Can Substrate disrupt ASML using particle acceleration?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/technology/can-a-start-up...
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45732431)
See also:
Return to Silicon Valley
Their website is light on technical details and heavy on nationalistic fluff, which does not lend much confidence.
It's what the industry uses to create the masks used in lithography machines, but it could just as easily be used to make the actual chip. The problem is that it doesn't scale, at all. A scanning process is way too slow to be useful in mass production.
Thus you should always be skeptical when someone says they've built a machine that beats ASML's machines, because that's actually the easy part. The hard part is scaling it up.
I wonder if the government makes small batches of bespoke chips that are super miniature based on non scalable processes, and how far back in time would they have been able to develop 1nm chips for example?
Thus in the early 2000s you would be about 10 years ahead using electron scanning beam lithography. However that assumes you have all the tooling and transistor designs to actually create a working chip at that resolution. Showing you can etch a feature at nanometer scale is one thing, actually using it to create a working chip is a whole other ball game.
[1] https://spie.org/news/0599-double-exposure-makes-dense-high-...
Funnily enough Asianometry just did a video on tsmcs new masks and how the machines involved WERE particularly hard to develop, "Multi-Beam Mask Writer" that uses hundreds of thousands of electron beams (after splitting) to accomplish its task.
Nothing about that industry is easy.
The CIA has stolen trade secrets in the past and the only thing that stopped them in recent history is their own policies. The CIA has a new director that has been violating international law more openly than ever.
Typical investor bullshitting. They have some pictures. No process. Nothing
After persuasively demonstrating an inability to ship a fancy alarm clock even with 100MM in funding at his last startup, the founder has now decided to turn his attention to easily surmounting the decades of insane hard science and engineering that forms ASML's moat. Of course if this goes the way of the alarm clock startup there's also the fusion startup he's running that could form a fallback...
Don’t forget the Century of engineering knowledge at Zeiss who deliver the mirrors in the ASML machines. See below https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45745536#45813952
"Professor Shintake aligned two axis-symmetric mirrors in a straight line and used a total of only four mirrors instead of ten.
"Because highly absorbent EUV light weakens by 40% with each reflection, only about 1% of the energy from the light source reaches the wafer when bounced off ten mirrors while more than 10% does when only four mirrors are used."
https://asiatimes.com/2024/08/japan-on-edge-of-euv-lithograp...
Edit: "Substrate said that it has developed a version of lithography that uses X-ray light."
https://open.substack.com/pub/foxchapelresearch/p/i-think-su...
Edit please note the comments in the linked post by SemiAnalysis below who have lots of reports that the tool is legit but who are skeptical. They have clearly progressed somewhat since the tracker project!
Breathless branding with the word "America" in every other sentence.
How long before the Trump admin decides to throw federal funds into the grift so these "investors" get paid?
https://open.substack.com/pub/semianalysis/p/how-to-kill-2-m...
> Evidence so far is scarce, so we repeat these claims with some healthy skepticism. But we should also note, external contacts and 3rd party reports are all telling us the same story: the litho tool is legit. Note we have worked with Substrate since as far back as 2022, but the technical analysis here was by team members who did not have access to that NDA information.
> Naysayers will point out a million reasons why this is improbable, difficult, etc. - and they are mostly correct.
> We're hopeful for success but skeptical given how many questions there are.
That way when you hit the bullseye, you'll make da hueg profitz while all the employees of the company can't afford to buy houses.
will "high rate" or "high throughput" do or it is just me?
Chipmaking is in a very weird geopolitical state and it has national security interests for most of the world. A Dutch company produces the machines to make chips and sells them to Taiwanese companies. The US still has the power to dictate who ASML can sell to and China is restricted.
This system has a number of flaws:
1. With this administration torching US influence at a never-seen-before rate, the US may no longer be able to dictate terms to ASML. At some point, it's all going to be too much for the EU;
2. Taiwan is disputed territory. This statement tends to make people mad but it's true. China claims it as China but, more importantly, the One China policy is official policy of the US [1] and the EU. Yet the US also has a defence pact with Taiwan. Not that it matters because China simply doesn't have the military capability to invade Taiwan and I honestly don't think they would anyway; and
3. The US has basically lost the ability to fab chips. Yes, Intel exists but they are a shadow of their former selves. The CHIPS Act tried to rectify this but even if this administration hadn't basically abandoned it, I don't think the US can see this one through regardless of administration. It's too long term. Any US company now that gets government aid just uses it on more executive compensation and share buybacks. Everything is now so financialized that any ability to produce anything is really just inertia from a bygone era.
China has the exact same national security concerns except it has a proven track record of investing in and delivering long-term projects.
[1]: https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-us-one-china-policy-and-w...
"Samsung is a major buyer of Japanese chemical companies producing fluorine polyimide used to make flexible OLED displays, as well as resist and etching gas needed in the semiconductor fabrication process."
Samsung's CEO went to Japan to try and secure Japan's chemicals back in 2019 during the bad blood between South Korea and Japan.
China will have to take on the entire supply chain from chemicals, machines and talents if they want to avoid a chokehold. That's a very tall order.
https://www.generalcatalyst.com/stories/our-investment-in-su...
From a VC perspective, it does make sense to invest in EUV equipment tech. Being successful immediately makes the company one of the most important in the world (and opens up a $15B+ market).
ksec•3mo ago
And yes, ASML also have their own version using X-Ray in the pipeline.
taldo•3mo ago
DeonRob•3mo ago
B1FF_PSUVM•3mo ago
Meh, ASML could be ordered to move to the US and they would comply.
It's not necessary, cf. Nexperia.
fennecbutt•3mo ago