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.

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.

Zeiss invented the first electronic microscope.

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

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...

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

I like that you talk slowly and clearly

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.

as a student in Jena (the city where C. Zeiss is based) I love Zeiss. The whole city benefits so much from Zeiss and yet Zeiss does not try to seize power but supports research projects etc. simply in the hope that the results will turn out to be profitable for Zeiss in the end

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

Worked there for a few years and many friends still do - truly amazing company. Crazy to walk though the factory and see everything it takes to make those systems

Zeiss also made the optical sights and range finders for German tanks in WW2, they’re are part of the reason why German tanks had such high kill ratios, they were able to zero in on enemy tanks before the other tank even knew they were there

The only chips I'm interested in are fried in lard - I use a sophisticated machine called a DFF (deep fat fryer) - I use it to heat the chips to extreme temperatures up to the "BP" or browning point - this is kept stable for exactly 7.2 minutes when the chips start early "Crisping Phase" 1.3 minutes later they're dumped on a plate and devoured instantly by the greedy bastards (children) .

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

"Modern civilization would collapse" is a bit strong, unless you mean you magically remove/destroy everything whose supply chain includes anything where such a mirror was used. If this didn't exist at all, we'd still have micro chips, just larger and more expensive ... as we had a few years back.

Most modern Hardware and general manufacturing technologies would not work without german companies that's the reason Germany has a very strong economy given its relatively small size of population and natural resources. The same can be said about the US when it comes to Software Technology.

It is either BIER a PANZERFAUST or a FLAMMENWERFER!!!!

The EUV-Lithography is such an interesting topic… In my company we coated these mirrors and sometimes we have seen the finished polished ones. It was breathtaking to see this absolutely perfect surface, a normal mirror was a joke compared to this mirrors

Using a normal mirror after looking into a Zeiss mirror once: Everything is crooked, reality is poison,... lambs to the cosmic slaughter

Zeiss are indeed a legendary company over here in DE, and an important part of our industrial heritage. Many abroad think we have only Mercedes and BMW, but our history and tradition of science & engineering extends way beyond that.

Exceptionally good, clear explanation. Nice work!

This takes precision German egineering to a whole new level...

So is this series going to be an invite loop of companies that rely on each other? Because that is in fact how the modern world functions. We are all connected to each other one way or another.

Great video! Thanks for pointing this out.

Actually, the company name is pronounced TSAAIIS. They also make intraocular lenses for people with cataract, also as multifocal lenses. Using these lenses, even older people can see sharp at all distances without spectacles. I have been enoying this technology for the last 4.5 years.

I love how it goes straight to the point!!!

Makes me proud to have contributed to the development of that machine (laser power module controls).

I’m always fascinated how they can solder all those tiny chip connections. I know they use solder baths but the circuit board traces are so tiny it’s beyond the average person. I’ve done some work with guitar pedals and amplifier circuits and those components are small and tightly packed but components that you can barely see with the human eye is truly mind boggling!!!

Wow! All new to me! Brilliant insight. Thank you.

“Upon Reflection, the enemy succumbed”. .. From “Bullard Reflects”, by Malcolm Jameson. A fun SF story in Anthony Bouchers 1959 “A Treasury of Great Science Fiction” anthology.

What about Trumpf? They are the world leading firm for all types of lasers. They also developed the Laser inside that machine.

I think thats super cool because those Images you have shown of the building, are literally in my city! Was there a couple of times, super interesting.

Honestly, as something so common, i never really though about how Microchips are being created. Its just crazy how far we came from soldering grids to this in such a short amount of time. Makes you think what awaits us within the next 50 years or so

Being in the optical business I have long admired Zeiss as a premier optical company however, it’s difficult to think that a Japanese company such as Minolta or Nikon couldn’t do the same manufacturing if challenged to do so.

