Japan’s Legendary Semiconductor Breakthrough

Note:
14:42 - meant to say "larger feature sizes" not "smaller feature sizes". Smaller feature sizes would actually be a plus not a minus.
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[@9SMTM6]

It's fascinating how many technologies were actually developed out of fear of a competitor project that never came close to the scale imagined.

[@RikkiCat09]

Excessive fear might lead engineers to the state of schizophrenic hell.

[@EggnogKL]

Cough…Cough…Nuclear Bombs …Cough…Cough

[@prajwalj9024]

​@@EggnogKL🧐

[@MagralhoPT]

Same as the race to put the 1st man on the moon.

[@iancowan3527]

Welcome to the truth created from the Cold War!

[@akintoye-ilori]

19:36: In 1985 Fujitsu announced it had achieved AGI 🤣🤣🤣

[@greatquux]

I almost snorted tea out of my nose

[@goldnutter412]

Glad I wasn't drinking at the time 😂

[@goldnutter412]

@@greatquuxLOL unlucky

[@dotori5267]

I had to listen to that part twice lol

[@eggyballsteabagsgtfo9988]

Whats AGI?

[@georgemaeda2722]

This video is outstanding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! During these years, I was at AT&T Bell Labs working on fiber optical transmission systems. Not semiconductors, per se. However, I was plugged into current affairs enough to know that American industry was deeply concerned about advances being made in Japan. Today, Japan the way it is, that may seem farfetched. But the 1980s was an entirely different era. Japan was on a roll with cars, chips, video recorders ... the list is long. In 1990, no one would have thought that the chip-making champion would become Taiwan. These days, you have to run just to stay in place !!! Technology is one huge rat race, for better or for worse. G. Maeda, Fukuoka, Japan.

[@andrewcornelio6179]

Greetings from Holmdel.

[@cleanchaos2843]

The Japanese back then made really great breakthroughs in technology.

[@chickenwarriorr]

The Blue LED is nothing short of amazing

[@XxxTheGoldenApplexxX]

@@chickenwarriorr But the story of how the blue LED was made tells you that japan will probably never make a breakthrough ever again

[@AerialWaviator]

Not just innovative breakthroughs in design, but the ability to scale such designs in production.

[@quoctrungnguyen4553]

@@chickenwarriorr and the guy who made blue LED already move to US kekw

[@12time12]

They still do.

[@amistrophy]

Wake up new semiconductor lore just dropped

[@seanfoulkes]

complete documentaries dropped as fast as tik toks

[@BeachTypeZaku]

My family love Panasonic electronics. They're the absolute best quality I've seen. Sony does great work, but Panasonic is top tier. From their VCRs to home stereo systems, they have been a mainstay.

[@lundsweden]

You're using a VCR in 2024?! 😅

[@BeachTypeZaku]

@@lundsweden Actually, I still have it! Lol! But it's use is rare to say the least. Heck, I've even got my original VHS Ghost in The Shell, The Mamoru Oshii animated classic, not that live action garbage. Plus a few boxes of VHS tapes from my younger days.

[@MirunaIordachescu]

@@lundsweden I think VCRs are the apex of mixed electronics and mechanics. In consumer industry only the automatic developer systems (celuloid film to paper picture) are more complex (machines made by FUJI) . I do not talk about special industrial equipent (mass spectrometer, MRI, electron microscope, LHC, etc), just things you can buy on store.

[@MithunOnTheNet]

Yup, as mundane as appliances are, our Panasonic washing machines have lasted over a decade each without any breakdowns.

[@Yenzi769]

The fear of competition really drives innovation, it's amazing how many breakthroughs come from that motivation.

[@downstream0114]

It's basically the thesis of Thiel's _Zero to One_

[@miinyoo]

Fear is the best motivation for humans to do anything at any scale. Most of all, fear of death.

[@Fx_-]

Imagine saying… I do this pattern of actions and create this specific thing. That creates X income for X families due to demand for it. That is survival. Which the brain is then programmed to try its best to sustain as one of the core conditions allowing for survival. Competition rising means that the income begins to shrink and families get squeezed. Families refering to both large corporate families and workers. Its people collectively not wanting to lose their job eo norepinephrine in the brains rise and focus on the best means to navigate and survive.

