded that it would take China at least a decade to build its own similar equipment. “From China’s perspective, that is a frustrating thing.”…
Since ASML introduced its commercial EUV model in 2017, customers have bought about 100 of them. Buyers include Samsung and TSMC, the biggest service producing chips designed by other companies. TSMC uses the tool to make the processors designed by Apple for its latest iPhones. Intel and IBM have said EUV is crucial to their plans.
“It’s definitely the most complicated machine humans have built,” said Darío Gil, a senior vice president at IBM.
It would probably take a decade and a trillion dollars for China to replicate the European, Japanese and American supply chain that produces the parts for the ASML EUV lithography machine. That’s a long time and by the time they got it done the free would would have moved on to something even more advanced.
But once place that does have these machines is the world’s leading chipmaker, a company called TSMC which stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Co. So if you’re wondering why China is so hot to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, one reason may be that in taking over the island they would effectively seize control of the latest ASML machines which they can’t buy and can’t produce on their own. It would be the greatest theft of advanced technology in China’s history. If China wants its technology to catch up with the rest of the world, an invasion of Taiwan is probably their best bet.
Of course invading Taiwan would probably put an end to selling new EUV machines to TSMC, but the disruption of potentially having TSMC under Chinese control would potentially set back the rest of the world’s manufacturing by several years. China might not be able to catch up completely but they could jump ahead several years and set the US back at the same time. It’s one reason the US has been looking into being less dependent on places like Taiwan for our high tech manufacturing as we move forward.
Update: This primer on EUV lithography from Zeiss notes that a single image printed by the optical system contains about a terrapixel of information. That’s equivalent to 2.4 million times the number of pixels in an HDTV.
One more mind-blowing stat. If you expanded an EUV mirror to cover the entire size of Germany the largest bump on the surface would be 100 micrometers tall. That’s how perfect these optics that produce the chips in a modern iPhone are.
Post by: Username on July 06, 2021, 01:36:59 PM
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As you probably know, there’s a concept called Moore’s Law which suggests that the complexity of microchips doubles every two years while the cost of the chips is cut in half. And for the most part that has held true since the first CPUs were introduced in the 1970s.Not quite right. The complexity doubles OR the cost is cut in half. While Moore talked abut the number of transistors on a chip, what his law has come to mean is that capability doubles or cost is half. You can do twice as much for the same price, or you can do the same for half the price as time goes on. But still, a pretty good article.
Post by: Lucifer on July 06, 2021, 02:04:37 PM
Not quite right. The complexity doubles OR the cost is cut in half. While Moore talked abut the number of transistors on a chip, what his law has come to mean is that capability doubles or cost is half. You can do twice as much for the same price, or you can do the same for half the price as time goes on. But still, a pretty good article.
I wasn't aware of anything like this, but I agree it's best to keep technology like this (and other technology) out of China's hands.
Post by: bflynn on July 06, 2021, 06:09:53 PM
Post by: Rush on July 06, 2021, 07:33:19 PM
We could ignore Moore’s law if we fixed Eroom’s Law - every two years, programmers get half as efficient. Eroom (Moore backwards) cancels out the chip efficiency and is why after 30 years, your home PC still isn’t any faster.
Does that also explain why so called “smart” things seem to be getting dumber and dumber?
Post by: Username on July 07, 2021, 06:08:36 AM
We could ignore Moore’s law if we fixed Eroom’s Law - every two years, programmers get half as efficient. Eroom (Moore backwards) cancels out the chip efficiency and is why after 30 years, your home PC still isn’t any faster.I couldn't agree more. Way back when I was a programmer we would have contests to see who could write the most efficient code. Fastest execution, doing the job in the fewest lines of code, using all sorts of tricks to get the most out of the limited processing and memory we had available. Writing in assembly and doing all sorts of strange things to get that last ounce of performance. The problem was that if I went back a week later I had no idea what that code did or how it worked.
Then came the realization that humans cost more than electronics, and the most expensive part of the life cycle was maintenance. If you could fix / modify / enhance the code faster (and correctly) you were way ahead vs. saving a few machine cycles. Structured programming and software engineering replaced spaghetti code and life was grand.
Object oriented programming replaced structured programming and reuse was the keyword. That worked pretty well at the expense of even more machine cycles.