This channel gives me a new perspective on intellectual property and the free market

Basically it's still the same what I heard in another video: Germany builds the things that goes into the things that goes into the things you are build. Yepp, the double inception level was fully intended. Those things are not irreplaceable or not copyable but they both difficult to replace, or difficult to copy. Because it takes a lot of time and know-how for even the production processes to be developed, much less the actual product. Yeah, those products are rarely flashy, or grab the international limelight. But they can be very important integral parts. As the Russians have discovered early in 2022 when Germany and the EU levied their first sanctions against them. Among those sanctions were the complete stop of German manufactured ball bearing balls. How's that important? Well, tanks run to n treads, treads run on a set of wheels, wheels run on pivoted axles, axles run on high precision and extremely durable ball bearing balls. Yeah, China produces similar ball bearings. Not as durable, not as precise, but cheaper. So when Russian tank manufacturing companies failed to source German made ball bearings they turned to the Chinese made counterparts. Well, the results have been obvious, right? With Russian tanks breaking down due to mechanic failures in the dozens. So what's the lesson? Don't piss off Germany if you can't build the stuff you buy here yourself or you don't have an equivalent product at standby. 😂😂

And here I thought it was beer

I like how you keep your videos as compact and to the point as possible !

The title is misleading: Without the extremely advanced mirrors provided my Zeiss, EUV lithography wouldn't be possible, so no microchips < 7nm; However, you could still make micropchips >7nm with lenses, for which there are apparently several suppliers. So without Zeiss' mirrors, civilisation wouldn't collapse - only our smartphones, gaming PC, datacenters etc. would be noticeable slower.

I'm still using a Zeiss folding camera from the 1950's. Made in Stuttgart. Not to bad and fully repairable, because screws, sheet metal, glass and leatherette was used...

For my birthday, I want an ASML lithography machine

Their photography lenses are great, too!

The German z is pronounced ts. So it is Tseiss-

Zeiss sights were a big reason German panzers and panzer divisions were so successful in 39,40 & 41. Everyone talks about radio, but when the Brits finally got their hands on some panzers in 41 in the desert, it was the Zeiss sights that amazed them.

Take most of the chips out of cars, they don't need to be tracking devices like our phones 😂

I study in Jena and my University even shares the campus with Zeiss. Jena is all about optics. But I wouldn’t be surprised if those mirrors are actually from Schott. And guess what, Schott is our neighbor on the other side of the campus. Nether the less it make me proud to know we share a campus with these companies.😌

Good content - informative and understandable. Hint for pronouncing the "z" in German words: Just use "ts".

There is way more which was way more important. For example: Gutenberg and his Letterpress, Zuse with his Z3 Computer, Benz with the engine for automobile, Fleming with the first Antibiotics (Penicillin) ect…. so Germany was actually quite creative before ☺️

With that title, I thought this was going to be about beer!

I strongly disagree. If we don't have that one Zeiss product we would go back to Oct 2012 and I would still classify that time as Modern Civilization. It would simply mean we go back to iPhone 5 or the Samsung Galaxy S III Mini. Hardly the collapse of Modern Civilization.

A challenging time I remember was polishing a surface to atomic smoothness, finding a 50 nm x 50 nm imaging area - using tiny landmarks to find the same zone again and again over weeks Then one day I dropped my experiment on the floor I melted it down in a muffle furnace and graphite crucible and started over, reforging, pressing, polishing to atomic smoothness with suspended diamonds, recrystallizing the metal, adding surface functionalization, patterning using voltammetry, then again finding the landmarks. Crazy! :D Silicon dioxide is even worse, because it's brittle like glass and I can't reforge it. If I dropped it on the floor it would be lost and I would be buying a new piece. One elegant method to add lithography directly to silicon is to add surface defects, scratches, with an atomically small silicon nitride cantilever and recrystallizing the surface.

"how precise do you wanna make it?" Zeiss: "jawohl".

I saw the title and just assumed it was talking about beer.

Thank you Germans for all your hard work and ingenuity.