[@ASlickNamedPimpback]

god bless capitalism

[@goldnutter412]

Fully focused 👏🤔

[@AerialWaviator]

"It was the exact right thing, at the exact right time" (21:00) So true, as this literally launched the personal computer era. In 1981 no one was imagining that 1MB memory was just around the corner. This change the whole trajectory of semiconductors by the better part of a decade.

[@TheJagjr4450]

Really appreciate all of the research you have done and currently perform in order to bring these. Your cadence and tone are very easy on the ear and easy to pay attention to and comprehend even though some of the material is quite technical.

[@DemocratsAreDemonrats]

Wish Japan’s electronics makes a comeback.

[@kyberite]

Wait till they get their hands in AGI in the next few years, bet we'll see sentient Gundams soon after that

[@SaurabhKumar-uo6ms]

I doubt japan will make a comeback in consumer electronics. Anyway just like Europe, Japan is a major player in chemicals and semiconductor tools.

[@beeman4266]

South Korea kinda has electronics on lock with Samsung. Hard to compete with Samsung.

[@jrherita]

They are doing a moonshot program to get 2nm up and running in a few years in Japan..

[@RandallMorelli]

The japanese tend to develope tech in small step. If they have a 20G circuit and need it to get to 25G, they will design 21G,22G,23G,and 24G designs first. I was told by engineers that worked in Japan that failing a design is shameful and bad for their careers. So they work their designs slowly and are afraid to innovate due to the possible negitive impacts upon their careers.

[@gregvanpaassen]

The System/38 transformed into the AS/400 which became the iSeries and then System i and IBM i. Still futuristic in some ways. Single adress space across RAM and disk, 128 bit addresses (in 1978!), architecture-agnostic operating system, object based. The hardware could change from 24 bit to 48 bit to 64 bit and customer code was automatically recompiled with just a backup and restore.

[@bobjones-ey5gl]

Yes - Future System released as System/38 around the time when the ' media ' was more interested in writing articles about DEC and Data General mini computers. IBM i AS/400 are still here, DEC and Data General are not.

[@chemixschool]

19:38 .....AGI in 1985 - A good one . Back to the Future (1985).

[@georgegonzalez2476]

The IBM 360 series wasn't even using IC's. They used very small scale integration, with postage-stamp sized modules that had discrete components glued onto them. I wouldn't call that "LSI", not even "I".

[@leechjim8023]

I believe it was called solid logic.

[@leyasep5919]

There's a mention of IBM FS ... awesome !

[@MrMysticphantom]

12:43 ROFL you troll... nicely done

[@exponentmantissa5598]

I worked as an undergrad in accelerator labs back in the early 80s and I often saw researchers from the semiconductor industry using the labs. I didnt understand much of what they did but a lot of their research produced fruit years later.

[@aerobrick1251]

Give us an episode on the history of the scanning electron microscope! It's a great story!

[@andymouse]

Yeah ! and Ion Implantation !

[@tsaishangwei948]

19:33 🤣

[@v2o3]

I love your videos on anything semiconductor! Do you have book recommendations on the history of the semiconductor industry?

[@thedeadbatterydepot]

That's why in Back to the Future, Marty says all the best stuff is made in Japan. This explains much, I always wondered how Japan jumped ahead with the smallest radios as a kid.

[@zyrobs]

Fun trivia: the availability of those large density memory modules from 1982 onwards is what paved the road for the Commodore 64, which used a prohibitively expensive amount of memory for the time, but Jack Tramiel knew that memory prices were coming crashing down and they could afford it.

[@alexanderphilip1809]

FINALLY I was hoping you'd pick this one day. I hope you do a video on Korea's Heavy Chemical Industry Drive and Samsung's rise after the acquisition of Korea Semiconductor.

[@jaykita2069]

The phrase 'Future Systems' isn't one I recall, but when I started at IBM in '79 there had been an effort to set up a large scale integration based on full wafers of the then current metal gate NMOS technology. The proposal was to connect the good die among several wafers in a thermos or dewar of liquid nitrogen to improve access time. It would have been a huge step forward, but IBM often tied several big projects together, allowing one breakdown to bring down the whole applecart.

[@timeimp]

Loved the "announcing in 1985... AGI" joke! 🤣

[@WalterBurton]

That competition, and the necessary cooperation, that's the furnace. The progress furnace.

