Always Be Curious #212: TSMC's node surprise, BNR interviews ASML's Martin van den Brink, and Sopwith turns 40
This week in ABC: TSMC surprises the chip industry with a new node in 2026, BNR interviews ASML's Martin van den Brink, and the classic game Sopwith turns 40
Sup curious clan!? Some housekeeping! 🧹
Marc Hijink’s lovely book about ASML (“Focus”) is now out in English for Kindle, so get comfy and get this pageturner! 📚
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This week, TSMC surprised everyone at their annual tech symposium with a new node classified as “A16” (Angstrom 16, a new designation after the ’N’/nanometer nodes), set for production in 2026. It’s their first node to use a “backside power delivery architecture”, which they’ve given the rockstar brand name “Super Power Rail”. 😎 So what exactly IS backside power delivery? ⚡️ Well, today’s chips have power delivered from the top of the chip, which requires the power ‘lines’ to go through many layers of wiring to get to the transistors at the bottom of the stack. This means that precious chip real estate has to be used for power delivery, while power is lost as it travels through those many layers. Backside power delivery flips the script and routs power delivery from the bottom (or ‘backside’) of the chip, gaining more direct access to the transistors. In return, the ‘frontside’ real estate can be used to increase transistor density, while improving the overall power and performance of the chip. But as with any innovation: if it was easy, everybody would be doing, right? This innovation is getting ready to be implemented in the coming years by chip giants TSMC, Intel and Samsung and requires collaborative effort across the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem, including in deposition, etch, chemical mechanical planarization, bonding, wafer thinning, and more. Stay tuned for more!
Have a good week, stay safe and sound,
👨💻The round-up in sci-tech💡
🛰️ NASA’s Voyager 1 resumes sending engineering updates to Earth (JPL NASA)
Woo! What an achievement. After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
💭 Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilisation is more fragile than we realised’ (BBC)
Before his recent death, the influential philosopher Daniel Dennett spoke to the BBC about why he saw new dangers from AI.
☢️ The nuclear reactors that could power bases on the Moon (BBC)
Astronauts living on the Moon will need lots of power – but they can't take fuel supplies with them. A new generation of miniature nuclear reactors could be the answer.
🌱 Vast DNA tree of life for plants revealed by global science team using 1.8 billion letters of genetic code (Phys.org)
In a new paper published in Nature, an international team of 279 scientists led by the Royal Botanic Gardens presents the most up-to-date understanding of the flowering plant tree of life.
🔮 What’s next with AI? (The Verge)
AI isn’t going anywhere.
🇨🇦 Meet Nvidia's Canadian secret weapon (Financial Post)
Nvidia's CEO handpicked University of Toronto professor Sanja Fidler willhead up its Toronto lab, catapulting her to AI stardom.
🐙📸 An octopus took my camera, and the images changed the way I see the world (The New York Times)🎁
“Saving the planet” is the wrong goal.
🤓This week in chips⚠
🇳🇱🎧 Het brein van ASML: de weg naar het onmogelijke / The brain of ASML: the road to the impossible (BNR)
Radiostation BNR published a great podcast interview with ASML's outgoing CTO Martin van den Brink. It’s absolutely lovely…but it’s Dutch only. In honor of Martin and to unlock this journalistic goodness for non-Dutchies, I’ve also transcibed and translated the episode to English. In this first episode (out of two), reporters Herbert Blankesteijn en Ben van der Burg talk to Martin about his 40-year career as a technology leader and semiconductor industry pioneer. He reflects on the earliest days of ASML, the company’s innovation journey with highlights and lowlights, and what it meant to grow up with chipmakers like Micron, AMD and TSMC. Enjoy! 👌 All kudos for this podcast go to the reporters of De Technoloog and to BNR. 👍
🥇 TSMC celebrates 30th North America Technology Symposium with innovations powering AI with silicon leadership (TSMC)
TSMC debuted the TSMC A16 technology, featuring leading nanosheet transistors with innovative backside power rail solution for production in 2026, bringing greatly improved logic density and performance. TSMC also introduced its System-on-Wafer (TSMC-SoW™) technology, an innovative solution to bring revolutionary performance to the wafer level in addressing the future AI requirements for hyperscaler datacenters.
🥊 TSMC says 'A16' chipmaking tech to arrive in 2026, setting up showdown with Intel (Reuters)
TSMC said on Wednesday that a new chip manufacturing technology called "A16" will enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the world's fastest chips.
🏗️ TSMC to go 3D with wafer-sized processors — CoW-SoW technology allows 3D stacking for the world's largest chips (Tom’s Hardware)
Massive wafer scale 'chips' to become even more formidable.
🌵 Inside TSMC’s struggle to build a chip factory in the U.S. suburbs (Rest Of World)
Missed deadlines and tension among Taiwanese and American coworkers are plaguing the chip giant’s Phoenix expansion.
💰 Micron will receive $6.1 billion to build semiconductor plants (The New York Times)
The grant to the memory chipmaker is the latest federal award aimed at boosting U.S. chip manufacturing.
🏢 Samsung begins industry's first mass production of 9th-gen V-NAND (Semiconductor Digest)
Samsung announced that it has begun mass production for its one-terabit (Tb) triple-level cell (TLC) 9th-generation vertical NAND (V-NAND), solidifying its leadership in the NAND flash market.
🇰🇷 Samsung, SK hynix intensify competition for next-gen AI semiconductor supremacy (Business Korea)
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are engaging in fierce competition to lead the next-generation semiconductor market in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).
🇳🇱 Nieuwe topman ASML: ‘De Amerikaanse exportrestricties hebben niet zoveel impact op ons’ / New CEO ASML: “The American export restrictions do not impact us that much” (FInancieele Dagblad)
Christophe Fouquet officially took office as the new CEO of the chip machine manufacturer ASML at the annual shareholders' meeting on Wednesday 24 April. Prior to this meeting, FD spoke with Fouquet about the future of the company, running a monopoly, and the restrictions in China. "We must ensure that customers maintain their confidence in us to continue delivering."
📈By the numbers📉
Lam Research forecasts quarterly revenue above estimates on AI chip boom (Reuters)
“With solid revenue and earnings per share performance in the March quarter, Lam is off to a strong start in calendar 2024” said Tim Archer, Lam Research's President and Chief Executive Officer. “As our customers address the challenges in scaling semiconductors to meet the power and speed requirements for driving AI transformation, Lam is strengthening its leadership and is well-positioned for the significant opportunities ahead.”
SK Hynix expects full chip recovery after strong earnings on AI boom (Reuters)
South Korea's SK Hynix Inc said it expected a full recovery in memory chips on AI demand, posting its highest profit in nearly two years on sales of advanced DRAM chips with high bandwidth memory (HBM) for use in generative AI chipsets.
STMicro cuts full-year revenue outlook as slowing car market bites (Reuters)
European chipmaker STMicroelectronics on Thursday lowered its full-year sales guidance, the latest semiconductor company to struggle with weakening demand from carmakers and a further decline in orders from laptop and phone companies.
Texas Instruments reports first quarter 2024 financial results and shareholder returns (TI)
"Revenue decreased 16% from the same quarter a year ago and 10% sequentially, as revenue declined across all end markets.”
❤️For the love of tech❤️
Who hasn’t played this all-time classic!? 🕹️ If you’ve never played (talking to you, Gen Z!), then here’s your chance. 👇
✈️ Play Sopwith in your browser (Fragglet’s github)
Always Be Curious is the personal newsletter of Sander Hofman, Senior Creative Content Strategist at ASML. Opinions expressed in this curated newsletter are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.