51–60 of 84 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
10 years is probably an underestimate given then current geopolitical condition.
Underestimate? Unless Washington aggressively nukes mainland China, recent overperformance by a post-Zero-COVID China suggests 10y is an overestimate. Existential stress is an excellent motivator for rapid innovation. Or did we learn nothing from the 20th century?
What do you mean?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's not really any magic. I've read that it would take China at least 10 years to get to ASML's current level. It might not be magic but there must be a lot of unknowns when starting from scratch.
Yes, the design of those proprietary parts is very technical, but the manufacturing not so much. That's part of what makes the IP situation so tenuous and is a big part of why the FBI has aggressively prosecuted individuals for corporate espionage against WFE firms in the past.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, the design of those proprietary parts is very technical, but the manufacturing not so much. That's part of what makes the IP situation so tenuous and is a big part of why the FBI has aggressively prosecuted individuals for corporate espionage against WFE firms in the past.
The tolerances are very tight. Manufacturing must be difficult.
For older generations of tools, there are a lot of bootleg replacement parts floating around on secondary markets. When tools reach their end of life at leading-edge fabs, or when those fabs are shuttered, the tools are often sold off to trailing edge fabs in permissive jurisdictions with shoestring budgets.
These fabs are not averse to buying whatever works cheapest, and the OEM WFE companies don't really have any way to enforce IP.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Underestimate? Unless Washington aggressively nukes mainland China, recent overperformance by a post-Zero-COVID China suggests 10y is an overestimate. Existential stress is an excellent motivator for rapid innovation. Or did we learn nothing from the 20th century?
> overperformance What do you mean?
China has been on the verge of collapse since 1991, according to Western popular consciousness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's not really any magic. I've read that it would take China at least 10 years to get to ASML's current level. It might not be magic but there must be a lot of unknowns when starting from scratch.
10 years is probably an underestimate given then current geopolitical condition.
Then we were surprised not only have been making 7nm chips for a year already, they also make the fastest memory chips. Our response? Let's sanction them so they can't sell those memory chips.
Instead of believing in the fairy tale that we can somehow block the country with the highest number of STEM graduates out of technology, maybe what we ought to be doing is to invest a little less in the bullshit professions and a bit more in the hard tech, not just here but also in places like Japan where they had the potential to compete with ASML but dropped out because it wasn't profitable enough more than a decade ago.
Ok, and? No but on a serious note, can someone give some context? Is there something special about these numbers that is newsworthy?
It comes from ASML They and TSMC are one of the hottest companies that additionally do hard engineering instead of social medias or ads
I really like the way you put this. Finally, a company actually worthy of being called a "technology company"!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
10 years is probably an underestimate given then current geopolitical condition.
Just last year people were commenting here on HN that China is years away from making anything under 14nm and that even that would be hard for them. Then we heard about China being years away from hypersonic missiles and how they couldn't even make fast memory chips. Then we were surprised not only have been making 7nm chips for a year already, they also make the fastest memory chips. Our response? Let's sanction the…
Intel could do 7nm (they called it 10) with DUV immersion equipment and double/quad patterning, but the yield was low 90s even for their highly tuned processes. That's why EUV is so important.
Don't believe all the "news" hype, it's just agit-prop entertainment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
10 years is probably an underestimate given then current geopolitical condition.
Just last year people were commenting here on HN that China is years away from making anything under 14nm and that even that would be hard for them. Then we heard about China being years away from hypersonic missiles and how they couldn't even make fast memory chips. Then we were surprised not only have been making 7nm chips for a year already, they also make the fastest memory chips. Our response? Let's sanction the…
Making hypersonic missiles or any military equipment is a different story as:
- You don't have to care about quality. You can make 100 chips, fail 90 and still have 10 to use, which is OK for military but would be a disaster for civilian;
- Worst case you can use espionage or diplomatic channels to find a small number of chips. You can't do that with mass market products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly these machines are assembled from a combination of proprietary parts manufactured using regular machine tools by contract manufacturers, and from sub-units purchased from specialist suppliers. For example: proprietary parts including optics, wafer chucks, process chambers, structural panels, etc are manufactured to spec by contractors. Pumps, valves, motion control boxes, wafer robots, loadports, servers, etc…
> There's not really any magic. I've read that it would take China at least 10 years to get to ASML's current level. It might not be magic but there must be a lot of unknowns when starting from scratch.
I suppose all the chip acts haven't really kicked in yet, so it'll be interesting to see how the regional deliveries shift. In their Presentation Investor Relations file for 2022, they have Taiwan as their #1 destination by dollar spend. Taiwan 42% South Korea 29% China 14% USA 7% Japan 4% Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) 2% Rest of Asia 2%
I wasn't aware that South Korea was such a big player in the chip industry. Is this for compute or something else?