[@AddictedtoProjects]

Great video as always Sir. I have no idea what kind of work ethic you have, but it's crazy! You keep cranking these videos out at a very high rate, and they're incredibly well researched. Bravo! P.S. Loved the little "Fujitsu achieved AGI!" easter egg towards the end 😂

[@KC-io2rg]

It is obvious now that smart government subsidies have major impact on the development of a countries high tech industries- The companies mentioned in this piece, TSMC, Samsung, Airbus, the internet all would not have been possible without timely government support.

[@alexpacura9810]

The free-market would have figured it out.

[@user-dx7jn2tq4z]

​@@alexpacura9810no.

[@user-dx7jn2tq4z]

Goverment Support for PRIVATE Corporations(The last part is important while singing govt's praise). Its a quid pro quo, govt or private sector alone can rarely if ever get shit done.

[@peterfireflylund]

The list of wasted subsidies is much longer than the list of successes.

[@Donnirononon]

I thought the thumbnail is a picture where there is a deer highlighted in a crowd of people, took me a moment to realize what is going on

[@mariobecroft5770]

Fascinating history as always. I am curious as to why the Cyrillic alphabet appears to have been used on the shot towards the end of the video. Or are those things that look like a Cyrilic 'D'' something else? (EDIT on the Fairchild logo'd 18-pin DIPs labelled JAPAN, video 20:56. They look exactly like "8ДД5," or am I blind, maybe they are '4' in an interesting typeface?

[@punditgi]

Fascinating story! 🎉😊

[@QwertyQwerty-bd3tm]

Thank you for all the videos. Could you also explain what tsmc/ intel does when lithography is already built by ASML?

[@leechjim8023]

What happened to electron and ion beam technologies? I used to think they would take over chip production. Just like an electron microscope is much greater than an optical one. Even the new euv seems only incrementally better.

[@fredinit]

If I have it correctly from some of Jon's prior videos - they are primary used for mask manufacturing, or for very short runs. Both are very slow, but insanely accurate. Perfect for creating the photolith masks needed for DUV and EUV.

[@natecaine7473]

As other commenter said: too slow. In America Hewlett-Packard spent on fortune on e-bean lithography even when the handwriting was on the wall: e-beam systems don't scale well to larger and denser chips.

[@kger4643]

'Like a pencil, or finger of God' Your videos are great. I was always into computers and electronics. This is like college condensed. Keep up the great work!

[@GeekNerdNoir]

Something a little similar to the VLSI project is taking place in the modern age. Japan has a consortium called Rapidus in hopes of competing with TSMC.

[@ralphclark]

If it weren’t for the volume availability those 64K parts there could have been no home computer revolution

[@thorin1045]

ah yes, the age old trick, if others do it it is anti competitive and bad, if we do it than it is just and necessary for the democracy export or something like that.

[@1two3four5sixer]

PR of Japan here. Really curious on your take on Rapidus. Is there a realistic chance this project will work? I feel like the amount of money being poured into Rpaidus is concerning

[@mrjiophone4987]

Yeah heard somewhere around usd 50b and that too on 2nm man thats a lot of money

[@abderrahimaourir]

19:38 Bruv, my eyes dialted so much 😮 thinking they really did anouncef that😂😅

[@accessiblenow]

Great as always

[@maloukemallouke9735]

Excellent Thank you

[@BartKus]

NGL the AGI made me chuckle

[@channel-uz9fz]

19:40 I had kinda stopped paying attention but this made me do a double take lol

[@AverageFornaxEnjoyer]

One Megabit...impressive for that time.

[@TheGreatAtario]

"Like as if" is redundant. Either "like" or "as if" is sufficient by itself.

[@WalterBurton]

DEE-RAM, damnit! 🤣🤣👍👍🤣🤣

[@giulianoardis370]

Congratulations to the people of Japan for this Great Work

[@defeatSpace]

The pfp makes it look like a deer is amongst them 😂

[@randomperson9282]

Your a legend hope you know that.

[@Ayo22210]

Do a video on keyboard computers in the early 1980s like the Commodore 64

[@TheGreenboxal]

AGI achieved internally

[@harryniedecken5321]

I literally worked in the industry during these times. What happened is the same thing as Japan did in every industry at the time. They would purchase a few, take them apart and create copies of existing products. That is why a lot of US companies didn't want to sell to them. Really not very different than what S Korea did in the late 1980s or Taiwan did starting in the 90s, China started doing in another 10 years, and now India is trying to do now. The only difference between them all is a time delay.

