Semiconductors 2022

Late stage transistors

Jun 18, 2022

[TL;DR Demand is growing exponentially & the competition is fierce]

Semiconductors are the new gold. They enable everything from advanced military technologies to everyday devices like cars and phones that we heavily rely on. The global demand for digitization is fueling a relentless growth in semiconductor development and manufacturing.

“The average cost of designing a 28nm chip is $40 million,” said Handel Jones, CEO of IBS. “By comparison, the cost of designing a 7nm chip is $217 million, and the cost of designing a 5nm device is $416 million. A 3nm design will cost up to $590 million.”

Moore’s Law

Transistor sizes have consistently been growing smaller and smaller. Fitting more and more transistors onto the same space enables higher computing output and greater power efficiency.

Fabrication

ASML Holding N. V. (ASML)

The ONLY company selling these machines.

UEV Lithography

Required to make 5nm transistors and smaller.

Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT)

Leader in fabrication solutions for chip engineering and advanced displays.

Micron Technology (MU)

Taiwan Semiconductor Company (TSM)

Samsung Semiconductor

Processors

Nvidia (NVDA)

Intel (INTC)

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)

Mediatek

Communications

Broadcom Inc. (AVGO)

Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM)

Big Tech

With their huge R&D (research & development) and manufacturing budgets, Big Tech firms have taken to developing their own optimized proprietary chips for their devices.