The Asianometry Podcast
By Jon
The Asianometry PodcastNov 26, 2021
Crony Capitalism Built Indonesia's Biggest Business Empire
At its peak, Indonesia's Salim Group was a $22 billion giant - the country’s biggest business group.
Its founder and top boss Liem Sioe Liong - also called Sudono Salim - was Southeast Asia's richest man.
Salim Group's incredible rise came on the back of the company’s personal connection to the authoritarian leader Suharto.
A personal friend of Liem, the dictator leaned on the company as one of its core collaborators.
Few companies dominated a single country like Salim's companies did Indonesia until the Asian Financial Crisis. This is its story.
TSMC's First Breakthrough: The Copper/Low-K Interconnect Transition
Building a few houses isn’t enough to make a neighborhood. You also need to build the roads and sidewalks to connect them.
Same with an integrated circuit. You can stick a billion transistors on an IC, but they are useless if you cannot also connect them.
That is what interconnects are for. They are wires for transmitting the electrical signals between transistors and other circuit elements.
For over 30 years, we used to make these interconnects and their insulating layers from aluminium and silicon dioxide, respectively.
But by the late 1990s, it became technically necessary to use new materials. Big technology transitions are opportunities for certain companies to pull ahead of the rest. In this case, that certain company was TSMC.
The Rise and Reign of Japanese VCRs
Americans invented the video magnetic tape recorder.
But it was the Japanese who brought it to the masses as the VCR.
Throughout the 1980s, virtually every home VCR sold in America was made in Japan. Even the ones sold by American brands like RCA.
How did Japan come to dominate a device they didn’t create? Today, we are going to look at the rise and reign of Japanese VCRs.
Brazil Tried to Protect Its Computer Industry
In the 1980s, Brazil had a large domestic computer industry.
Dozens of Brazilian-owned companies - employing tens of thousands of Brazilians - producing tens of thousands of Brazilian PCs.
In the 1970s, a small set of Brazilian government bureaucrats recognized the growing importance of the computer industry. And in a bold move, they reserved the most exciting part of that market exclusively for Brazilian firms.
These protections helped develop an industry ... but only for so long. In this video, we are going to review the Brazilian computer industry.
The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source
After 20+ years of development, extreme ultraviolet lithography has become a commercial reality. As I write these words, multi-million dollar machines from ASML use EUV light to create impossibly small patterns in wafers.
This technological magic requires a powerful heart inside of it. And indeed, there is an amazing system driving ASML's $150 million lithography machine: The EUV Light Source.
In this video, we are going to look at the lasers firing pulses at tin droplets to create the powerful, 13.5 nanometer wavelength light for our latest, greatest microprocessors.
Running Neural Networks on Meshes of Light
I want to thank Alex Sludds of MIT for his help on this video: https://alexsludds.github.io/
The Amazing, Humble Silicon Wafer
Silicon is probably the single most studied element on earth. Over the past seventy years, people have researched more ways to cut it, etch it, grind it, clean it, crystallize it, polish it than almost anything else.
Engineers have done amazing things to turn this plentiful shiny rock into the century’s most impactful piece of technology. And the wafer industry needs some love for those achievements.
So in this video, we are going to talk about the decades of research and stunning engineering that have gone into creating today’s cutting-edge semiconductor wafers.
How Nvidia Won AI
Very impressive. But as the company entered the 2000s, they embarked on a journey to do more. Moving towards an entirely new kind of microprocessor - and the multi-billion dollar market it would unlock.
In this video, we are going to look at how Nvidia turned the humble graphics card into a platform that dominates one of tech’s most important fields: Artificial Intelligence.
Going Nuclear to Desalinate Seawater
Yet the earth is covered in water! Over half of the planet is ocean! The problem of course is that you cannot drink it because it is too salty.
Desalination is the process of removing salts from salty sea and brackish water to produce freshwater. The goal is simple, but the technologies are complicated and energy intensive. And we often power these processes with oil.