[@rherydrevins]

One problem with this narrative: the VLSI Project was about research and development to improve processes in entirely unexplored directions, not simply copying American successes.

[@sailingadventurer]

Nah, u r just wrong. That was just popular narrative back then. If that was correct Japanese companies wouldn't have monopolies in many sectors of technology even today especially in semiconductor industry. They have made innovative breakthroughs in unexplored areas in semiconductor space

[@harryniedecken5321]

@@sailingadventurer The reason why the other countries in the far east rose in capability had to do with government investments in production. Especially Taiwan views the production sector as a defense funding, as long as the US is dependent on Taiwan, they are safe from China. IBM had a major layoff in their semiconductor sector and many of them were Taiwanese. They left the US and started the foundry business in Taiwan using mostly government money. More or less they stole the IBM process technology to start the companies.

[@rherydrevins]

@@harryniedecken5321 TSMC was founded by Morris Chang (former TI), and they initially used technology sources from Philips, obtained via a technology transfer agreement. This has been covered by videos on this very channel. Not sure what you're talking about.

[@miinyoo]

KZbin overall especially with so much educational content is a form of autodidact's crack cocaine. This channel is molly. Amazing to unwind after a hard day to some Asian stories.

[@youcantata]

Such project is possible with strong government leadership like MITI and fear of formidable enemy like IBM.

[@aayushkatoch10-b60]

Please make a video on japanese bullet train and Chinese bullet train

[@samnater]

NO YOU’RE DOWNRIGHT LEGENDARY

[@qwaqwa1960]

436 nm? AKA Blue.

[@andymouse]

I knew you liked Rick and Morty !.....cheers.

[@dmacpher]

Brother!! Have you watched the birth of the transistor documentary?

[@dmacpher]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5nOg6p3p9OWZ80si=ubrL_U7OAO732ut5

[@marcfruchtman9473]

oooo a meseeks can shave a few points off their golf game... or better yet, the next generation of robotic AI needs good safety... maybe they can work on that. Thanks for the video and the cool reference. It's amazing what we can do when we cooperate on a common goal.

[@RikkiCat09]

At that time, Japan's process technology was excellent, but its logic synthesis technology was far behind the United States. I think that the level of software in Japan is low, both now and in the past.

[@darelsmith2825]

I don't know what a Meestermesix is.

[@greatquux]

Rick and Morty reference

[@Azu512]

I wonder if there's gonna be a time where we will see Nvidia/intel of other nations like Japan and European countries, the type that sells GPUs and CPUs to consumers before my death...

[@tnert4226]

..."AGI" haha

[@peacemen6460]

Tenno heika banzai🎉

[@paulpark1170]

So what the hell is happening to Japan now…. In the doldrums…. Out of the loops

[@tshackelton]

Have I been mispronouncing Nikon my whole life? Has Paul Simon lead me astray???

[@leechjim8023]

He used a Kodachrome.

[@massmike11]

Nope, Nikon was the camera, kodachrome was the film

[@AC-jk8wq]

In the US, we knew we were pronouncing corporate Japanese names incorrectly… As a sales guy, you get used to people mispronouncing your name… as long as they continue to buy your product. 😃

[@matneu27]

I have an Canon printer is the answer if someone asks if I can print weapons on my 3d printer.

[@Shinzon23]

12:36 hahahahahahahaha

[@ingusmant]

Huh, funny how the moment the miti stops being on top of things the whole japanese tech industry goes to hell...

[@Yossef_M]

12:36 this is C&C generals zero hour and this is an attack by a super weapon called Particle Cannon

[@fai8t]

Japan has no single computer chips companies, it was always intel and amd before 2000

[@fai8t]

design not manufacturing

[@user-dx7jn2tq4z]

thats cos the foundry model was pioneered by the Taiwanese, splitting off the design phase and manufactuting from under the same company. Every major Semiconductor manufacturer that came after TSMC(UMC and Samsung that predate TSMC are IDMs with the former shedding its design business) followed the foundry model. Eg: Silterra, SMIC, Chartered, UMC (post 95), Global Foundries.

[@jyvben1520]

a problem, 64K, kilobit or kilobyte

[@supremebeme]

1MB Memory Chip > AGI

[@tomholroyd7519]

finger of god

[@jamesp1389]

I love the collaborative research. Wish western thinking was a little less money hungry and a little more let's all learn.

