Chip War by Chris Miller Flashcards
1
Q
What is Moore’s Law?
A
the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years
2
Q
What was one way that the government tried to employ people in the Great Depression, involving calculations?
A
- The Mathematical Tables Project
- Several hundred “computers”, sitting in Manhattan office, tabulating logarithms and exponential functions
- Produced 28 volumes, each book filled with tables of numbers
3
Q
American bombers in WW2 used mechanical computational devices, but they were not that accurate - only […] of bombs landed within 1,000 feet of their target.
A
20%
4
Q
What’s a semi-conductor?
A
Not like copper - electricity CAN flow
Not like glass - CAN’T flow
But like silicon - CAN’T flow, but if DOPED with e.g. boron or phosphorous then current CAN flow
5
Q
When / where / by whom was the transistor invented?
A
Bell Labs, New Jersey
1947-48
William Shockley, Walter Brattain, John Bardeen
6
Q
What are 3 parts of a transistor?
A
Collector
Base
Emittor
7
Q
What was the first transistor company?
A
Shockley Semiconductor (1955)
8
Q
What company was set up by eight engineers who left Shockley?
A
Fairchild Semiconductor
9
Q
Name three people from the “traitorous eight” who set up Fairchild
A
Gordon Moore - Moore’s Law
Euegen Kleiner - Kleiner Perkins
Bob Noyce - pioneer of the integrated circuit
10
Q
Building multiple transistors on one piece of silicon (a chip) was invented by whom?
A
Jack Kilby, 1958, Texas Instruments
11
Q
Who was Fairchild’s first big customer?
A
NASA (MIT Instruments Lab) for their Apollo 11 mission to put a man on the moon
12
Q
Who was Texas Instrument’s first big integrated circuit customer?
A
US Airforce
Designing Minuteman II missiles to hit Soviet Union
13
Q
What did Jay Lathrop discover and patent in 1957?
A
Photolithography - printing by light
Turned microscope the other way, placed mask with design of circuit over it, on slad of silicon he added photo-resist that would react to light, and could then be washed away with chemicals
14
Q
Who else arrived to TI the same year as Jay Lathrop?
A
Morris Chang
15
Q
“He sat there and puffed on his pipe and looked at you through the smoke.” The Texans who worked for him thought he was “like a Buddha.”
Who is this?
A
Morris Chang
16
Q
Who joined Fairchild in 1962 and went on to build the semiconductor industry?
A
Andy Grove
17
Q
What was the first consumer integrated circuit used in?
A
Zenith hearing aid
18
Q
What was Bob Noyce’s business strategy to help grow the semi-conductor business?
A
Slashing prices
Sometimes below cost
“Moore later argued that Noyce’s price cuts were as big an innovation as the technology inside Fairchild’s integrated circuits.”
19
Q
Why did employees end up leaving Fairchild?
A
VC funder didn’t want to give them stock options, considered it a form of “creeping socialism”
20
Q
When was the Sputnik launched?
A
1957
21
Q
Descibe the Russian system of creating chips in the 60’s? (two words)
A
Copy it!
(i.e. American designs, rather than innovating new ideas)
22
Q
Who set up Sony?
A
Akio Morita with Masaru Ibuka
In 1946
23
Q
What was Sony’s first product?
A
electric rice cooker
24
Q
What was Sony’s first successful product?
A
Transistor radio
(TI had previously tried but got the pricing and marketing wrong)
25
What was Sharp's initial product success?
The calulator
Most calculators in the 1970's were Japanese made
26
What was the US's approach towards Japan's electronic trade?
* It was encouraged
* "A people with their history won't be content to make transistor radios", said Nixon
* Part of cold war strategy to form deep symbiosis between the countries
* Japanese products were allowed to be sold in the US
* Texas Instruments opened a chip fab in Japan
27
Who led the factory push for Fairchild?
Charlie Sporck
28
To keep costs down what did Sporck at Fairchild do?
Opened plants in Asia, in Hong Kong in 1963
Chips were made in USA and assembled in Asia
Wages were a tenth of US
29
Who was the long time leader of Singapore?
Lee Kuan Yew
30
Who invented the concept of a Silicon Valley startup
Stanford grads Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, when they began tinkering with electronic equipment in a Palo Alto garage in the 1930s
31
What did Japan do better than the US in the 70's? In chips
Not only cheaper but higher quality chips (less malfunctions)
Innovations in consumer products such as the Sony Walkman (1979, sold 385m units - one of best consumer products ever)
32
Who founded AMD and when?
Jerry Sanders (ex Fairchild)
in 1969
33
What "unfair" advantages did Japan have to build up their semiconductor business?