And now we have bloatware with bells and whistles for the sake of bells and whistles and the abomination of agile programming which is nothing more than going back to hacking around until it sort of works, and as soon as you get a clean compile you ship and let the customer do your testing.
Yes. Programmers are getting lazy. They no longer have the mindset for the art of computer programming. (I say it's an art. My wife the engineer says it's engineering. It's really a bit of both.) Advances in hardware can no longer keep up with the stupidity and laziness of programmers.
But then again, I dragged out my ancient PC a while ago and cranked up the original version of Doom. Graphics are really a lot better today than way back then.
Post by: Rush on July 07, 2021, 08:11:46 AM
I couldn't agree more. Way back when I was a programmer we would have contests to see who could write the most efficient code. Fastest execution, doing the job in the fewest lines of code, using all sorts of tricks to get the most out of the limited processing and memory we had available. Writing in assembly and doing all sorts of strange things to get that last ounce of performance. The problem was that if I went back a week later I had no idea what that code did or how it worked.
Then came the realization that humans cost more than electronics, and the most expensive part of the life cycle was maintenance. If you could fix / modify / enhance the code faster (and correctly) you were way ahead vs. saving a few machine cycles. Structured programming and software engineering replaced spaghetti code and life was grand.
Object oriented programming replaced structured programming and reuse was the keyword. That worked pretty well at the expense of even more machine cycles.
And now we have bloatware with bells and whistles for the sake of bells and whistles and the abomination of agile programming which is nothing more than going back to hacking around until it sort of works, and as soon as you get a clean compile you ship and let the customer do your testing.
Yes. Programmers are getting lazy. They no longer have the mindset for the art of computer programming. (I say it's an art. My wife the engineer says it's engineering. It's really a bit of both.) Advances in hardware can no longer keep up with the stupidity and laziness of programmers.
But then again, I dragged out my ancient PC a while ago and cranked up the original version of Doom. Graphics are really a lot better today than way back then.
Oh my God! I was talking to hubby last night about how I wish I could play the original Doom again! The last time I tried it on Windows 7 it rendered horribly and didn’t work, I have no earlier ancient machine. I heard that you can play it through Steam but that is web based and I think I heard that the original sound track didn’t come with it because Bobby Prince (the composer) didn’t release the copyright or something. I can’t play it without the original music, for me that was an integral part of the whole experience. I loved that game so much. Even if I could get it working on my current machine, my old joystick won’t work anymore, no updated drivers.
I guess if I really wanted to I could build a Windows 95 machine, I’ve still got the disks, and I have the Doom disks, and maybe the joystick driver, but that would be an insane project and not worth it. I hear you can create a virtual machine within your current OS and play it that way but again, I don’t have the time to screw around figuring that out. I’m not sure it is doable with Windows 10 64 bit anyway.
As for lazy programmers, I’ve been wondering if today’s young programmers really understand how computers work down to the binary basics, or is what they do now so dependent on previous builds that they’re now too separated from the foundations so that they can no longer detect and correct stuff we’d be better off without?
Post by: nddons on July 07, 2021, 01:51:47 PM
Oh my God! I was talking to hubby last night about how I wish I could play the original Doom again! The last time I tried it on Windows 7 it rendered horribly and didn’t work, I have no earlier ancient machine. I heard that you can play it through Steam but that is web based and I think I heard that the original sound track didn’t come with it because Bobby Prince (the composer) didn’t release the copyright or something. I can’t play it without the original music, for me that was an integral part of the whole experience. I loved that game so much. Even if I could get it working on my current machine, my old joystick won’t work anymore, no updated drivers.You programmers are all freaks.
I guess if I really wanted to I could build a Windows 95 machine, I’ve still got the disks, and I have the Doom disks, and maybe the joystick driver, but that would be an insane project and not worth it. I hear you can create a virtual machine within your current OS and play it that way but again, I don’t have the time to screw around figuring that out. I’m not sure it is doable with Windows 10 64 bit anyway.
As for lazy programmers, I’ve been wondering if today’s young programmers really understand how computers work down to the binary basics, or is what they do now so dependent on previous builds that they’re now too separated from the foundations so that they can no longer detect and correct stuff we’d be better off without?