Ideally, we do not want to burn any more fossil fuels to get this water. And that is why people sometimes want to use nuclear energy to power the whole process.
The Rise and Peak of Japanese Semiconductors
Coming out of World War II, the country rapidly gained competence in an emerging technology and became a global leader.
In this video, we look at the 30-year rise and peak of the Japanese semiconductor industry starting from the 1950s into the 1980s.
The PUREST Water in the World
Ultrapure water or UPW is an industry term. A term that describes its product quite well. Water with purity requirements so strict, you're more likely to win the national lottery than to find a non-water molecule inside it.
Companies have contorted themselves into pretzels making ultrapure water. And the bar keep getting higher year after year. How pure can you possibly get?
In this short video, we are going to look at how semiconductor companies make the world's purest water.
GE’s Molten Salt Battery Failure
In 2011, then-President Barack Obama visited a General Electric or GE facility in the town of Schenectady, New York. There, he mostly discussed wind turbine exports. But he also briefly mentioned an "advanced battery" business with great promise.
Obama was referring to a molten salt stationary battery technology branded as Durathon. GE CEO Jeff Immelt believed that it will become a billion dollar business.
But Durathon fell far short. In 2015, the company closed its battery manufacturing factory in New York after investing nearly $200 million. Nearly a hundred people lost their jobs.
In this video, we are going to look at General Electric's failed molten salt battery business venture.
What Colonialism Did For Taiwan (& Japan)
In 1895, Japan acquired Taiwan island from the Qing Empire as their first colony. For the next fifty years, Japan occupied Taiwan - infusing it with their traditions, culture, and expertise.
The colonial legacy of the Japanese occupation period was deep and long lasting for both colonized and colonizer. In this video, we are going to talk about what happened during those fifty years. And what it did for both the Taiwanese and Japanese people.
What Raiding the Rich Did For Malaysia
One morning in September 1981, Malaysia conducted a financial dawn raid that stunned the British business community and reclaimed hundreds of thousands of acres of Malaysian plantation land for Malaysia.
In this video I want to talk about Malaysia’s strike against the remaining structures of the old colonial state.
Singapore’s Sand Problem
Sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and yet we just can’t get enough of it.
In 2018, Singapore was the world's biggest importer of sand by value. Each year, the country consumes over 5 tons of sand per resident.
Over the past twenty years, they have imported over 500 million tons of sand.
And with these sand imports, Singapore has created massive amounts of wealth for itself and its people.
But the sand has to come from somewhere. Its mass removal has big environmental impacts, and has opened the country up to criticism.
But is it even possible to replace sand? That’s what we are going to talk about in this video.
How China's CATL Makes a EV Lithium-Ion Battery
Contemporary Amperex Technologies or CATL is China's leading EV battery supplier. As of this writing, it is the only Chinese EV battery company that has begun to export its products abroad.
It is interesting to consider that one of China's most valuable companies makes, of all things, batteries. When we think about high value add, technically complicated things, we think about iPhones or other tech. Not exactly batteries.
But as it turns out, batteries are surprisingly complicated to make. In this video, we are going to look at how CATL manufactures one of their EV batteries.
The 300mm Silicon Wafer Transition
That transition? They made their wafers larger.
Sounds simple right? But the 300 millimeter wafer transition started in 1994, took nearly a decade, and cost the industry billions of dollars.
Why the Soviet Computer Failed
The Shocking, Debt-Fueled Collapse of Daewoo
At its peak, Daewoo Group had been Korea's fourth largest business conglomerate along with Hyundai, Samsung, and LG.
The sprawling company rocketed upwards on the back of a favorable political environment and heaps of debt.
Then in a shocking two year span, the whole group broke apart under the weight of its liabilities, a crushing recession, and widespread fraud.
Daewoo's collapse tarnished the legacy of founder and chairman Kim Woo-Choong, who had to flee the country until he received a pardon.
In this video, we will look at the rapid rise and startling collapse of Korea's Daewoo Group.
