¿Qué es un chip semiconductor? Summary: A chip semiconductor is a piece of silicon with tiny circuits carved into it, and these circuits are completed or interrupted by transistors to produce ones and zeros. These ones and zeros form the basis of all software and data storage, with advanced semiconductors today containing millions or billions of circuits to support the extensive data processing and storage needs of modern computing. Transcript: Speaker 1 So a chip is a piece of silicon with a lot of tiny circuits carved into it. And these circuits are either completed or interrupted via device called a transistor, which is a switch basically that turns the monitor off. And when a circuit is on, it produces a one. When it’s off, it produces a zero and all of the ones and zeros that undergird all of software, all of data storage, it’s just circuits turning on or off to produce the right digit. And today, we have lots of digits we require because we store and process lots of data. And so, advanced semiconductors today have millions or often billions of these tiny circuits etched into them that provide the ones and zeros that modern computing requires. (Time 0:05:01)
La ley de Moore y el sorprendente avance de los semiconductores. Summary: Semiconductor chips, invented in the late 1950s, became commercially available in the early 1960s. The rate of packing more transistors onto a chip has doubled every two years since then, known as Moore’s Law. This law has led to exponential growth in the chip industry, far surpassing any other aspect of the economy, with persistent exponential growth rates for half a century. Transcript: Speaker 1 The first chips were invented in the late 1950s. They first became commercially available in the early 1960s. And at the time, they would have had a handful of transistors on them and the rate at which we were able to pack more transistors onto a chip, which was also the same as the rate that we were Able to shrink transistors down to enable more of them to fit on a piece of silicon has increased exponentially. So, there’s been basically a doubling of the number of transistors you can fit on a given size chip every two years since the 1960s. And that’s come to be known as Moore’s Law named after Gordon Moore, who was one of the early engineers that created the industry and eventually went on to found intel. And what that’s meant is that the chip industry has produced improvements that have gone far beyond any other aspect of the economy. There’s nowhere else in the economy that we’ve had exponential growth rates persist for not only years, but half a century. (Time 0:06:50)
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El círculo virtuoso que empujó el desarrollo de la industria semiconductora. Summary: In 1965, Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors per chip was doubling every year or two, and he predicted this trend to continue through 1975. This prediction came true, leading to more powerful and cheaper chips with expanded use cases across the economy. As the cost of computing power fell, the chips found more applications, leading to increased investment in shrinking transistors and improving computing power. This created a virtuous cycle where the declining cost of computing led to more investment, driving the industry forward. Transcript: Speaker 1 So, he made this observation in 1965, which was just seven years after the first chip was invented. And he noticed that the number of transistors per chip was doubling every year or two. And he predicted, given the technology that he saw being developed at the time, it would last for at least another decade through 1975. And that proved true. But as that was proven true, chips became more powerful, also cheaper, because you could get more computing power with a smaller and smaller chip. And they found more use cases across the economy. So, the first chips were used primarily for defense systems. But as the cost of computing power fell, it became possible to apply them to more and more uses to corporate computers, for example, than to pocket calculators, than to automobiles. And as the use cases proliferated, the investment dollars going into further shrinking transistors and further packing more computing power into chips also increased thematically. And so, there’s been a sort of virtuous cycle between the cost of computing declining and even more investment dollars going into driving that down further, because people realize That there were a lot more uses for computing than anyone really imagined at the time that Gordon Moore first coined the concept of Moore’s law. (Time 0:08:21)
La litografía ultravioleta extrema como tecnología de punta para el desarrollo de chips. Summary: The development of chips involves projecting precise patterns onto silicon using extreme ultraviolet lithography. Initially, visible light was used, but as transistors became smaller, it became inadequate due to its broad wavelength. Scientists then developed a more precise lithography using smaller wavelength ultraviolet light in the early 1990s. This technology is highly complex and difficult to produce, requiring the use of the most powerful lasers ever deployed in a commercial device. These machines are the most complex machines humans have ever made, requiring $150 million per machine to produce and multiple airplanes to move. However, this extreme complexity is necessary to achieve the precision required for modern chip making, despite making the process more difficult. Transcript: Speaker 1 One of the process steps in manufacturing chips is projecting a pattern on the the silicon, the pattern that describes where the transistors will be. And at first you could actually do these patterns by hand because transistors were large enough to be carved out by hand. But as they’ve become smaller, you need to project them using sort of like a microscope backwards. Microscopes take optics to make something small like big and we do the opposite to make a big pattern projected in a very small form onto a chip. And for a long time, the optics involved were pretty straightforward and you could use visible light to project the patterns and interact with chemicals and specific ways to carve Transistors onto chips. But as they’ve gotten smaller and smaller, the wavelength of visible light has gotten far too broad to actually carve transistors in the way that we want. So visible light has a wavelength of several hundred nanometers depending on the color. Whereas the transistors on your smartphone are far smaller than that in dimension. And