Always Be Curious #247: Acquired interviews Morris Chang, DeepSeek mania, and Boom Supersonic
This week in ABC: the guys at Acquired got an interview with TSMC's Morris Chang and it is amazing, DeepSeek made the world go crazy, and a new supersonic plane
This week, the world was a bit of a rollercoaster. We had DeepSeek to kickstart the week, followed by a series of earnings reports from various companies around the chip industry, including ASML, Intel and Lam Research.
The DeepSeek news cycle was…interesting. It was a flurry of sketchy opinions, significant short-sightedness and trade war-induced fear-mongering. 🤷♂️ I’ve gathered a few articles that I felt were still worth reading in this week’s ABC, including a piece from the Beeb and from Wall Street Journal (Ben Cohen), but really, forget about DeepSeek. There’s going to be a ton of AI applications in the coming years that will blow your socks off, from the US, Europe and Asia, so you better get used to it.
But if there’s one bit of media that I really want you to consume this week, it’s the below interview that Acquired did with the OG of chip manufacturing, TSMC’s Morris Chang. Holy cow. I cannot believe that they got this amount of time with the man. Truly amazing. Take a few hours, sit back and press play. 🍿 You won’t regret it. 🙏
Have a good week, stay safe and sound,
👨💻The round-up in sci-tech💡
💥 Boom: America’s answer to Concorde completes its first supersonic flight (CNN)
Boom Supersonic, the American company building what promises to be the world’s fastest airliner, broke the sound barrier for its first time with a test flight in Mojave, California, on Tuesday.
Bill Gates traumatized his parents—and other stories of a wild, wonky youth (WIRED)
Terrorizing classmates, spending a night in jail, tripping on LSD: This isn’t the Bill Gates you know.
💰 OpenAI in talks for huge investment round valuing it at up to $300 billion (Wall Street Journal) 🔐
SoftBank would lead the $40 billion round for the ChatGPT maker, some of which would go to the Stargate AI infrastructure venture.
💭 On DeepSeek and export controls (Dario Amodei’s blog)
“(…) I'll focus on whether DeepSeek's releases undermine the case for those export control policies on chips. I don't think they do. In fact, I think they make export control policies even more existentially important than they were a week ago.”
🔮 DeepSeek arrived. America freaked. What happens now?
Ben Cohen asked the WSJ’s smartest minds—and AI—all your deepest questions about the week’s mania.
🇨🇳 DeepSeek: how China's 'AI heroes' overcame US curbs to stun Silicon Valley (BBC)
How did a little-known Chinese start-up build a powerful new AI model despite restrictions?
☄️ Asteroid fragments upend theory of how life on Earth bloomed (Nature)
Samples from Bennu contain the chemical building blocks of life — but with a twist.
🧮 In Seattle, a convergence of 5,444 mathematical minds (The New York Times)
Participants at this year’s Joint Mathematics Meetings explored everything from the role of A.I. to the hyperbolic design of a patchwork denim skirt.
🔮 AI Is too unpredictable to behave according to human goals (Scientific American)
AI “alignment” is a buzzword, not a feasible safety goal.
🇪🇺 ‘Rising star’: EU made more electricity from solar than coal in 2024 (The Guardian)
Report reveals solar power generated 11% of bloc’s electricity, surpassing coal at 10%.
🤓This week in chips⚠
🎧 Acquired - Interview with Morris Chang (Acquired podcast)
Holy smokes. The Acquired guys did what now!? This legend. ✨
“We flew to Taiwan to interview TSMC Founder Morris Chang in a rare English interview. In fact, the last long-form video interview we could find was 17 years ago at the Computer History Museum… conducted by the one-and-only Jensen Huang! This episode came about after asking ourselves a version of the Jeff Bezos “regret minimization” question: what conversations would we most regret not having if the chance passed Acquired by? Dr. Chang was number one on our list, and thanks to a little help from Jensen himself, we’re so happy to make it happen. Dr. Chang shares the stories of a few crucial moments from TSMC’s history which have only been written about in his (currently Chinese-only) memoirs, including how TSMC won Apple’s iPhone and Mac chip business and a 2009 discrepancy with NVIDIA that almost jeopardized their relationship, and the lessons he took from them. We can’t think of a better way to kick off 2025. Please enjoy!”
🔥 Back to the Future with Gordon Moore (The Chip Letter)
Pretty awesome piece by Babbage. An antidote to DeepSeek induced worry! Also, DO watch the deeplinked Moore keynote. It’s so worth it.
🇰🇷Sunny Stalnaker of ASML to receive SEMI Sales & Marketing Excellence Award (SEMI)
Wow! So well-deserved. ASML’s Sunny Stalnaker will receive this prestigious industry award at SEMICON Korea. She will be honored for her role in facilitating the landmark 2012 extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) Customer Co-Investment Program between ASML, TSMC, Intel, and Samsung that funded the commercialization of the technology.
“Sunny Stalnaker’s contributions to industrializing EUV lithography extended Moore’s Law and helped to continue the global semiconductor industry’s legacy of enabling the technological advances our world depends on,” said Ajit Manocha, SEMI President and CEO. “SEMI and its membership are honored to recognize Stalnaker for her exceptional leadership and tenacious pursuit of innovation during a pivotal time in our industry’s history.”
🇰🇷Samsung’s Q4 chip profit misses estimates at 2.9 trillion won (Chosun)
Samsungs Q4 chip profit misses estimates, lagging behind SK Hynix.