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Japanese Whisky (& Suntory)
In this video, we are going to look at the rise, near-complete collapse, and recent comeback of Japanese whisky.
Along the way, we will look at one of the world's largest distilled beverage companies - Suntory. Their histories are intertwined.
Japanese whisky has a relatively short history. It has borrowed a lot from Scotland. Yet the industry has also managed to come into its own.
Pour one out guys, and follow along with me. But please drink responsibly. And if you are like me and can’t drink alcohol, then get a soda or something.
The History of the FPGA - The Ultimate Flex
A Field Programmable Gate Array or FPGA is an integrated circuit that can be reprogrammed after manufacture to emulate a digital circuit.
These are great for prototyping new functionalities before mass production. Or serving rare use cases that aren't economical for a custom chip.
FPGAs aren’t the first with this capability, but they are by far the most commercially successful. And the story of their development is a fascinating mix of technology and business.
For decades, people have searched for ways to make a chip that you can reprogram after manufacturing. In this video, let us explore the industry’s quest for the ultimate flex.
How Oil Ate the Soviet Economy
In 1979, the Soviet Union was the world's leading producer of oil, pumping 11.5 million barrels of oil each day.
At the end of our last video on this, the Soviet Union finished the 1960s as the second biggest oil producing nation in the world.
Even so, the country's most plentiful bounties of oil and natural gas were still yet to come, hiding beneath Siberia's frozen swamps and lakes.
In this video, we look at how the Soviet Union became an energy superpower and how that contributed to the country's eventual dissolution.
Australia's Natural Gas Dilemma
In 2020, the country exported $25 billion worth of natural gas to markets in Asia.
Interestingly enough, the country also occasionally suffers from natural gas shortages in their own markets at home. It is a demonstration of the country's sprawling size, bountiful natural resources, and complicated energy politics.
In this video, I want to talk about how the land down under became one of the world’s biggest natural gas exporters.
The Rise and Peak of Japanese Watches
At the time of Japan's opening up, almost all of the world’s watches came from either the United States or Switzerland.
The Swiss sought to keep their secrets from leaking out to other countries. But those secrets still got out, and with them Japan became one of the biggest makers of watches in the world.
The Sad Fall of a Philippine Steel Giant
Over a span of twenty years, the company employed over 4,000 workers at Iligan City.
The Philippines had a head start on almost every other Asian country in building a steel industry. NSC could have been a global giant but a confluence of factors led to its decline and failure by 1999.
In this video, we will look at the rise and fall of a national champion.
The Soviet Oil Juggernaut: How It All Began
At the start of the 1960s, the Soviet Union was the world's second largest oil producer - trailing only the United States.
By itself, the Soviet Union nearly matched oil production from the entire Middle East. Many European countries depended on Soviet oil, and the Communist Party used that to their own advantage.
In this video, we will look at the beginnings and rise of the titanic Soviet oil apparatus. From its start with the Russian Empire in the late 1880s to its ascendancy after World War II.
How the Integrated Circuit Took Us to the Moon
The Apollo Guidance Computer or AGC was one of the first to use silicon-based integrated circuits.
Their adoption heralded a revolutionary technology about to make a titanic impact on the world. And the beginning of Silicon Valley as we know it.
I try not to make videos about America because it gets me yelled at but I really like this topic. In this video, we are going to look at how the silicon integrated circuit supercharged the AGC and guided us - literally - to the moon.
The Big Automotive Semiconductor Problem
Let me ask you something. You probably have heard all the news about this or that car factory shutting down because of the global chip shortage. That nobody can get the car they want because of a tiny little chip.
And you might be wondering. When did semiconductors matter so much to today's vehicles?
Why do we need to turn our cars into computers? Why can't things just be simple? What are all these electronics actually *doing* for our cars?
In this video we are going to go into the automotive supply chain and their semiconductors. The specific focus will be on conventional cars. But if this video does well enough, perhaps we can do a version for electric and autonomous vehicles.