so around three decades ago in the early 1990s, scientists began developing a new type of lithography, more precise, using smaller wavelength light in the ultraviolet spectrum. And this was necessary to get the precision, but it was also extraordinarily complex to produce. And so today, there’s just one company that is capable of producing the machines that are capable of providing this light at the scale and with the precision necessary. And these machines are the most complex machines humans have ever made. They require one of the most powerful lasers that has ever been deployed in a commercial device. They have an explosion happening inside of them at 40 or 50 times hotter than the surface of the sun. And because of all this precision, they require 150 million dollars per machine to produce, require multiple airplanes to move. They’re sort of extraordinary accomplishments of human engineering, but also wildly complex. And that complexity has made modern ship making more and more difficult. But it’s the only way to get the precision that we require. (Time 0:11:00)
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La íntima relación entre el mundo militar y el desarrollo de semiconductores. Summary: The US military played a crucial role in driving innovation in semi-conductors, with early research funded by the Pentagon. The military’s interest stemmed from the need to miniaturize computing power for deployment in battlefield systems. This led to the deployment of chips in various military devices during the Cold War, enabling precise guidance systems for missiles and satellites. The US military demonstrated how the distribution of computing and sensing through chips could transform organizations and provide extraordinary value, setting an example for the rest of the world to leverage semiconductors for new capabilities. Transcript: Speaker 1 The US military was actually one of the early drivers of innovation in semi-conductors. The first chips that were created were created for guidance computers in both space systems and in missile systems. And the Pentagon funded a lot of the early research in semi-conductors and still is a major funder of a lot of cutting edge research today. The military was interested in semi-conductors because it wanted to miniaturize computing power to distribute it across battlefields. If you think back to the earliest computers in the 1940s or 1950s, they were the size of rooms far too large to be deployed in systems in the field. And so the military wanted to find a miniaturization technique and chips were the answer. And over the course of the Cold War, the US military deployed chips in all manner devices and airplanes and satellites in missile guidance systems. A lot of the precision that we take for granted today in military systems, the idea that you could launch a missile and have it hit a target hundreds of miles away with pretty close to perfect Accuracy, is only possible because of lots and lots of semi-conductors chips in the missile that guided chips in the satellites that send signals as it identifies its location over The course of its flight, chips in the sensors that are collecting, targeting information, chips in the communication systems that are distributing this data across the battlefield. And so the US military was actually the first institution to show the ways that the distribution of computing and sensing that chips provide can transform how organizations work and Can provide extraordinary value in terms of networking different devices together. And so that was important both in explaining why the US jumped ahead in military power during the late Cold War, but it also provided an example for the rest of the world to see not only How militaries, but how all institutions could take advantage of semi-conductors to provide new types of capabilities they previously hadn’t imagined. (Time 0:17:19)
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GPUs como insumos para el entrenamiento IA. TSMC como único productor. Summary: Training sophisticated AI systems requires massive data and advanced chips known as GPUs, originally designed for computer graphics but found useful for AI training. NVIDIA, based in California, is the primary producer of these advanced AI chips, which are manufactured exclusively by TSMC in Taiwan. This centralized production of AI chips by a few companies raises political influence concerns, especially for the US. Transcript: Speaker 1 If you want to train a sophisticated AI system, you do need lots of data to train it on, but that data is only possible to process and to remember by deploying lots of advanced chips. And so today for training AI systems, there’s a type of a chip called a GPU graphics processor unit, which was actually originally invented for computer graphics, but the math that The chip was capable of processing turned out to be useful for training as well. And so today, there’s just a couple of companies that produce or design the most advanced AI chips, and in particular, a company called NVIDIA based in California produces the majority Of the chips used for AI training in the world. And NVIDIA manufactures all of its leading chips at one company, TSMC in Taiwan. So underneath all of the AI training happening around the world, whether in the US or in Europe or in China, are chips produced by just a couple of companies, and that produces a level Of political influence that the US in particular has tried to wield in recent years. (Time 0:22:15)
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TSMC domina producción de semiconductores. Summary: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel are the only companies capable of producing cutting edge processor chips due to the complexity and cost involved. These three firms will maintain their dominance for at least the next five years, leading to extraordinary concentration in the industry near the cutting edge. Transcript: Speaker 1 So there are only three companies in the world that are anywhere close to being able to produce cutting edge processor chips, TSMC in Taiwan, Samsung in South Korea, and Intel in the United States. And the complexity and the cost involved of cutting edge production means that these three firms will be the only three firms close to the cutting edge for at least the next half decade, Probably longer. So there’s just extraordinary concentration in the industry when you get close to the leading edge because of the expense and the sophisticated technology involved. (Time 0:23:52)
TSMC domina producción de semiconductores.