In college I had to take a couple programming courses. I took Basic, and then I had a choice of taking COBOL or FORTRAN. Knowing COBOL was a business language I thought that would make sense. But then I noticed something. People taking COBOL had stacks of punch cards (one line of programming per card) that were 4-6 inches thick, while the FORTRAN science geeks’ punch cards were half the height. So I took FORTRAN, and thankfully only dropped my punch cards once. Poor COBOL bastards had to do a lot more work if they dropped their cards.
Thus endeth my life as a programmer. Went on to do something slightly less mind-numbing and became a CPA.
Post by: You Only Live Twice on July 07, 2021, 02:11:31 PM
And now we have bloatware with bells and whistles for the sake of bells and whistles and the abomination of agile programming which is nothing more than going back to hacking around until it sort of works, and as soon as you get a clean compile you ship and let the customer do your testing.
But but but Agile is Nirvana for software development!
I have always held that Waterfall is the best model to make anything.
Post by: Rush on July 07, 2021, 03:09:10 PM
You programmers are all freaks.
In college I had to take a couple programming courses. I took Basic, and then I had a choice of taking COBOL or FORTRAN. Knowing COBOL was a business language I thought that would make sense. But then I noticed something. People taking COBOL had stacks of punch cards (one line of programming per card) that were 4-6 inches thick, while the FORTRAN science geeks’ punch cards were half the height. So I took FORTRAN, and thankfully only dropped my punch cards once. Poor COBOL bastards had to do a lot more work if they dropped their cards.
Thus endeth my life as a programmer. Went on to do something slightly less mind-numbing and became a CPA.
I took FORTRAN but my time was just after punch cards. We had the dumb terminals. But I was going into engineering. For our group senior project, we had to design, build, program and run a machine into which we threw small blocks the size of LEGOs containing multiple holes, and small pins the diameter of pencil lead, and our machine would have to orient them one by one and insert the little pins into the holes in the blocks.
So we needed to make a machine with two intake bins, one for blocks and one for pins, and out would come a track with blocks all lined up containing pins in all the holes. I think there were 6 holes per block. We had access to various materials, electricity, and a simple computer using a ladder logic language. We were given no plans or directions. There were five of us, four guys and me. We divided the project into tasks. The four guys each built various parts of the machine itself, and I wrote the computer program and built the circuit board that ran it.
Not every block came out with pins or lined up straight, but it worked well enough to earn us an A and was hella fun! That’s all the programming I’ve ever done.
Post by: Jim Logajan on July 07, 2021, 04:55:20 PM
Post by: EppyGA - White Christian Domestic Terrorist on July 07, 2021, 05:35:09 PM
Post by: Lucifer on July 07, 2021, 05:36:02 PM
Post by: Anthony on July 07, 2021, 08:40:46 PM
I programmed my coffee maker, does that count?
And your light still blinks on your VCR.
Post by: Lucifer on July 08, 2021, 04:07:23 AM
And your light still blinks on your VCR.
Yea but...........
Post by: Bob Noel on July 08, 2021, 04:19:59 AM
Yes, I still have a couple, but it's been years since any have been plugged in.
Post by: Becky (My pronouns are Assigned/By/God) on July 08, 2021, 04:22:28 AM
I recently retired from a career of programming, so quality should now be improving.
You’ve embarked now on a career of splitting two infinitives in one sentence apparently.
Just an English major here, trying to hold her own in a sea of programmers.
Post by: Mr Pou on July 08, 2021, 04:34:37 AM
You’ve embarked now on a career of splitting two infinitives in one sentence apparently.
Huh? Speak english...
Signed,
An Engineer (who for a while was a dual major comp sci and EE. Third year I came to a fork in the code, and took it[1])
[1] Sorry, Yogi.
Post by: Becky (My pronouns are Assigned/By/God) on July 08, 2021, 05:07:26 AM
“I recently retired from a career of programming, so quality should now be improving.”
One correct version:
I retired recently from a career of programming, so quality should be improving now.
Post by: Bob Noel on July 08, 2021, 05:07:37 AM
You’ve embarked now on a career of splitting two infinitives in one sentence apparently.
Just an English major here, trying to hold her own in a sea of programmers.
hey, me were a engineer.
Post by: Becky (My pronouns are Assigned/By/God) on July 08, 2021, 05:10:46 AM
hey, me were a engineer.