How New Zealand’s Fonterra Won Dairy
New Zealand's biggest company, by far, is a dairy co-operative. With $14 billion USD ($20.6 billion NZD) total revenue in 2021, Fonterra Group is the country's juggernaut.
A dairy company does way more than milk. And over the years, Fonterra has evolved and grown along with the New Zealand dairy industry to become a globe-spanning food giant.
In this video, we are going to look at New Zealand’s biggest exporter and a cornerstone of its economy.
How Armed Drones Disrupt Modern Warfare
One of the bigger things that happened in 2020 was that two countries - Azerbaijan and Armenia - fought a war. The war lasted for about 6 weeks, and it has set the air defense world ablaze.
For the first time, the world got to see a national army bring a fleet of armed drones to the battlefield. And the impact those drones have made was huge.
Using a swarm of cheap Turkish drones and Israeli loitering munitions, Azerbaijan swept aside Armenia's air defenses and paved a road to victory.
Cheap armed drone technologies are spreading like wildfire across the world. In this video, I want to look at how such drones add new wrinkles, opportunities and challenges to modern warfare.
The Economics of TSMC’s Giga-Fabs
In 2018, TSMC broke ground on Fab 18 near Tainan City in the south of Taiwan. Fab 18 is a monster. It sits on 103 acres and has a total floor space of 950,000 square meters (10.2 million square feet). That is about 3 times the size of AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas - home of the Dallas Cowboys.
In total, across all of its phases, Fab 18 will cost TSMC nearly $20 billion to build and operate. More than the cost of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the US Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier.
In this video, we are going to look at why TSMC's fabs are getting bigger and more expensive than ever before. And why that makes a lot of economic sense for the Taiwanese chip maker.
Floorplanning a Better Chip with AI
Machine learning has been in the news a lot lately. Some of the early hype has died down, but the trend still lives on. And now it has really started to make waves in the chip design world.
Machine learning and AI in chip design is such a sprawling field that I started to lose myself in all the research. So I figured to just go into a recent breakthrough in the chip design field: Floorplanning.
Google has been applying the same AI prowess that allowed them to badly beat the best Go masters to this obscure, but important sub-category of the field.
What Comes After EUV?
Right now, Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography is working. Foundries are using dozens of these $150 million machines to create amazing patterns nanometers wide.
The industry labored for decades on this intricate technology. But there is no time to rest. ASML is already looking ahead at the next generation of EUV: High-NA EUV. The centi-million dollar machine that will be better than regular EUV.
In this video, we are going to do a deep dive into what’s next in the world of EUV. ASML's follow-up to the most complicated nanolithography system ever delivered.
The Economics of Giant Container Ships
In July 2021, Evergreen Marine took possession of the world's biggest container ship: the Ever Ace.
Built for Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, the ship is as long as the Empire State Building is tall from bottom floor to roof.
With a carrying capacity of 23,992 twenty-foot-equivalent units or TEU, these Evergreen A-class megaships take the record - set just the previous year - from HMM's Algeciras-class ships.
It can hold 10% more cargo than the infamous Ever Given, that one ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal.
These ships herald a new era of ultra-large container ships. And it is a bit of a surprising trend. What is pushing these container ships to get bigger? And is there anything keeping them from getting even bigger down the line?
The Rise and Fall of Britain's IBM
In 1968, the British government arranged a shotgun marriage between three computer manufacturers to create International Computers Limited, or ICL.
The government envisioned ICL as the United Kingdom’s answer to IBM - a national champion in computers. But the company could not compete against American and East Asian competition and eventually sold to Fujitsu.
The United Kingdom pioneered computing technology. So why did ICL fail?
In this video, we are going to trace the history of the British computing giant from its punched-card days to its final demise in 2000. Sit back and relax. This is going to be a long one.
What We Learned From China's Spectacular Dinosaur Bird
In the 1990s, western scientists were allowed to study a series of fossils from a dig site in west Liaoning, China. What they saw would blow their minds:
One of the most famous fossil beds ever discovered in history. A finely preserved slice of life from 120 million years ago.