Corporate espionage (e.g. the trap laid by FBI for executives of Hitachi to access US companies and take pictures)
Barriers to US companies selling chips in Japan e.g. quotas up till 1974
Government subsidies
Much cheaper capital (6-7% vs. ~20% in the early 80s). Japan culture of personal savings gave banks lots of cash to lend even to low/no profit companies
34
Which US lithography equipment company was leading in the 1980s but then lost out to Nikon and went into decline?
GCA run by Milt Greenberg
35
When did Japan overtake the US in silicon?
1986 - Japan was producing more chips
By end of 1980's Japan was supplying 70% of the world's lithography equipment
36
How did the US strategically help Japan set up its high tech manufacture?
Japan military spending capped at 1% of GDP (vs. US at 5-10 times more than that)
Left Japan free to invest in building its high tech economy whilst USA carried the military tab of defending it
37
Who said: “Potato chips, computer chips, what’s the difference? ... They’re all chips. A hundred dollars of one or a hundred dollars of the other is still a hundred.”
A Reagan-administration economist
38
How did the US try to fight back and save its semiconductor business in the 80s?
* Creating lobby group to put pressure on Washington
* Reducing capital gain tax and allowing pension funds to invest in VC firms - made capital avialable
* Removal of tariffs to sell to Japan (didn't do anything)
* 1986 - deal with Japan to put quota on amount they could sell to US
* Sematech to help with collaboration between firms
All in all these didn't have a significant difference. GCA (lithography maker went bust in 1993)
39
“The United States has been busy creating lawyers,” while Japan has “been busier creating engineers.” who said this?
Akio Morita
40
What company did Joe and Ward Parkinson set up in 1978? and why was it a bad time?
Micron
Building DRAM
In Boise, Idaho (state to the South East of Washington state)
Terrible time for US semiconductor industry; was being beaten on price and quality from Asia; many firms facing bankruptcies
41
How did Mircon manage to compete in DRAM (against the Japanese)?
Ruthless cost-cutting
Every step of the manufacturing process was twekaed
Cheap land and electricity in Idaho
42
Who was the main backer of Micron?
Jack Simplot - Spud King
$1m turned into $1bn stake
43
When was the modern personal computer launched?
1981
IBM launches computer, monitor, keyboard, printer, two diskette drives
for $1,565
44
What pivot did Intel make in 1985?
Exiting DRAM
Getting into microprocessors for PCs
45
How did Japan suffer in the late 80s vs. US chip players? Think macro economics
Yen doubled vs dollar making Japanse imports expensive
US interest rates went down reducing cost of capital
46
What did other players do in reaction to IBM's launch of personal computer in the 80s?
They copied. Using Intel chips and Windows OS - installed in every office an many homes.
For example Compaq (based in Texas)
47
When was the Korean War?
1950-53
48
What did Lee Byung-Chul found in 1938 by selling dried fish and vegetables to China?
The Samsung empire
By 1960 he had become richest man in South Korea
49
"My enemies enemy is my friend" - which country did Silicon Valley use in the 80's to set up a rival (DRAM) producer to Japan?
South Korea
(e.g. Samsung making chips under the Intel name, and Micron licensing technology)
50
What did Irwin Jacobs and Andrew Virtebi set up in 1985?
QualComm
They focused on using chips for radio waves
Now they could use algorithms, more potential to encode/decode information using this medium
Initially used for military satellites, branches out into late 80s into civiliian uses (like satellites for trucking industry)
51
What two type of bomb were used in the war against Iraq in 1991?
Paveway (circuits designed by Texas Instruments, early version in 1972)
Tomahawk
52
In what way was the Gulf War in 1991 a test for US's new defence strategy?
First time got to really test its precision guided ammunition (this tech had just started to come in at the end of the Vietnam War, 15 years earlier)
Semiconductor push, part of DARPA's offset strategy (a type of competitive strategy that seeks to maintain advantage over potential adversaries over long periods of time while preserving peace where possible.)
53
What happend to Japan in the 90s?
Financial crisis
stock market halved
Real estate even more
Just recently hit a new high since Feb 1990
54
Give an example of Toshiba's lack of innovaiton in DRAM?
They discovered a memory chip in 1981 that kept it's data even after being swtiched off
Didn't do anything with it
Intel brought this to market - Flash memory / NAND
55
What caused decline of Japan's DRAM makers in 90s?
Lack of innovation
Overinvestment even where not profitable
Ignoring PC microprocessor market
Japan's market share fell from 90% in late 80s to 20% in 1998
56
How did Sony stay strong thorugh the 90s?
creating chips for digital cameras (photoelectric)
57
What's the capital of Taiwan?
