tsmc
3 free lessons tagged tsmc across History, Science. Each one is a short sequence of focused steps with narration and a five-question quiz at the end — take them in any order, no signup required.
The foundry model: how chipmaking split into designers and fabs
Why the semiconductor industry separated into fabless designers and a handful of contract manufacturers, the capital economics that drive relentless concentration, and the map of who actually makes the world's chips.
The fab landscape: foundries, IDMs, and fabless firms
The three business models in chip manufacturing — fabless designer, pure-play foundry, integrated device manufacturer — and the capex, yield, and learning-curve forces that drove the leading edge into a small handful of firms.
Chip fabrication: wafer to working device
How a near-perfect silicon ingot becomes a billion-transistor chip. The 600-step fab cycle, photolithography down to 13.5 nm EUV (vaporized tin droplets at 220,000 °C), ion implantation for doping, the truth behind '5 nm' node naming, and the chokepoint-heavy global supply chain.