ASML, every mention
71 scenes · ← back to ASML
tap a year for its mentions
every year anyone Ben Gilbert 32John Bathgate 20David Rosenthal 13Brinton Johns 5Hamilton Helmer 1
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where ASML comes up
Formula 1: Fast cars, celebrities, and B2B software (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:26:02 David Rosenthal As you progress, like TSMC and ASML, they got to spend incrementally more and more capex and more R and D every year to push the boundaries farther and farther.
TSMC founder Morris Chang · Acquired
- ▶ 2:24:32 Ben Gilbert Um, so they're, you know, they're not NVIDIA, they're not ARM, they're not Cadence Synopsys, they're not ASML, like they're not their own equipment vendor.
- ▶ 2:27:36 David Rosenthal Not only TSMC, ARM, Synopsys, Cadence, and ASML all founded,
TSMC · Acquired
- ▶ 1:08:19 Ben Gilbert ASML, which was originally ASM Lithography, and lithography is marginally in scope for this episode.
- ▶ 1:08:32 Ben Gilbert And the L, you know, is lithography, so the company was originally called ASMLithography.
- ▶ 1:08:36 Ben Gilbert They make the most advanced chip manufacturing machines in the world.
- ▶ 1:08:42 Ben Gilbert They're the only company that makes them.
- ▶ 1:08:44 Ben Gilbert They're located still in the Netherlands.
- ▶ 1:08:47 Ben Gilbert Their biggest customer is TSMC.
- ▶ 1:08:50 Ben Gilbert They, and this is where I want to bring it all the way back around, and we, of course, will talk about the magic that is these machines later.
- ▶ 1:08:57 Ben Gilbert It was founded in
- ▶ 1:09:20 David Rosenthal I mean, because, well, it's TSMC's insane capital operating cash flow production that enables them to spend capex above anybody else that allows them to buy more ASML equipment than anyone else.
- ▶ 1:23:40 Ben Gilbert To do this stuff, to make the equipment that ASML does, and to manufacture the way that TSMC does, it is the hardest thing to do in the world.
- ▶ 1:23:49 David Rosenthal Anybody else could get all the same equipment from ASML.
- ▶ 1:24:01 Ben Gilbert All right, I'm jumping out of my seat here, so I'm going to do the ASML thing now.
- ▶ 1:24:04 Ben Gilbert So the reason that some people can't get their hands on the ASML equipment is because the Netherlands did not renew their trade agreement with China.
- ▶ 1:25:08 Ben Gilbert So you buy one, your TSMC, you buy one and it arrives in, of course, the seven 47, then there's a crew of ASML employees on site, not only to assemble it, but then to help you run it.
- ▶ 1:27:40 Ben Gilbert Well, ASML actually needed to invent a new type of mirror to do this, and they also needed a contract with a German company to make this special type of laser, which is the only known company in the world capable of making it.
- ▶ 1:27:59 Ben Gilbert They used to have competitors, like Nikon used to compete with ASML on this, but it's too hard.
- ▶ 1:29:04 David Rosenthal When we get the shipments from ASML, you can make this happen.
- ▶ 1:57:40 David Rosenthal All of their IP, all of their, you know, people, all of their know-how, all of their relationships with ASML and the like.
- ▶ 1:58:09 David Rosenthal If all the crazy laser molten tin ASML stuff we were talking about, if all of a sudden there's discovered a new, either different or way cheaper, quantum computing, yeah, way to do this, then that kind of could reset the playing field.
- ▶ 2:03:49 David Rosenthal ASML now sends the stuff somewhere else.
- ▶ 2:09:17 Ben Gilbert As a matter of fact, ASML is actually larger than Intel by market cap.
- ▶ 2:09:41 David Rosenthal Be super curious, if you are along this thesis that we're sort of laying out on the show, how are you playing it between TSMC and ASML?
- ▶ 2:09:48 Ben Gilbert ASML, which is now Europe's most valuable company.
- ▶ 2:18:14 Ben Gilbert So how much do we ascribe to them versus ASML?
Microsoft Volume I: The Complete History and Strategy of founding through Windows 95 (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 15:03 Ben Gilbert It's like ASML machines.
Amazon Web Services · Acquired
- ▶ 2:24:48 Ben Gilbert And on top of that, there's a finite number of the machines available to manufacture those high-end chips, the ones that ASML makes, so it sort of pays doubly to be able to know for sure you can be one of the few to get those.
- ▶ 2:25:01 Ben Gilbert Well, AWS sort of has the same thing going on where it's the ASML machines are much more scarce than the servers that AWS is buying, but it's unbelievably helpful for AWS to win market share so they can
Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi) · Acquired
- ▶ 53:00 David Rosenthal ASML and others in this case.
- ▶ 53:18 Ben Gilbert In the early 2000, even Intel, I think, funded ASML's development, a big industry consortium, including Intel, of the EUV, and then thought the technology was gonna die, and so I think three or four years in, divested.
- ▶ 55:55 Ben Gilbert Yeah, ASML.
- ▶ 55:56 Hamilton Helmer Yeah, ASML.
- ▶ 57:15 Ben Gilbert They can be one of the very few customers in the world that's guaranteed to, over the next three to five years, get these machines from ASML and other suppliers, like Drumpf, the laser company, et cetera.
Nvidia: The GPU Company (1993-2006) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:01:25 Ben Gilbert ARM, ASML, Qualcomm, and Broadcom?
SONY (75 years of electronics history in 3 hours) · Acquired
- ▶ 1:08:45 David Rosenthal Ah, that would be ASML, right?
