The strange way the world's fastest microchips are made

Planet Money

NPR

News, Business

4.6 • 30.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has ever created. It's a breakthrough called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and it's how the most advanced microchips in the world are made. The kind of chips powering the latest AI models. The kind of chips that the U.S. is desperately trying to keep out of the hands of China.

For years, few thought this technology was even possible. It still sounds like science fiction: A laser strong enough to blast holes in a bank vault hits a droplet of molten tin. The droplet explodes into a burst of extreme ultraviolet light. That precious light is funneled onto a wafer of silicon, where it etches circuits as fine as a strand of DNA. Only one company in the world that can make these advanced microchip etching machines: a Dutch firm called ASML.

Today on the show, how this breakthrough in advanced chipmaking happened — and how it almost didn't. How the long-shot idea was incubated in U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and nurtured by U.S. tech giants. And, why a Dutch company now controls it.

This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Sally Helm. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Dania Suleman, and engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Alexei Horowitz-Gazi here. Sure, subscriptions offer convenience, but are they bad for competition?
0:06.2	When you're not cancel, because you forget about it or it's difficult to cancel, those forces of consumers taking their business to another product are blunted.
0:15.0	That's from our recent Planet Money bonus episode, my extended interview with Stanford economist Meal Mahoney.
0:20.2	Listen with NPR Plus at plus.npr.org.
0:24.7	Hey, a quick word before the show. The 2024 election is over. And as a new administration prepares to assume power,
0:32.5	it is our job across the entire NPR network to report on what they do with that power. That's why we're here.
0:39.8	And your support makes it possible for us to break down big stories, to fact check, and to make
0:45.7	sure you understand what's going on. When you donate, you make a difference in our ability
0:50.8	to do this work. If you're already a supporter, we're going to take this moment to just say thank you, truly.
0:56.9	And if you're not, you can go to donate.npr.org to give.
1:03.0	That's donate.npr.org.
1:06.7	Okay. Here's the show.
1:08.9	This is Planet Money from NPR.
1:14.2	So there is this technology that when I first heard about it, I thought, you got to be kidding me.
1:20.3	This has got to be science fiction.
1:23.0	It's this new way of making microchips.
1:26.2	There is only one company that has figured out this technology, a Dutch company called
1:31.5	ASML.
1:32.9	And recently, Jeff, you went to their labs in San Diego.
1:37.8	How many people have seen what we're about to see today?
1:40.7	Well, a lot of ASML engineers.
1:42.6	Okay.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.