ASML's Secret: An exclusive view from inside the global semiconductor giant | VPRO Documentary

foreign [Music] for as long as humans have been around they've explored from small steps to Giant leaps they've traveled and pushed boundaries ever further from landing on the moon to landing on Mars 480 million kilometers down the road but what if you're not exploring for what is biggest rather for what is smallest if you want to travel to the smallest space how do you do that [Music] in the countryside of brabant Province on the edge of cornfields that stretch as far as the eye can see stand the buildings of asml for those who have never heard of them before asml has a greater impact on our lives than any other Dutch company asml makes machines to build microchips with and the world is crying out for chips the production of chips has even provoked a geopolitical struggle in the year in which the world was turned upside down and extreme forces are impacting asml this extraordinary company is opening its doors to the outside world for just this ones [Music] foreign the Chinese wanted your technology the abide Administration put pressure on the Dutch government to say no what do you make of the the trade tensions and of course you supply the companies that make those ships you mentioned csmc their Pizza is because of the astronomical increase in demand for chips asml has become the most important Link in the worldwide chip industry without asml there are no chips and without chips there is no progress ions yeah yeah foreign this is Peter venning born in Houston a small fishing Village on the isilmir Peter was an insecure child who stuttered but was good at maths as an accountant he started climbing the ladder and now as the CEO of asml he's become a player on the world stage oh International media shower asml with superlatives when trying to explain what makes asml so exceptional then you might be a bit obscure because how do you build a machine with 35 000 people that no one can copy what is asml's Secret [Music] foreign it was here and felt over enabled this is yours benshrop as a kid he was always the clever one and really he still is even as a boy he built all kinds of small machines and now he's building very large ones he's continuously coming up with things that shouldn't really be possible at all he is a professor of industrial physics and Senior vice president of Technology at asml but really he is the proverbial mad professor and this is his machine [Music] this model is called the twinscan nxe 3400d euv lithography machine going for a little under 200 million euros in order to make chips use what are called Wafers light sensitive discs made of silicon the Wafers are put in the machine and then at incredible speed an extremely small pattern is written on the Silicon in nanometers invisible to the naked eye and this is the result a modern 12-inch Nano cake full of chips the chip okay guys you know we're getting it on telephone no actually no until the phone breaker myself foreign foreign foreign foreign well .com reflection and that factor needs it so it was simple to do that yeah chip manufacturers line up at asml's door to buy their machines especially Samson from Korea Intel from the US and tsmc from Taiwan and they're competing with each other asml are sitting pretty but demand is so high they can barely meet it just like all other companies asml is short of people and raw materials there's even a chip shortage so asml is under huge pressure to increase production and recruit lots of staff deep moment over the hearts is this is Ariana beimer who already has to walk 20 minutes every day in heels to get to her office and it's only getting worse Ariana is the global manager of talent programs and University relations it's her job to find and recruit the best people worldwide for asml hover message dance per month Demand only demands yeah foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] the building is done in a clean room which is even cleaner than an operating theater and you have to walk slowly because not a single particle of dust is allowed to stir here almost no one is allowed in only those building the machines have access and this film crew of course [Music] though we wouldn't be the be the first spies pretending to be journalists trying to steal Secrets here take a closer look good morning everybody every shift the engineers start out discussing the work and the problems to be solved who wants to share anything about materials about some hours or almost a day about the dynamic links we were lost uh please use Facebook to get back to the tool cabin so Kennedy can take it out again it does not be lost more than a day Coyle as he lost during their way to back yes a lot of clothes too and we are investigating where it is and maybe we need your help also if you see this grayer box with these coils we have all hands meeting coming up on Friday foreign Ty to shout out the emojis that are there and of course in the end some drinks this is Brum from nearby tillberg as a child he dreamed of planes and Rockets that's why he studied aerospace engineering now he's building a large square box he's partnered up with Giovanni from Eindhoven whom he met at college foreign Giovanni have been given a very special assignment they have to put together the first prototype of the next generation of machines find the hole in the floor that's the question the euv twin scan exe 5000 High n a this one is this but it will need to fit okay okay bingo foreign foreign thank you [Music] now we have to load it I was like this needs a desk okay but who wants to work at asml how do you get someone from for example Japan or Argentina to give up everything in order to come and work in welthoven Ariana has to make sure that every engineer all over the world has heard of the wonderful tech company from the Netherlands is [Music] foreign conversion efficiency it's beam quality and it's high power development by adding a gas catcher we can now increase the pressure that we're able to work at without overloading our Turbo is pretty unique yeah that we can do this yeah so we think we can go to like three by negative seven and the base in the Baseline configuration and optimistically 80 minus seven and then we use our outer correlation method um to basically um do depth filtering you don't see it because there's more spreads yes yes right very good yeah so the trend is okay so the trend is good heavily shared with uh our friends in Portland I was thinking maybe you should share it with our friends in Portland when you can talk hmm our friends in Portland I wonder who they are I'll be happy to do so yeah it all sounds like code but they're already working on the technology of the future here and that means they will need to force new technological breakthroughs for our friends in Portland or invest igation and they've managed to leave the competition far behind and the