And within this treasure trove, a unique creature. A dinosaur that would make headlines around the world.
I have been a dinosaur fan ever since I was a kid. I am excited to dive back into the field once more. In this video, we are going to look at China's contribution to our understanding of the dinosaur theory of birds.
Taiwan’s Hidden Shoe Giant
People love their shoes and sneakers. Nike is a $250 billion company. Athletes make hundreds of millions endorsing their own athletic shoes. And vintage Jordan 1s are trading for thousands of dollars on sites like StockX.
You also might vaguely know that the big shoe brands outsource their manufacturing to third parties. And that the shoes are made by low-wage labor overseas. "Somewhere in Asia," they usually say.
But we don't hear all that much about the actual companies running those production lines. As it turns out, the biggest branded maker of athletic and casual footwear comes from Taiwan - making 300 million pairs each year.
The Rise and Fall of Evergrande Group
You might have heard something about Evergrande Group (恒大集團) recently. This is a sprawling company with billions of dollars in debt, a little bit of a cash crunch, and is looking for a way out.
Who knows what is going to happen. Everything is all up in the air and we are hearing new things each day. But the whole saga has gotten me interested in how a real estate company has managed to grow so far, and so fast. That is what we will talk about today.
In this video, we look at the rise and fall of what had once been China's biggest real estate conglomerate. A company now with $300 billion in liabilities.
The Two Carl Zeisses
For nearly half a century, there were two Carl Zeisses. One based in the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany. The other in the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
The Carl Zeiss of today is the Western German variant. Their work in lithography and EUV sits on the cutting edge of what is possible in nanoscale technology. But the Carl Zeiss of East Germany was fascinating too. It grew to be a massive industrial conglomerate, doing cutting edge research into optics, military tech, and semiconductors.
In this video, I want to step away from Asia once more and look at a fascinating history. One of Germany's most iconic companies, split in two between East and West. Capitalism and Socialism. Let's go!
The Growing Semiconductor Design Bottleneck
In 1997, American chip consortium SEMATECH sounded an alarm to the industry about the chip design productivity gap. They observed that integrated chip manufacturing capabilities were expanding at about 40% a year. At the time.
Yet IC design capabilities were only growing at about half of that rate. Thus, a potential crisis was brewing where design capabilities lag far behind manufacturing.
This crisis never took place for reasons we will discuss later. In turn, however, a new challenge for the industry has emerged: Verification.
Here, we are going to look at why this previously unheralded step has become a rather big deal in today's competitive chip design world.
The Downfall of Korea's Biggest Shipping Line
In 2016, Hanjin Shipping, Korea's biggest container shipping line, abruptly filed for reorganization.
The company had once been the country's pride and joy - a worthy sibling alongside flagship carrier Korean Air.
The unexpected insolvency roiled the markets and caused global chaos in the shipping industry.
Once they had been the fourth biggest container line in the world. In 2016, they had 97 ships and called on 90 different ports in over 35 countries around the world.
The Insane Computation Behind Your Smartphone Cameras
I recently got an iPhone 13 Pro. I love it. For me, the thing that sticks out most - literally - is the camera.
For a long time, iPhones have had increasingly better cameras. The last few generations, camera performance has headlined the marketing messaging: Get the new iPhone, because the camera is a lot better. It is one of the few things that gets people to upgrade.
And indeed, the 13 Pro's camera takes really good pictures. But it is not just the iPhone. Virtually all of today’s top smartphones can take images on par with anything you can get with a standalone.
How does your mobile phone camera work? And how did it get to be so good? In this video we will look at the amazing computer and semiconductor engineering that goes inside this impressive feature.
How Japan Won the Lithography Industry (& Why America Lost)
In 1978, 70% of all the world's lithography equipment came from an American supplier. As late as 1982, Americans still held 62% of the market.