Taipei
58
Who was brought into shape and build the Taiwanese semi industry in the mid 80s?
Morris Chang (who'd previously spent two decades with Texas Instruments)
59
Where did TMSC get its production technology from?
Philips
(took a quarter stake in the company)
60
What was the model that Taiwan took to build its chip business from the mid 80s?
Didn't want to just be assemblers/packagers
Idea was to become a foundry. Doing no chip design - leaving that to other - "fabless" - companies
61
What year was TMSC founded?
1987
62
Why were China slow to build their semiconductor industry?
* emphasis on steel and and iron industries - per Mao's socialism
* sending experts to countryside for socialist reeducation
* embargo of foreign products
63
What turned the tide and shifted China to focus on building electronics / semi-conductors
End of Cultural Revoultion
Death of Mao Zedong in 1976
Subsequent eleciton of Deng Xiaoping - policy of "Four Modernizations" one of which was science and tech
64
Which country became the world's leading DRAM maker in 1992?
South Korea
65
When was China's main foundry set up?
2000
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation
by Richard Chang (ex Texas Instruments) - SMIC
66
When was ASML founded and by who?
1984
Spin off from Philips
67
What was ASML's way of working (vs. Japanese companies)?
Sourced comnponents from elsewhere vs. Japanese who built everything in house
68
How was ASML's location a benefit?
Dutch
Seen as neutral in the US-Japan trade wars of 80s and 90s
69
How did ASML's link with TSMC help it?
Philips was an early backer of TSMC and designed its processes (so helped that it was from there that ASML was spun out of)
70
How did ASML end up with a monopoloy on producing lithography machines?
US pioneered the research into EUV - extreme ultra violet - shorter wavelengths to allow for smaller (tens of nanometres) designs
Didnt' want to pass on the IP to Japanese firms (Nikon, Canon) given the history of chip-war, so ASML was left by default
71
Today nearly every data center uses [...] chips by [...]
x86
Intel and AMD
72
What's the rival to x86 and when was it set up and by whom?
Arm
By Apple and two partners, in England
1990
73
Mobiles today consume [...] of chips sold
a third
74
What was Intel's response to Apple when asked to make chips for the iPhone?
Turned it down
"Don't see it"
75
Who's the biggest analog chip maker today?
Texas Instruments
76
Where are most memory chips made today?
East Asia
76
Who are today's big memory chip makers?
Micron
Samsung (Korea)
Hyinx (Korea)
Kioxia (Japan)
77
What's the difference between DRAM and NAND?
DRAM is volatile
NAND is non-volatile
78
How much does it cost to build an advanced logic chip fab today?
$20b
79
Most US chip makers have outsourced their manufacturing, with the exception of ...
Intel
80
What did Nvidia do in 2006, a strategic move?
Gave away CUDA software for free (can only work on Nvidia chips), allowing the chip to be used for calculations beyond graphics, e.g. AI!
81
Who manufactures Nvidia chips?
TMSC
82
What is Qualcomm's main contribution?
Designing 2G,3G,4G,5G standards (ie some of the tech used in these standards)
Designing microprocessors for phones
83
Who supplies the modem chips to apple, allowing it to connect with the networks?
Qualcomm
84
Who showed that a changing magnetic field resutls in a changing electric field and vice versa?
James Clark Maxwell
85
How fast is the speed of light?
300 thousand km/s
86
What technology moved chips from 2D transistors to 3D ones, giving better performance?
FinFET
Introduced in 2000 paper
87
What fab firm did AMD spin off in 2009?
GlobalFoundries
88
Within four years of the iPhone’s launch, Apple was making over (...) percent of all the world’s profits from smartphone sales, crushing rivals like Nokia and BlackBerry and leaving East Asian smartphone makers to compete in the low-margin market for cheap phones.
60%
89
Who does Apple device assembly?
Foxconn and Wistron
(Taiwanese companies operating in China)
90
in 2010 which companies were potentially able to make chips for Apple?
| Name five
TSMC
Samsung
GlobalFoundries (if it could succeed)
Intel (made chips for its own products)
SMIC in China (catching up)
91
Where does Intel make its chips?
US, Israel, Ireland
92
"Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China"
...
why is this misleading?
Becuase it misses out Taiwan - the chips can ONLY be made there
93
How much does ASML machine parts buy from other companies (vs. making in house)?
85%
(it buys from companies like Cymer, Carl Zeiss, Trumpf)
94
How much does an EUV machine cost?
