Asianometry

By Jon Y

Newsletter for the Asianometry channel. Studies on Asia - Financials, semiconductors, history, demography, development and other stuff.... more

· Technology

5

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FAQs about Asianometry:

How many episodes does Asianometry have?

The podcast currently has 258 episodes available.

Asianometry episodes:

August 09, 2026 The Subsea Cables Are Listening
There are 5 million route-kilometers of optical fiber around the world, both under the sea and ground. Over the past six to eight years, telecoms and tech companies have laid down over half a million kilometers. Such a broad and growing network of simple boring infrastructure. Now imagine a new technology that can turn all that into a massive network of listening sensors. In today’s video, the recent, ongoing rise of Distributed Acoustic Sensing, or DAS.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
21min
August 02, 2026 ADSL Made the Modern Internet Possible
Other than a few minor size changes, AT&T has been using the same type of copper wire technology since 1887. Millions of miles of copper wire that for decades carried just analog voice calls. Then came along a remarkable technology that takes that decades-old copper wire, and somehow makes it able to carry millions of digital bits per second: ADSL.
In the 2000s, ADSL brought fast, always-on internet to millions of people around the world. And did it using their existing telephone lines. What is perhaps most funny about ADSL’s rise is that it was never intended for Internet broadband. Many of us might have forgotten it today now that we have fiber, 5G, and Starlink, but ADSL truly helped make the modern Internet. In today’s video, the accidental copper miracle.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
32min
July 30, 2026 Gallium Nitride: From Light to Power
Gallium Nitride is a remarkable material.
Dr. Umesh Mishra - a UC Santa Barbara professor and pioneer in GaN transistors and LEDs - said at a retrospective of the WBGS-RF program (what that is, we will talk about later):
“Gallium nitride actually is kind of God’s gift to mankind ... [It] just kept cooperating and cooperating and you’re like, ‘Why is this material working?’”
GaN’s physical problems are legendary. Despite those problems, this grumpy material has changed the worlds of light, radio, and power. That’s kind of interesting. In today’s video, Gallium Nitride’s journey from a technical flop to a bringer of light to the gates of power.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
25min
July 26, 2026 True 3D DRAM
DRAM long ago hit the slow curve of lateral scaling. The only real way left for big bit density gains is stacking up. In a previous video, I discussed 3D NAND, the most scalable semiconductor. 3D NAND sparked a scaling revolution in the industry. Can it do the same for DRAM? But stacking DRAM - cells, not dies - is not as easy as stacking NAND cells. In today’s video, we talk true 3D DRAM.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
21min
July 19, 2026 France Sold Its Nuclear Steam Turbine Champion. Then Bought It Back.
In 2015, the French company Alstom sold the world’s largest nuclear steam turbine to General Electric. The French government controversially approved the sale. Then spent nearly a decade trying to buy it back. In today’s video, that time when France sold off the world’s biggest nuclear steam turbine.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
26min
July 16, 2026 The Cochlear Ear Miracle
Here’s an idea. A machine that translates sounds into electrical signals, and then stimulates the auditory nerves to send that sensory data to the brain. Can it work? And can it convey actual words? For many years, people didn’t believe it. Eminent auditory scientists like Dr. Merle Lawrence stated that speech comprehension was “not feasible”. The inner ear was too complex. Too many nerves. We knew too little about how it works. And the surgical trauma and electrical stimulation will kill the nerves, anyway.
Yet they did it. And now, hundreds of thousands have had their lives improved with this device. In this video, the long and winding road to the cochlear ear implant.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
34min
July 09, 2026 RCA and the Vacuum Tube’s Last Stand
The emergence of the transistor shook the world. It certainly shook the vacuum tube makers. Some believed that the category was a dead man walking. The transistor was going to replace the vacuum tube everywhere.
But the iconic American company RCA believed that vacuum tubes still had a future. And in 1959, they poured all their skill and knowledge into one “revolutionary” tube. In today’s video, RCA and the vacuum tube’s last stand.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
23min
July 05, 2026 The Debt-Fueled Collapse of China’s Top Machine Tool Maker
In December 2012, Guan Xiyou, Chairman of Shenyang Machine Tool Group, was honored by Chinese state media CCTV as one of its 2012 China Economic People of the Year. Guan received the award for taking control of a failing machine tool company and turning them around into a $2.8 billion giant. Or so it seems. Even as Guan received this award, his company was on the decline and eventually fall into insolvency. In today’s video, we profile the debt-fueled fall of a Chinese machine tool giant.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
38min
July 02, 2026 The 40-Year Mystery of the Iron Nitride Magnet
In 1972, two scientists reported the discovery of a very strong magnet. Their paper said:
We found a new magnetic material which has the highest saturation magnetization at room temperature...among those of all the magnetic materials.
Not only is this material one of the most magnetic objects known, it is made from two very ordinary elements: Iron and Nitrogen. For forty years, people went back and forth on whether this magnetism was real. In this video, we explore the decades-long mystery of the Iron Nitride magnet.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
21min
June 28, 2026 TOTO: From Toilets to E-Chucks
In early 2026, a British hedge fund sent a letter to the Japanese company TOTO. Yeah. The company making tubs, sinks, and those high-tech bidet toilets. Not because TOTO was doing particularly bad in those businesses. But because TOTO also has an advanced ceramics division that is the world’s leading supplier of electrostatic chucks for the 3D NAND industry.
Now, I know what you guys are thinking. How did a Japanese toilet company get involved in semiconductors? The answer is that TOTO doesn’t see itself as just a toilet company. In today’s video, we travel with TOTO, the Porcelain King.
Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year.
Listen to Stratechery.
Listen to Dithering.
Listen to Sharp China.
Listen to Sharp Tech.
Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.
...more
39min

FAQs about Asianometry:

How many episodes does Asianometry have?

The podcast currently has 258 episodes available.

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