next Flagship is already being prepared for launch for that new machine a new qualification team has to be put together that's why nurin Hussein has been brought to velthoven how does it feel for you that you are part of making a machine which goes all over the world well I'm definitely very proud of what I do um and especially because I get to be part of the starting up of the new system and the new department for that system that's really exciting it's quite overwhelming because you want to make sure that you're going to do it right from the start this is Noreen Hussein studied at Nelson Mandela University in Cape Town where she loved to Tinker with rally cars now she lives in siddart where to relax she builds domestic robots she's the team lead of qualification engineering we are very much focusing on hiring at the moment because in the coming years we are going to be growing by 350 400 percent um so what yeah the the com yeah our Department's going to be growing by about 350 400 percent so four times as big yes four times as big yeah all new recruits go through internal training and every possible effort is made to keep the new hires happy [Music] there are dozens of different kitchens there is a hair salon a supermarket a yoga studio a massage salon a Visa agency a car rental a physical therapist a mortgage advisor a club for autistic people at asml and countless sports teams this is nadir who immediately signed up for the asml Crickets team Cricket Jersey [Music] been here for five weeks now and how's it been going the first few weeks were quite tough getting used to everything especially with the training and the high-tech environment but I seem to be settling in quite nicely actually and integration into asml and the Netherlands itself how do you feel that's been going it's very exciting uh the Dutch culture is very nice the weather is something you need to get used to here yeah um the food is is interesting only balance to a fafultures um stump stumps um crocketts yeah a lot of Crockett it's quite fun meeting Nadia voraji who describes himself as an indo-african adventurer only two months ago he was doing population studies among Zulus in South Africa and he had his own business in Cape Town [Music] now he is a qualification engineer for a machine that hasn't even been completed yet is there anything that you feel can be improved with regards to the training at the moment button it's very difficult to say but I think just having more time in the clean room would definitely be beneficial um but again the the systems are so complicated you could spend literally a lifetime or a generation figuring out how everything works so can you show the machine we have over here the system in comparison to the size of an engineer over there in his little clean room outfits and over here you can see the comparison to some of our previous systems so the previous machine was our nxe it's a big it is it's quite massive [Music] let's go back in time because however big they are now 40 years ago they were tiny asml was born out of Phillips and the founders started with the latest model of a Phillips chip machine the size of a fridge the past 2000 for years they could only muddle through and the survival of asml hung by a thread but just as often they would take a small step forward keeping their head just above water until that one moment about 25 years ago then they made their giant leap forward [Music] as well um foreign with a lot in The Courier and when the telephone Opera and the convert relaxation okay [Music] we think we can do it let's go yeah since they became World Market leader in 2003 they've increased the Precision of their machine from a few hundred nanometers to three nanometers in their research they're moving on to picometers and they're already dreaming of femtometers that's one quadrillionth of a meter which foreign what's the health um [Music] zealous foreign [Music] foreign [Music] yeah insane ever going to operate machines most of the machine's Parts aren't made here they're sourced from all over the world the light source from the US the mirrors and lenses from Zeiss in Germany the measuring system from Taiwan and an incredible number of parts are sourced locally like the frame of vdl from Eindhoven asml is the spider in a huge Regional web of Technology Museum um foreign sucker [Music] getting a medium cappuccino and I'm origano um head of research of the most complex machine in the world which for example makes chips to enable contactless payment the machine is a sum of a lot of Secrets and a lot of scientific breakthroughs but the biggest and most important secret is how the euv light is produced and how it can be used to write in nanometers and that's exactly what Yos is going to explain to us in a film yeah no the uh that's all for the film in England they have a 15-yard blue tomato foreign again not at least um foreign [Music] foreign guess what did the 13th yeah foreign if you're still following this is the most important technology which gave asml its Edge and this is exactly the knowledge spies have tried to obtain it is thank you foreign foreign the technology is so sensitive that even the US president is getting involved first Donald Trump and then Joe Biden stopped asml from selling euv machines to China asml is the gatekeeper on the digital Highway [Music] in 2021 asml sold 309 machines and turned a profit of 5.8 billion euros so a machine has to start generating money very quickly it takes a few additional weeks to get every delivered machine up and running that's why every machine has a system install owner when the machine flies to the customer we flight with it you are kind of a machine's assistant or yeah babysitters your machines right hand babysitter yes that's why we call it like system install owner because we really need to take ownership of the life of that machine this is Miriam not that long ago she was working at Airbus in Madrid as a quality controller for jet planes but she wanted to fly all around the world herself and left Madrid fulfeldhoven she's just returned from Korea where she installed a new machine for Samsung with the team there she's finessing the last few details before moving on to the next job [Music] line for the year 59 was it hard what did the customer say at the end it makes me crazy you know crazy yeah it's an expensive machine and it produces a lot of money every second the machine is running um it's like you're printing money every second the machine is stopped because of anything that could have happened the customer is losing a lot of money and then you are the the babysitter of the machine so and they are the one they I am the one who they call yeah to respond to that situation 24 7. those were all the questions I had for the previous installs do you have any back to the factory it's that machine and what the machine can make what is allowing the whole society to progress like