Without One German Product, Modern Civilization Would Collapse

NOTE: There was a sentence in the video that seemed to suggest the mirrors are less than an atom thick. To clarify, the mirrors are polished to a smoothness of less than one atom's thickness. Not that the mirrors themselves are less than one atom thick. That sentence has now been removed. Visit brilliant.org/Newsthink/ to get started learning math, science, and computer science for FREE, and the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium subscription.

Zeiss is also a very interesting company regarding its corporate structure. There are no shareholders and it is completely owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation. All profits are either re-invested into the company and/or used to promote mathematics, science and technology.

As a german: If Germany really had only height deviations of 1mm, we could build a tremendous Autobahn :D

A joke aside? The American institute of "micro equipment development" made a copper thread so small, it's barely visible with a microscope. They believed that they had created the thinnest metal object ever. But they couldn't be sure. So they send out 3 of them by mail to the other 3 best institutes of the same level in the world. One in Japan, one in the Switzerland and one in Germany. The Swiss people returned the package, stating that they can create a thinner object, but not made of metal. The Japanese package came back after a week, stating that they had tried to create a replica, but didn't succeed. After 2 months, the German package came back with just the original thread in it. And a letter. "Hey folks, we didn't know why you've sent us this or what we're supposed to be doing with it. So we had some fun and drilled a few holes in it. Greetings."

Please correct this clickbait title. As a former scientist at Zeiss who contributed a tiny bit to the development of Zeiss' EUV projection optics, I have to say the title is clickbait. While EUV technology is an important step forward, civilization would not collapse without it because a lot can still be achieved with VUV multiple patterning. Zeiss has competitors like Nikon at VUV wavelength of 193nm. The competition could eventually catch up if it enough reasons to do so.

It is not only Zeiss. Advanced nodes require dozens of extremely specialist components, that are so complex that only one company (either in the EU or the US) is able to make them. The chipmaking industry is the most international and cooperative in the world. No one single country - no matter how advanced - can make all the components and machines necessary for building advanced ICs and SoCs...

This is the first time someone realized that Zeiss is so important for the modern economy! The so called „Zeiss-Tower“ on the picture at the beginning is situated just where I grew up and still live, in Oberkochen Baden-Württemberg and my whole family is deeply rooted in this Company. Even my Grandfather worked there as a former Electrical Engineer in the "Schaltkreisentwicklung" (Electrical Circuit development). My Father on the other hand owns/runs a well known Zeiss optician in the vicinity.

I talked to an ASML employee about this topic somewhere around 2017 when I studied in the Netherlands. Using mirrors instead of lenses to focus the image on wavers for IC production. Even crazier, how they got the EUV emission in the first place. From what I recall, they would shoot a laser on a metal droplet which would then emit EUV as it vaporizes. It's like using a laser to create another laser, which requires fuel. That blew my mind.

I knew about the dominance of ASML and TSMC but the addition of Zeiss into this formula is pretty cool

Zeiss invented the first electronic microscope.

Without the machine that makes 3 nano meter chips, our modern civilization would collapse? And everyone goes back to dig potatoes for a living? How did the people of 2010 survived without the EUV machine?

Zeis is indeed an integral part of the ASML EUV machine, it is however important to note there are dozens of other technologies that make the asml machine. The laser, specially designed motors, software (sub nm positioning, shooting laser droplets, flow etc), 50 nm thick sheets (pelicles), 3D precision printed and milled ceramics, welding of exotic materials, advanced flow, heat and stress calculations, precision milling of frames the size of a large car, the masks, wafer, wafer handlers, the whole factory around the machine just to name a few. These are all technologies developed over the years and all play an important role in how the worlds most important technology came to be.

One of my nephews applied for a job where Zeiss develops this technology. He has a PhD in mechatronics and has worked for a whole load of high profile international tech-companies. But even so, Zeiss, it seems, doesn't let just anyone near this technology regardless of qualifications. The vetting is extreme. For instance they questioned his family name. It's Slavic from one of our far in the past immigrated ancestors from Russia or somewhere like that. They wanted to know what friends he has, where he goes on vacation, if he has debts, what his hobbies are, what he thinks of the covid pandemic, what he thinks of the present global political situation and a whole lot more. One of the questions in the stack of forms asks what foreign languages he can speak, even rudimentary. He was going to write Mandarin - he took a course ages ago during his university days - but then decided not to mention is in case this arouses suspicion.

A couple of former professors of mine worked for them. My thesis evaluator specifically as a mathematician and surprisingly, patent agent. He routinely told us about stories of the workflow there during lectures and sometimes about the "oopsies" that happened during his tenure (one about certain hiring practices, a very expensive machine breaking for one of their clients and the time they got paid to drink coffee for a month because some engineers refused to believe that a thing they attempted was mathematically impossible). Seems like a pretty interesting company to work for, if one has the qualifications for it.

this is an example of cost of entry into a particular market. there's no way that you can compete in this market without a full time crew of at least three dozen expensive brilliant engineers working for ten years.

I am from jena, which is where carl zeiss lived and now the company has its residence. Its insane to know that this company not that many have heard about is so important, not only for this but also for nasa and defense companys since they also make the best glass

I like that you talk slowly and clearly

Zeiss also built the projector for the first planetarium in the world, situated in Jena. (My home <3)

Subscribed. Great content! Amazing explanations of highly complex topics.

Carl Zeiss really does make the best lenses, mirrors, and measuring devices