1) Modern Civilization wouldn't collapse. It would take some steps back. Modern civilization didn't begin on 1996 or 1984, let alone with the newest computers on 2022. For young people this may sound credible, for older generation this is BS, of course. 2) There are more than 200 unique purveyors of extremely complex and very dedicated technologies that are important for modern computers, many are in the Netherlands, others in Germany, others in the USA. Each plays a role in the whole ASML machine miracle, it's not like one country has the monopoly on the beautiful house of cards that is such extremely complex products. 3) Again, if China could replicate the technology in 10 years or so (or the USA or other countries, varying in years) it's not "the collapse of modern civilization". What happens is that we are too accustomed to advances that never stop or turn back. Yet the Concorde was cancelled. Sometimes things don't work or suffer some delays. Wars in the past had those halting effects (yet also wars introduced technologies that were so far lingering on some people's imaginations) as did economic crisis.

Meanwhile my 1st time hearing of Zeiss was when Nokia would advertise that its flagship N Series smartphones used camera lenses made by them

Extremely interesting. Thank you.

I loved both your movies on this! Very informative, I didn’t know all this. So the tech is in and from Europe. Taiwan is producing the chips, but can’t do so without The Netherlands and Germany - and neither can the US I guess

It's not hard to find out that in German a Z is always pronounced as TS.

This is crazy.....I didn't know there was a ping pong ball on the surface of the Moon!

I thought that microchips hit a limit in recent years because of quantum effects. With ever smaller transitors electrons startet to randomly jump gaps. Does anyone know more about this?

There weren't civilizations before microchip?

When i read the headline, i thought this video was a beer documentary.

thank You !

Thanks Germany. Sounds like an important part and contributor to the world

(Most of) the lithography mirrors are not flat, they are curved! Making a flat precision mirror is relatively easy, but a curved mirror with such precision, that is what others can't do.

I have a box of Zeiss cleaning wipes for glasses and tech glass a foot away from me.

Your transition from informing to selling is as smooth and as impressive as the two companies achievements...! Granted...that is pure professionalism...! Money well spent...!

Thank goodness, I can still see my fish & chips.

The EUV lasers for ASML are build in germany too i think. Gread video. Didnt know that until now!

Being that these two companies are so critical to the world supply of computer chips, an enemy could target one of both companies for sabotage or worse. I'm sure they both have extremely good security, especially cyber security.

yet we have the worst internet in History how does this that even work ?

Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TI's Central Research Labs

Didn't Zeiss also make the lenses used in range finders in tanks for ww2?

1:57 first you say curved then you say flat... I get what you meant but you should have said smooth right away not flat, flat indicated overall shape of the mirror not how smooth it is.

One of my favorite anecdotes about German precision, was a group of mfg engineers from Stuttgart that toured a retooled Detroit plant in the 90s. Pointing to a slotted hole, one member asked what it was used for. Seriously didn’t know. After the adjustment explanation, the whole group looked even more confused.

And i always thought currywurst and fries were the energybar of the german workforce...

German scientists: the most important thing in modern science

This channel is a treasure!

25% share for €1 billion? is it a joke? this is extremely cheap for such important technology...

I'm fascinated with German public toilets . That beautiful sound , right amount of flushing water ...

Amazingly, the Germans together with the Dutch rule the world. Grosshartig! Schitterend !!

Another German product that is essential to the ASML EUV system is the Trumpf 30+ kW CO2 laser that creates the plasma from the tin droplets. How about a video about this system, since it comprises a large portion of the overall EUV lithography machine?

Small mistake, the name of the process (7nm, 5nm, 3nm) has no relation to actual dimensions of the transistors or any chip element

Why are most of the chips being manufactered in Taiwan if the main technology comes from europe? Is it just because of the distance to china? I know they have the biggest consumption for those kind of chips. Thanks for your answers.

The assertion in the title is ridiculous. Civilization would not collapse without the most advanced chips - civilization would simply revert to slightly less advanced chips. For the average person, this would barely be noticeable.

they went around that optical

im living 15km away from Zeiss in Wetzlar, Leica is also there. Havnt knew this, building doesnt look so spectacular.

I visited Zeiss development center in Jena in the late 1900's when still was part of Eastern Germany, very impressive facility.

There are a surprising amount of such monopolies in the world. There also is a similar example in the medical industry where a German company is the only producer of a special medical component This all wouldn't be a big problem tho If the whole world would just finally get its act together and unite fully. One world, no more nations, just humanity. Working together to improve everyone's life, combating climate change and get rid of crippling poverty.