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El modelo de negocios que llevó a TSMC a dominar el mercado. Summary: TSMC became the leader in the chip manufacturing industry by focusing solely on manufacturing and not designing chips, allowing them to serve various customers without competing with them. This unique model enabled TSMC to achieve economies of scale, drive down costs, and develop the most advanced manufacturing technologies. As a result, TSMC now produces 90% of the most advanced processors globally, used in smartphones, PCs, and data centers, with only Samsung and Intel as competitors. Transcript: Speaker 1 TSMC is the leader of those three because when it was founded in 1987, it was founded with a unique business model. Morris Chang, the individual who founded the company, had a vision of not designing any chips, only manufacturing them. And before that point, almost all chip firms, both designed chips and manufactured them in-house. But Morris Chang realized at the time that the complexity of both design and manufacturing was growing in a way that would require firms to specialize. And so he set up TSMC promising never to design any chips, but only to manufacture them. And he was able as a result to serve many different customers. Today, he manufactures chips for Apple, for NVIDIA, for AMD, for Qualcomm, many of the biggest chip design firms. But he doesn’t compete with any of them because TSMC doesn’t do any design itself. And so TSMC is now the world’s largest chip maker. Because it’s the world’s largest chip maker, it has reaped extraordinary economies of scale, letting it drive down costs. And what’s most important is that there’s a pretty clear relationship between the number of chips you produce and your ability to hone your technology over time, because you get data For each chip you develop. And so TSMC has been able to develop the most advanced manufacturing technologies as a result of its scale. And so today, TSMC produces, as you said, 90% of the most advanced processors, the types of processors that go into smartphones, PCs, data centers. The other 10% are produced by Samsung of South Korea. And Intel right now is a generation or two behind what either of those firms are capable of producing. (Time 0:24:29)
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El rol geopolítico de TSMC en el conflicto China EEUU. Summary: Taiwan leverages its position in the chip industry to create a ‘silicon shield’ that makes it expensive for anyone to disrupt chip supply from Taiwan, which could contribute to maintaining good relations between the US and Taiwan as well as peace between China and Taiwan. The semiconductor industry sits at the center of the competition between the US and China in the Asia region, but political and military factors have been driving the competition since 1949. While semiconductors may not guarantee deterrence against conflict, any disruption in their supply would be the first and most dramatic disruption faced in case of conflict, leaving the region in a vulnerable position. Transcript: Speaker 1 If you ask the Taiwanese government, what they’ll tell you is that Taiwan’s position in the chip industry creates what they call the silicon shield. The idea being that it would be too expensive for anyone to disrupt the chip supply coming out of Taiwan and therefore no one will be willing to do so. And I think that might be true, but I’m not sure about it. It’s also the case that Taiwan’s chip production guarantees that the US is interested in ensuring ongoing good relations between the US and Taiwan and peace between China and Taiwan. And that dynamic is certainly true as well. I also think it’s probably an oversimplification to argue that semiconductors are the primary reason or a primary reason that either China or the US are interested in Taiwan because Of course both countries have been involved in the Taiwan question since 1949 before the first chips were invented. And so in some ways we have semiconductors sitting at the center of the competition in the Asia region between the US and China. But in other ways, the competition is largely driven by political and military factors that intersect with chips but are far from guaranteed to ensure that their supply is uninterrupted. And so I do worry that actually chips don’t provide a deterrence against conflict or don’t guarantee that conflict won’t happen, but actually they would be the first disruption and The first most dramatic disruption that we face if in case conflict does materialize. So as a result, I finished my study of the chip industry in the ways that intersects with the China-US relationship much more worried thinking that perhaps it’s stabilizing, but perhaps It’s not. And if it’s not stabilizing, we’re in a very vulnerable position. (Time 0:33:40)