🇺🇸 Intel Q4 sales beat estimates during turnaround (Bloomberg)
Intel reported better-than-projected fourth-quarter revenue, while the semiconductor maker cautioned that its push to become more competitive is still a work in progress.
✨ Intel 18A process technology simply explained (Intel)
The Intel 18A process technology combines chipmaking breakthroughs: new RibbonFET transistors and PowerVia architecture.
🔥 Lam Research’s dry resist: a breakthrough in EUV lithography for next-generation Logic and Memory manufacturing (BALD Engineering)
Blog about Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), Atomic Layer Etching (ALE) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD).
☺️ Rapidus reportedly to install 10 EUV machines, aiming for early mass production (TrendForce)
While foundry giant TSMC plans to raise its 2025 capex to USD 38-42 billion, marking an up to 40% year-on-year increase, Japan’s Rapidus is also making strides in expansion. With government support backing it up, the company reportedly aims to introduce a total of 10 extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to its cutting-edge semiconductor plants, according to Japanese media outlet Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
🔮 DeepSeek's AI breakthrough bypasses industry-standard CUDA for some functions, uses Nvidia's assembly-like PTX programming instead (Tom’s Hardware)
Dramatic optimizations do not come easy.
🏗️ Broadcom bets on 3.5D packaging technology to build bigger AI chips (Electronic Design)
The tech integrates 2.5D packaging technology and 3D silicon stacking to usher in the next generation of “superchips” for AI.
💥 TSMC founder says Tim Cook told him in 2011 that Intel did not know how to be a foundry (Tom’s Hardware)
Intel could have landed Apple as a foundry customer, but it did not.
📈By the numbers📉
🇳🇱 ASML reports €28.3 billion total net sales and €7.6 billion net income in 2024 (ASML)
"Our fourth-quarter was a record in terms of revenue, with total net sales coming in at €9.3 billion, and a gross margin of 51.7%, both above our guidance. This was primarily driven by additional upgrades. We also recognized revenue on two High NA EUV systems. We shipped a third High NA EUV system to a customer in the fourth quarter. ASML achieved another record year, ending with total net sales for 2024 of €28.3 billion, and a gross margin of 51.3%. We expect first-quarter total net sales between €7.5 billion and €8.0 billion, with a gross margin between 52% and 53%. ASML expects R&D costs of around €1,140 million and SG&A costs of around €290 million. As we communicated last October, we expect total net sales for the year between €30 billion and €35 billion, with a gross margin between 51% and 53%. Consistent with our view from the last quarter, the growth in artificial intelligence is the key driver for growth in our industry. It has created a shift in the market dynamics that is not benefiting all of our customers equally, which creates both opportunities and risks as reflected in our 2025 revenue range," said ASML President and Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet.
🇺🇸 Intel reports Q4 and Full-Year 2024 financial results (Intel)
“The fourth quarter was a positive step forward as we delivered revenue, gross margin and EPS above our guidance,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, interim co-CEO of Intel and CEO of Intel Products. “Our renewed focus on strengthening and simplifying our product portfolio, combined with continued progress on our process roadmap, is positioning us to better serve the needs of our customers. Dave and I are taking actions to enhance our competitive position and create shareholder value.”
🇰🇷 Samsung Electronics announces Q4 and FY 2024 results (Samsung)
“In 2025, overall memory market demand is expected to recover from the second quarter. The Memory Business is reducing the portion of legacy DRAM and NAND products to align with market demand and accelerating the migration to cutting-edge nodes. The Business will continue to strengthen its business competitiveness and optimize its portfolio by increasing the portion of high value-added products such as HBM, DDR5, LPDDR5x, GDDR7 and server SSDs based on advanced process nodes. (…) As for 2025, the Business will continue to secure orders from major customers by ramping up and stabilizing the 2nm GAA technology, while simultaneously bolstering the 4nm technology and design infrastructure to meet the growing mobile and HPC needs.”
🇺🇸 KLA Corporation reports fiscal 2025 Q2 results (KLA)
"KLA's December quarter results were above the midpoint of our guidance ranges despite navigating through the business impact of new U.S. government export controls released late in the quarter. These results supported a strong finish to calendar 2024 for KLA highlighted by relative revenue growth outperformance and strong profitability," said Rick Wallace, president and CEO, KLA Corporation. "The return to growth at the leading-edge continues to gain momentum led by expanding AI and high-performance computing investments. KLA's differentiated portfolio of solutions aligns exceptionally well in helping enable our customers to navigate increasing technology complexity, growing design starts and larger semiconductor devices in an environment of rising semiconductor demand."
🇺🇸 Lam Research Corporation reports financial results for the quarter ended December 29, 2024 (Lam)
"Lam is executing at a high level at a pivotal moment for semiconductor manufacturing. Increasing demands on chip performance play into Lam's strengths, with advanced deposition and etch applications set to comprise a growing share of WFE," said Tim Archer, Lam Research's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Our investments to win at key technology inflections are paying off, with more exciting opportunities ahead."
❤️For the love of tech❤️
Because shooting a Roadster into orbit was some of the utmost bad-assery that I ever had the pleasure of watching live. 🔥
🚘 Space object or sports car? How a Tesla Roadster was briefly mistaken for an asteroid (USA Today)
What an amateur astronomer recently took to be a newly-discovered asteroid turned out to be a Tesla Roadster voyaging through the cosmos.
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.