The digital revolution we have experienced in recent years has changed everything: from how we work to how we do more routines day by day, it is changing the way we communicate and receive information. You have a tool that optimizes all our areas. The tool on everyone’s lips that drives new trends, conversations and business: artificial intelligence.
In recent years, we’ve seen how the AI conversation is driven by models, algorithms, and computing power. Who learns the most advanced model, who accumulates the most GPUs or which company leads the market are very relevant topics, but they create an incomplete story.
The reality is that the global journey for AI is not achieved in software alone, nor is it secured in data centers. It largely achieves the ability to make chips even more completely error-free. And here Europe has a big network. With a heavy dependence on the production of advanced semiconductors, Europe supports initiatives that allow it to collect oxygen and gain autonomy in the face of large giants such as Asia.
The rise of artificial intelligence has transformed the semiconductor value chain. Chips designed for AI processing workloads are radically more complex than those the industry has produced. They include more options, new architecture and designs that overcome the physical limitations of manufacturing. Technologies such as 3D NAND memory (with hundreds of caps inserted) are no exception until the new standard.
This development has its own membership cluband not only in the price of the loan, but also in other parameters, such as the yield (part of the functional chips in the loan), which was transformed into a critical variable of profitability. In the area where oblea falls, a large inversion is concentrated, any error, however small, has a direct economic impact.
The nature of these chips brings new physical flaws. The accumulation of capas in very small spaces creates stresses that can cause deformations on the nanometer scale. Imperfections invisible to the human eye that are as critical as determining whether a chip is working or not. When working on these stairs, no error: an imperceptible deviation can compromise the performance of the entire item.
And this is where we really feel the importance of making chips in a conscious, efficient and scalable way.
In this new scenario, there is a technology that seems to be overlooked in the public debate, but which is absolutely essential: metrology. This technology allows you to meditate, understand and correct what happens to each problem at each stage of the production process and turn it into an essential element that makes the production process viable.
Without advanced medical capabilities, manufacturers cannot detect defects, optimize processes and guarantee sustainable yield levelswhich makes competitive climbing impossible.
Faced with this new context, Europe has responded with initiatives such as the Chip Law, making major changes to strengthen its technological superiority, reduce external dependencies and improve the resilience of the supply chain against crisis. This is where a strategic opportunity emerges: to be able to develop projects that enable the development of chip design, manufacturing and control of critical process stages through qualified technologies such as metrology.
Thanks to these initiatives, Europe and in specific countries such as Spain have an ecosystem of highly specialized deep technology companies capable of developing strategic solutions. In many cases, such as the Canary company Wooptix, these companies operate precisely in these invisible areas of the value chain from which real competitiveness is defined.
Moving away from this type of technology is key to leapfrogging your AI career. An imperceptible error detected in the early stages of the manufacturing process can significantly reduce risk and significantly improve production costs and times.
Artificial intelligence has become one of the main agents of economic transformation, so its development is crucial for continents like Europe, where technological dependence originates. The continent must work to create a sustainable and independent ecosystem that helps develop and manufacture these chips in Europe and support the large group of companies that rely on leading technologies to develop these devices.
*** José Manuel Rodríguez Ramos He is a Doctor of Astrophysics and CEO of Wooptix.
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