$100m
95
What did GlobalFoundries do in 2018 (dropped out of ...)?
EUV technology
Was too expensie and could not compete with the big players with deep pockets (TSMC, Samsung, Intel)
96
How much did Intel spend per year on R&D?
$10b
four times as much as TMSC, x3 DARPA!
97
Why is Nividia's lead in AI chips not assured?
B/c of competition from Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft etc. - all designing their own chips
E.g. Google's TPU - Tensor Processing Unit
98
Why has Intel lost its way recently?
It's two main lines are CPU's for...
* PC - sales stalling
* Data centers - increasingly using GPUs
99
Where is all advanced microprossor manufacturing done today?
Taiwan (TSMC)
Korea (Samsung)
100
What was China's imports of semiconductors in 2017?
$260b
101
What was the goal of Xi Jinping's Made In China 2025 policy when it comes to chips?
Imported share of its chip production from 85 percent in 2015 to 30 percent by 2025.
102
Give an exmaple of how politics stifled chip manufacturing in China?
One former CEO of a Chinese foundry explained that every governor wanted a chip fab in his province and offered a mix of subsidies and veiled threats to ensure a facility was built. So China’s foundries ended up with an inefficient collection of small facilities spread across the country.
103
Who founded Huawei?
Ren Zhengfei
104
Zhao Weiguo, a big Chinese investor in semi conductors, runs which company?
Tsinghua Unigroup
105
Which foregin companies sold their technology to China?
IBM
Arm
AMD
106
Who are the 3 biggest providers of tech equipment to cell towers?
Huawei
Nokia
Ericsson
107
How much does Huawei spend on R&D?
$15b per year
(paralleled only by the likes of Amazon, Google, etc.)
108
Describe the capabilities of the different "G"s of phone networks
* 1G - analog phone calls
* 2G phones - digital phone calls, and could send picture texts;
* 3G phones opened websites;
* 4G made it possible to stream video from almost anywhere.
* 5G will provide a similar leap forward. e.g. VR, IoT
109
What is beamforming?
Cell tower identifies location of phone device, and sends radio waves just in that direction (not everywhere) .. resulting in better signal, less interference
110
Which company is poised to dominate 5G infrastructure?
Huawei...
Overtaking Sweden's Ericsson and Finland's Nokia
111
Who designs the main chip in Huawei's 5G cell tower equipment?
Designed by Huawei's HiSilicon design arm
Fabricated by TMSC
112
what is the name of the US military agency that does reserach into technology?
DARPA
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
113
How have Chinese firms advanced rapidly in microchips design (such as Huwaei)?
Stealing IP
Government subsidies
Buying foreign firms
114
Why did ZTE get in trouble with the US?
For breaking sanctions and selling to Iran and North Korea.
115
What company did China set up to gain a footing in the DRAM market?
Jinhua - collaborated with Taiwan's UMC, to steal secrets from Micron and poach employees (2015)
US govt. retaliated by banning sale of chip making equipment (made in US and Japan), putting Jinhua out of business
116
what are the 3 chip design software companies?
All US based
* Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor
117
What did USA under Trump do against Huawei?
prevented it from using US made goods (software, chips, equipment etc.)
or any goods produced with US made goods
turned Huwaei into a second-rate player (it can't access enough of the right chips that it needs)
118
How many people live in Wuhan?
11m
119
What is NAND tech used for?
Non-volatile memory...
* USB drives
* Smartphones memory
* Solid-state drives in Mac
120
Wuhan Hongxin - what is it?
Wuhan chip plant that attracted funding but went bust - basically a scam
121
How many parts in the laser component of an EUV machine?
457,329
122
What is the open source architecture (competitor of x86 and Arm)?
Risc-V
(In 2019 the RISC-V foundation from US to Switzerland to promote neutrality)
123
Why is Intel's data server chip business in decline?
Because of competition from AMD and Nvidia
And Cloud Services like Amazon and Google are designing their own
124
How much of chip capacity does East Asia produce? Memory, logic, advanced logic
Memory = 90%
Logic = 75%
Taiwan produces +90% of most advanced logic chips
125
How much processor chips does Taiwan produce (% of world output)?
37%
126
Taiwan's premier talking about his country having a (...) to protect it from aggression and disruption from outside powers
Silicon Shield
127
What are the implications of Russia's lack of chip manufcaturing on current war with Ukraine?
* Its shot-down drones contain foregin chips
* relies on unguided missiles (e.g. 95% in Syria war) vs. Ukraine which uses Javelin - contains 200 chips
* Deploying chips intended for dishwashers in missile systems
128