Seven years later in 1989, Japanese firms held 70% share of the market - led by their two lithography giants: Canon and Nikon. The American once-market leaders, rapidly declining. One loses $100 million by 1986. The other withdraws from the market entirely by 1989.
The dominance of the Japanese lithography industry stunned the semiconductor world. Americans back home spilled gallons of ink, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. The answer, as always, is not what you might have expected.
In this video, a prequel to my ASML video, we are going to look at Japan’s famous cross-industry effort to develop an indigenous semiconductor industry and conquer the global lithography market on the side.
Why Russia Can't Replace TSMC
The TSMC halt ended shipments from fabless companies like Baikal, MCST, Yadro and STC Module. Intel and AMD have stopped their shipments to Russia as well.
In recent years, Russia has been looking to create their own supply of semiconductors. While there are some interesting domestic design successes, domestic capacity to manufacture those designs have been falling farther and farther behind.
We find ourselves living in strange times. In this video, we are going to do an overview of Russia's ever-worsening domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry.
China’s Looming EV Battery Waste Problem
China is the world's largest EV market with over 5.5 million sold as of March 2021. This is a good thing in many ways. China has the most cars in the world and these are replacing harmful greenhouse gases. But these things have their own sustainability concerns.
There have been the concerns about environmental damage resulting from the extraction of elements like lithium and cobalt. But another concern has to do with the coming problem of waste.
China is starting to experience the leading edge of this problem. In 2020, 200,000 tons of batteries were decommissioned, and the figure is anticipated to rise to 780,000 tons by 2025.
In this video, I want to look at China’s looming EV battery waste problem. And what the world’s biggest EV market is doing about it.
China Makes Their Own x86 Processors, But Does It Matter?
The two major companies making and selling chips using the x86 instruction set are some of the most prominent in the tech community: Intel and AMD.
In 2020 Intel sold $20 billion worth of processors to China. AMD had $2.3 billion. Both figures are on par with or higher than what those companies make from the United States. China is a massive market for these two. And China knows it too. So it is interesting to see some Chinese companies coming out with home-grown x86 processors of their own.
Is a domestic swap in the works? How did China acquire x86 technologies in the first place? The whole thing is worth looking into, to say the least. So I thought to do a video about it.
How ASML Won Lithography (& Why Japan Lost)
In the mid 1990s, two companies dominated the lithography space. Both of them were Japanese: Nikon and Canon. Together, they held three quarters share of the market.
Then a Dutch company called ASML rose to overtake these two, relegating them to bit players in the industry. Today, the two are no longer trying to compete at the cutting edge. While ASML is now Europe's most valuable technology company.
In this video, I want to talk about how ASML took the market share and technological leadership crown. And why the Japanese incumbents failed to keep it.
Australia's Forgotten Plan to Tow Icebergs For Freshwater
Look at them icebergs. Out there in the open ocean. Just sitting there. Made of freshwater. Melting away. Melting away into nothing. Nobody doing anything with them. What a waste.
Look at Australia. Land of desert and thirsty kangaroos. Starving for water. Crying out for it! Is there no possible solution??
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, members of the Australian scientific community seriously studied the possibility of harvesting Antarctic icebergs out on the open sea and towing them back to Australia.
China’s ASML? SMEE, Explained
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment, or SMEE (上海微电子装备) is China’s ambitious project to replace ASML.
The company has been around for a while, and they have received a lot of attention and cheerleading in the Chinese media. But recent high profile export bans to China have brought them special focus.
In this video, we are going to take a closer look at this under-covered company, what they have been able to produce, and how they are doing so far.
India's Semiconductor Design Challenge
India's chip design industry is a multi-billion dollar giant. As fabless chip companies emerged as a real force in the industry, the South Asian country captured more than its fair share of the gains.
For foreign multinationals, the country still offers amazing, high-class talents at a reasonable cost. But is that really such a good thing?
In this follow up video, we will take a look at India's rise in the chip design world, the current state of affairs, and the challenges the industry faces in the times ahead.