My understanding is that 1 company in Taiwan makes the greatest chips in the world and no one else can replicate them. How is that possible?
In: Engineering
Let’s say you wanted to make a fishing pole. First, you’d go find a stick in the woods and put a string on it. Then, you’d learn that it’s gotta be stronger or it’ll snap because fish are strong. So you find a stronger stick made of oak. But now you notice it’s too stiff, having some flex is needed. And you go on learning the failings of your current version and improve upon it.
Same thing with *micro*chips. We are approaching a point where transistors are the size of a single atom. The tech, the expertise needed to build that isn’t very common. Even the lithography machine that builds the chips is only made by one company in the whole world and it takes a whole train to deliver it. Then you need employees that even know how to do this stuff. Then just bringing up a factory will cost many, many billions.
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