Engineers gave me a career in technical editing. ;D
Post by: Rush on July 08, 2021, 05:15:23 AM
hey, me were a engineer.
Once an engineer, always an engineer. It’s like being a pilot, even if you don’t fly anymore.
Post by: Jim Logajan on July 08, 2021, 08:12:46 AM
You’ve embarked now on a career of splitting two infinitives in one sentence apparently.
Just an English major here, trying to hold her own in a sea of programmers.
As I said - things should start improving now that I’m retired. I worked at some small companies and there was no one on staff dedicated to writing end-user documentation, so I often did that. Or should I say “I did that often”?
Post by: Rush on July 08, 2021, 08:21:50 AM
“I recently retired” isn’t a split infinitive is it?
Whereas, “I want to soon retire,” is. Right?
Post by: Becky (My pronouns are Assigned/By/God) on July 09, 2021, 10:40:37 AM
Well I’m confused. I thought a split infinitive was inserting a modifier between “to” and the other part of the verb, not between the subject and the verb.
“I recently retired” isn’t a split infinitive is it?
Whereas, “I want to soon retire,” is. Right?
You’re right. “I recently retired” is a verb split, the same concept as a split infinitive. Apparently official approval has been given to both types of splits, as it has to ending sentences with prepositions, yet more examples of the lessening of rules and structure and correctness.
Language does evolve, however. Eternal verities and moral truths do not. Sorry to derail the thread. Mea culpa.
Post by: Rush on July 09, 2021, 01:33:29 PM
You’re right. “I recently retired” is a verb split, the same concept as a split infinitive. Apparently official approval has been given to both types of splits, as it has to ending sentences with prepositions, yet more examples of the lessening of rules and structure and correctness.
Language does evolve, however. Eternal verities and moral truths do not. Sorry to derail the thread. Mea culpa.
Have we ever worried about derailing threads on this forum?
What is bothering me the most these days is people saying “x is different to y”.
FROM! Different FROM, not to!
This has exploded out of nowhere. You never saw this 10 years ago, now everyone is saying it wrong.
Post by: Jim Logajan on July 09, 2021, 01:55:53 PM
Have we ever worried about derailing threads on this forum?
What is bothering me the most these days is people saying “x is different to y”.
FROM! Different FROM, not to!
This has exploded out of nowhere. You never saw this 10 years ago, now everyone is saying it wrong.
They’re a bunch of losers. Sorry, I probably should write loosers if I want to be understood by the target crowd.
Post by: Bob Noel on July 09, 2021, 01:56:00 PM
Have we ever worried about derailing threads on this forum?
What is bothering me the most these days is people saying “x is different to y”.
FROM! Different FROM, not to!
This has exploded out of nowhere. You never saw this 10 years ago, now everyone is saying it wrong.
“x is different to y”???
actually, I've never heard that phrase (or read it).
Post by: nddons on July 09, 2021, 02:26:16 PM
Have we ever worried about derailing threads on this forum?Don’t get me started.
What is bothering me the most these days is people saying “x is different to y”.
FROM! Different FROM, not to!
This has exploded out of nowhere. You never saw this 10 years ago, now everyone is saying it wrong.
“Me and Amy went to the movies.”
Did these young people miss 12 years of English classes?
NO YOU FUCKTARD! It’s “Amy and I went to the movies.”
I even correct this out loud when one of my staff people talk like that. It’s ridiculous.
Post by: Lucifer on July 09, 2021, 02:46:43 PM
Don’t get me started.
“Me and Amy went to the movies.”
Did these young people miss 12 years of English classes?
NO YOU FUCKTARD! It’s “Amy and I went to the movies.”
I even correct this out loud when one of my staff people talk like that. It’s ridiculous.
Teacher's unions have more important things to do than focus on education.
Post by: Becky (My pronouns are Assigned/By/God) on July 09, 2021, 03:04:34 PM
They’re a bunch of losers. Sorry, I probably should write loosers if I want to be understood by the target crowd.What bugs me are the otherwise excellent memes with spelling and grammar and punctuation errors in them. They’re not shareable because of it.
But I’m more troubled by the death of civilization, yes.
Post by: Rush on July 09, 2021, 03:05:16 PM
Don’t get me started.
“Me and Amy went to the movies.”