companies to interact with each other countries to interact with each other or even myself I am not from the Netherlands I work abroad and if I want to keep in touch with my family or with my friends it's because of what the machine makes and so we're going like through a lot of digital Revolution and it's a small machine what allows us to do so the world turn on asml we can say yes [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Laughter] [Music] they've learned to be discreet but we've learned that this machine is going to our friends in Portland became the Chipmunks is [Music] but in Taiwan left um [Music] babysitter Miriam has only just gotten back from Samson or she's leaving again accompanying the next machine to asml's most important customer tsmc in Taiwan no how are you how are you doing tomorrow Taiwan tomorrow my Visa is supposed to arrive like in half an hour and if I think I was fine yeah I can go to the airport tomorrow I went flat white and a cappuccino please yes I don't know look into the old situation in China again every system is on hold I don't know if you're aware of that Taiwanese near China so maybe it is even China yes the whole discussion [Music] I am Miriam and I'm gonna be the assistant install owner for eu79 but actually it's the very first time that I'm going to Taiwan we were asked the EHS safety officer to deliver a safety training to prevent some violation might happen in the tsmc because you know that I've heard about that yeah yeah you hear a lot they are in tsmg they are like an army so we need to be careful the Chip's production chain is spread all across the world it is a large network of specialist companies but because geopolitical tensions are running High the big powers are doing all they can to get control of the chip production chips have become a strategic asset and that's how this obscure company no one had ever heard of has unwittingly Fallen prey to strategic wrangling between the major powers foreign [Music] chips are made in Taiwan China is doing everything it can to take over the global market I made this clear the presidency of China we need not have confrontation but we have a stiff economic and technological competition and we're going to insist everyone including China played by the same rules foreign Europe is the world center for Semiconductor research some of the essential machines to produce the most advanced chips in the world are made in only one place in the world right here in Europe but I want us to become a strong player all across the Chip's value chain by 2030 20 of the world's microchips production should be here in Europe Europe hasn't been shy about joining in in close consultation with asml Ursula vondelier presented the European chip act this year and it wasn't long before Joe Biden announced the U.S chip act we are going to invest in America we're going to stamp everything we can made in America especially these computer chips America invented these chips these chips held power NASA mission to the Moon Bill calls for authorized nearly 90 billion dollars this is why we get these big Investments and these chips around the globe I mean if you add it all up it's hundreds of billions that will become available for the industry the chip Industries for foreign [Applause] every world power wants to set up its own chip industry but the chip industry itself is increasingly globalized asml sources parts and people from all over the world and almost all the world's countries are represented among its employees all these very different people with different cultures languages customs and beliefs how do you make sure they're all focused on the same goal a higher scientific goal because technical language alone won't get you there is challenge collaborate and Care yeah foreign foreign [Music] foreign foreign I really like when we power on the machine when you connect it and it comes to life I like doing it because I find like a very special moment like yeah and yeah when it's green it's good so you did do that in Korea yeah I like going into FIFA for the power of moment it's like a very special time this is just show moment it's my moment it's like one button oh that must be very exciting it is that is where the magic starts [Music] what happens with whey I think no one can really understand everything that is going on in the machine that's what we call Magic you can be an expert in your part but you cannot understand everything so the rest is what is Magic for you for you it's something very different to another person it works because each module complements each other and you are failing in like the magic of someone else that's what I feel magical of the machine if I need to compare it could be like an orchestra or like classical music because it sounds very beautiful but it sounds very beautiful because everything is in harmony that's how we see the magic of the machine is out let's look at it is asml secret is as simple as that the Synergy of people the sum of talents which form a Harmony if they're all attuned to each other only then can they bring the machine alive yes even give it spirit it's genius but um there's still one important question of course it's all one big success and everyone is happy but why does everything always have to be done faster though um Apple [Music] foreign [Music] the dealers foreign [Music] that's true we do want contactless payment and navigation and gaming and we also want that drone or electric car and of course yes that brain scan all the really tiny hearing aid without progress people become restive so keep going because the world is running on asml Chop Chop then [Music] yeah I think we're currently uh working at our maximum capacity I think we're basically sold out but the thing doesn't coverage is it took us 40 years to build that capacity well the next 10 years we need to double it costs 200 million dollars it's not X yeah so that's good the comments are named level 40 is 2022 we will ship more machines than we did in 2021. in 2023 we'll ship more machines than in 2022. we can ship more systems because we just built those machines faster [Music] how long will it take for China to develop euv lithography that will compete or substitute for asml's technology yeah it's it's a good question but the technology that's in there is Decades of know-how it's not patents know-how so you need to replicate that and I'm not saying it cannot be done because the laws of physics are the same in China as they are here so what do you do you just go faster you go faster you innovate you go to high knee you go beyond Highway which by the way we're also doing in the research so I think this is what you what you do Relentless investment in innovation [Music] [Music]

Channel: vpro documentary

Views: 308,796

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Id: zQu_TMgHO98

Length: 53min 9sec (3189 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022