[@goldnutter412]

AGI 🤣🥰

[@rosshrubiak]

5:22... is the Old Executive Office Building in Washington DC, not sure what it has to do with Japanese radiator companies :D

[@herpaderppa3297]

02:50 what's wrong with this guys hands?

[@lee-dx3oz]

晚上好

[@derrheat154]

晚上好

[@Zonker66]

Interesting content, dry delivery.

[@sean_vikoren]

agi! =D

[@williambrasky3891]

You ever thought about doing a video covering Mr. Roboto? Domo Arigato, coward!

[@MythicSapphire]

🎉🎉

[@jarrodyuki7081]

1. Nvidia 2. tsmc 3. zeiss and . asml

[@magtak]

Hi

[@merelyChirs]

Hello

[@siimkask14]

Ayy fam

[@GenaTrius]

Shame and double shame on whatever ne'er-do-well taught this man to say "like as if" when all he needs to say is "like."

[@supremebeme]

im mr meseeks

[@helokitty991]

You'd better go check Japan's education system. I doubt it can still produce enough qualified engineers

[@user-dx7jn2tq4z]

again with the tired old b.s Rote learning bad right ? Do you seriously believe that rote learning involves Zero conceptual understanding ? Thats some juvenile left liberal b.s pumped out by out of work soft science rejects. Check the PISA rankings.

[@user-jp1qt8ut3s]

VLSI that makes USB2serial chips? Those guys are scammers

[@jarrodyuki7081]

eveyrtiem we jpaanens talk abotu agresssoin rearming or revoking article 9 ........ westerners or our enemies always bring up the nuclear threat!!!!!!!!!! theyre afriad of our power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ganbazx]

Any Japan breakthrough is an American breakthrough

[@chbrules]

You meme'ing in this video is kind of random and not really fitting. You either need to meme a harder or just cut it out. I had to rewind and watch things again because I thought of this as more of a documentary than an internet lighthearted history tour.

[@greggc.touftree5936]

Yeah but why are they so weak with innovation now? I think it's hiring practices. Now they hire people from university who are already trained. Before they hired people from skill alone who were hobbyists but had great talent. This is what is befalling the West as well. Look perfect on paper but ideally you should be aiming to be near perfect in your skill.

[@archie4oz]

No, graduates are considered raw material to be trained on the job. This has been the custom for ages and hasn't changed.

[@sudeeptaghosh]

India needs Japan’s help to be self reliant self sufficient..

[@clintonmoore5335]

Nikon is pronounced "nai * kaan", not "nee * kaan", you would be shamed for this mispronunciation. :^) EDIT: I'd also accept a short "nee" sound such as in "Nihon" but the long "e" gotta go.

[@archie4oz]

Both are incorrect. ニコン is (二) "knee" + (コン) "cone" albeit without the drawling vowel sustain that westerners are known for (it's kind of hard to describe using words with known pronunciations without the associated western accent). Your "nai * kaan" is just a commonly accepted mis-pronunciation.

[@allgoo1990]

Japanometry Other Asian countries never mentioned.

[@natecaine7473]

Yes, because the title is " _Japan’s_ Legendary Semiconductor Breakthrough". 😀 This channel had *many* other segments covering lot's of Asian topics.

[@RogueReplicant]

Japan does not "dominate" the semiconductor industry (a sensitive national security sector to the USA). Japan does design and build high-end chips but ASML and its network of 9,000 micro-manufacturers are the real backbone of AI chip production. Neither Taiwan nor Japan dominate the industry as a whole.

[@user-dx7jn2tq4z]

did you even watch the video ? Nikon and Canon were major lithography equipment manufacturers. Wasnt until ASML came up with EUV tech with American inputs that they lost their competitive edge. Canon and Nikon still make DUV machines. whats with the "a sensitive national security sector" ? Americans had to work to regain their edge and they did, it didnt happen just because America deemed it so and it magically fell unto their lap because america is the land of freedumb.

[@RogueReplicant]

@@japandroid Not so. China has the neon, Germany makes the lenses and adequate silicon comes from the USA. Japan can do it because DADDY USA PROVIDES MILITARY PROTECTION, otherwise you would be in an eternal war with China.

[@be12]

​@@japandroid What did he say? Or link if you prefer. Thanks! I've been following this space both for the technology and re Taiwan.