Complexity Investing & Semiconductors with NZS Capital (Extended Cut) · Acquired
- ▶ 58:46 David Rosenthal They're the ASML of, uh, of, uh, of silicon carbon.
- ▶ 1:22:13 Brinton Johns So like TSMC as a company is very valuable, but it's not super valuable without ASML and LAM and AMAT and KLA, right?
- ▶ 1:22:21 Brinton Johns So, um, when you think about the ecosystem of semiconductors and ASML, of course, is not valuable at all without TSMC and Samsung.
- ▶ 1:23:12 Brinton Johns It would just take, to John's point, a long time, and that's why people are sort of saying, maybe we should, like, take some risk out of this place, and, and, um, you know, ASML calls this semiconductor sovereignty.
- ▶ 1:29:13 John Bathgate And so, I mean, one, one thing that you guys covered well, um, in the TSMC episode is, is the, um, implementation of EUV systems, um, from, from ASML.
- ▶ 1:29:21 John Bathgate And they actually are allowing us to shrink the transistor, um, kind of the fundamental building block, um, you know, two dimensionally.
- ▶ 1:29:29 John Bathgate And so ASML is kind of on record saying they think that,
- ▶ 1:29:34 Ben Gilbert In terms of, they'll, they'll allow us to keep doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months for 15 years, or just, like, it will be an effective way of getting any performance.
- ▶ 1:35:17 John Bathgate Like it used to be just about ASML needed better litho tools and like Intel would use them and like shrink the transistors.
- ▶ 1:35:25 John Bathgate And now like all this advanced packaging needs, it needs litho advancement from ASML, but it also needs, um, improvements from the other equipment guys like land research or applied materials or Tokyo electron.
- ▶ 1:37:47 Ben Gilbert The ASML guys create a pretty unbelievable machine, and they have a lot of services associated with that machine.
- ▶ 1:37:58 Ben Gilbert And then I sort of was scratching my head thinking, well, could ASML just kind of, like, become TSMC?
- ▶ 1:38:07 Ben Gilbert And then I dove down the other side of the, the slope, and I was like, well, who makes the stuff that's important to the ASML machines?
- ▶ 1:38:31 Ben Gilbert And I'm pretty sure what they're showing me is actually the magic of the, uh, ASML UV machine.
- ▶ 1:38:38 Ben Gilbert And I'm like, well, shoot, why can't the Trumpf company just do what ASML does and then also do what TSMC does if they are the only ones in the world who can make this
- ▶ 1:39:12 John Bathgate You know, drops of molten tin, the whole spiel from ASML, which Ben, by the way, you did a very good job on the, uh, on the TCC episode.
- ▶ 1:39:20 John Bathgate I think like multiple times you were like, can I do the ASML thing now?
- ▶ 1:39:44 John Bathgate Uh, I mean, ASML's partnership with Zeiss, the lens company is also like really special.
- ▶ 1:39:49 John Bathgate And I guess like Trump and Zeiss could try to partner to, I don't think they have any ambitions to do this, but they could try to partner together to kind of circumvent ASML.
- ▶ 1:40:07 John Bathgate With one of the things that's unique about ASML is, you know, they shipped the first EUV tool in 2010 to TSMC, and EUV didn't even really start high volume, and this was after, you know, a decade of R&D already, but then they didn't start…
- ▶ 1:40:31 John Bathgate And so there's actually this really cool conference called SPIE every February where all of ASML's customers come together
- ▶ 1:40:42 John Bathgate And so TSMC lived through 10 of the, or ASML lived through 10 of those, um, with all the, the, um, feedback, not just from, um, TSMC, but from all their ecosystem partners, right?
- ▶ 1:40:51 John Bathgate And so I just feel like the, the learning cycle that ASML has been through, there's just so much more innovation beside, um, in addition to the laser, um, and, and the, um, the lenses, but it is, I mean, the lens is a really critical…
- ▶ 1:41:02 John Bathgate I mean, ASML actually bought a laser company in
- ▶ 1:41:27 Brinton Johns It's like you say, okay, well, what's the most important part of this ASML tool, right?
- ▶ 1:44:06 Ben Gilbert Well, John, I know you have a, uh, ASML story that you want to share, so I'd love to hear it.
- ▶ 1:44:12 John Bathgate Yeah, I, I think this is a really cool story about kind of how ASML came to be ASML and so strategic to the world is, um, you know, they had one competitor, which is Nikon in the lithography market.
- ▶ 1:44:27 John Bathgate And so I think TSMC and Samsung and Intel kind of looked around and realized like we're betting the future of Moore's law on this one company, ASML, which at the time was like kind of a sleepy Dutch company that would have like a twenty…
- ▶ 1:44:37 John Bathgate Like no one really knew who ASML was in 2012.
- ▶ 1:44:41 John Bathgate Unique is that, um, Intel and TSMC and Samsung partnered and actually bought 25% of ASML to inject capital into ASML to develop EUV systems.
- ▶ 1:45:03 John Bathgate Um, and honestly, and like they were, everyone in the semi industry knew how important ASML was at the time, but
- ▶ 1:45:08 John Bathgate Like, the world didn't really understand that, and so, um, getting ASML where they needed to be, um, on a UV obviously is now, you know, enabling Moore's Law for the next at least 10 years.
- ▶ 1:53:06 Brinton Johns So we, when we think about ASML, right, they can, they can ship everything they can make, but they just can't make it anymore.
Standard Oil Part I · Acquired
- ▶ 1:34:12 David Rosenthal Well, and, you know, AS, ASML and, uh, uh, you know, all the equipment manufacturers, they're kinda like the railroads here.