Did these young people miss 12 years of English classes?
NO YOU FUCKTARD! It’s “Amy and I went to the movies.”
I even correct this out loud when one of my staff people talk like that. It’s ridiculous.
That one too drives me insane!
Post by: Jim Logajan on July 09, 2021, 04:52:15 PM
What bugs me are the otherwise excellent memes with spelling and grammar and punctuation errors in them. They’re not shareable because of it.
But I’m more troubled by the death of civilization, yes.
But do you speak Jive?
Post by: EppyGA - White Christian Domestic Terrorist on July 09, 2021, 04:56:40 PM
What bugs me are the otherwise excellent memes with spelling and grammar and punctuation errors in them. They’re not shareable because of it.I got criticized the other day for pointing out that meme someone posted had spelling errors.
But I’m more troubled by the death of civilization, yes.
Post by: elwood blues on July 09, 2021, 07:49:53 PM
But I’m more troubled by the death of civilization, yes.
Small, seemingly inconsequential steps; the dumbing down of the populace, decline in civility, loss of morality; all celebrated by those on the left. I don't think language evolves as much as it degrades under the guise of "enlightenment." How many times have we heard that our strength is our diversity when the exact opposite is true? It is the death of civilization (and I believe it's deliberate) and requires constant vigilance to defeat it.
Post by: Username on July 10, 2021, 06:19:01 AM
Post by: Little Joe on July 10, 2021, 01:50:15 PM
Small, seemingly inconsequential steps; the dumbing down of the populace, decline in civility, loss of morality; all celebrated by those on the left. I don't think language evolves as much as it degrades under the guise of "enlightenment." How many times have we heard that our strength is our diversity when the exact opposite is true? It is the death of civilization (and I believe it's deliberate) and requires constant vigilance to defeat it.Reminds me of a really stupid (but accurate) old movie I watched recently. IDIOCRACY.
Basically, stupid, immoral people breed like rabbits. Smarter, more ambitious people keep putting off having kids till "the time is right", which often never happens.
Post by: Rush on July 10, 2021, 02:22:19 PM
Reminds me of a really stupid (but accurate) old movie I watched recently. IDIOCRACY.
Basically, stupid, immoral people breed like rabbits. Smarter, more ambitious people keep putting off having kids till "the time is right", which often never happens.
Don’t you know it is completely racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic to imply that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others?
Post by: Bob Noel on July 10, 2021, 02:27:24 PM
Don’t you know it is completely racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic to imply that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others?
unless the people doing it are the chosen...
Post by: Little Joe on July 10, 2021, 05:00:03 PM
Don’t you know it is completely racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic to imply that some people are smarter and more ambitious than others?The stupid people in the movie were white. That makes it ok.
Post by: Rush on July 25, 2021, 09:35:56 AM
“x is different to y”???
actually, I've never heard that phrase (or read it).
Here is an example! Look at the title of this video. It's supposed to be different FROM! This drives me up the wall, where the hell is this coming from, it seems to be everywhere these days, I NEVER saw this 20 years ago.
Post by: Jim Logajan on July 25, 2021, 09:46:14 AM
Here is an example! Look at the title of this video. It's supposed to be different FROM! This drives me up the wall, where the hell is this coming from, it seems to be everywhere these days, I NEVER saw this 20 years ago.
That is because 20 years ago is different to today.
;)
Post by: Rush on July 25, 2021, 10:11:03 AM
That is because 20 years ago is different to today.
;)
AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
Post by: Number7 on July 25, 2021, 01:17:00 PM
AAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
Liberalism is a system of weakness, idiocy, and mental illness that demands people consistently do, say, and think the same failed things time and time again.
Abortion is healthcare.
Unemployment checks are job creators.
Spending fixes debt.
Free speech means freedom to say what you're told to say and nothing else.
Public education only needs more money to succeed.
All stupid.
All liberal.
All the time.
Post by: Bob Noel on July 25, 2021, 02:53:51 PM
Here is an example! Look at the title of this video. It's supposed to be different FROM! This drives me up the wall, where the hell is this coming from, it seems to be everywhere these days, I NEVER saw this 20 years ago.
seriously, that is the only time I've read/heard such a manglization of engrish.
If I had seen something like that outside of the context of this discussion, I would have dismissed it as a typo.