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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is cutting edge even necessary? If you could build the last two nodes 10x as cheaply that would be way more valuable.
If you have stolen IP designed for cutting edge processes you need about the same tech to produce said IP. Producing 10x of 10-years old GPUs is not exactly useful for modern AI codebases for instance.
Crazy that the US had to block ASML selling to China. I would have thought they'd do that themselves to reduce the risk of reverse engineering.
The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.
We'll soon be reading science textbooks in Chinese.
The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.
No, not in this case.
> I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash.
Any country can make cars and phones now if they REALLY want to, they just don't because they wouldn't be competitive on the global market at performance and at scale. But not anyone can just make an EUV machine if they want to.
Becoming a leader in commodity white goods like a phones and cars is a different beast than EUV machines. The challenges are not even remotely comparable.
China doesn't have a Zeiss, it doesn't have an ASM, it doesn't have a Cymer, it doesn't have a Trumpf, and it doesn't have a dozen other domestic competitors to western suppliers of critical parts that make an EUV machine.
And each of those suppliers, like Zeiss for example, is a leader because it has decades of expertise that can't be speed-run, even with IP theft. So before China can have an ASML it first needs a Zeiss. So ask yourself where is their Zeiss and are they beating the west's Zeiss?
The answer is, of course, yes. What is there to stop them? Sure, it's difficult -- but where there's a will, and where the resources of China are involved, there is most assuredly a way. I remember when their cars were a joke, and when their cellphones were cheap trash. Now I don't think I'd buy a non-Chinese new car or cellphone, lol.
The US is ran by a moronic kleptocracy of conmen and number-go-up techbros that give precisely zero shits about human rights and improving life for the average citizen.
There is no way to defend the moral or political superiority of the west anymore. And who needs to worry about foreign intervention destabilizing internal affairs when we let the extremists, the populists do that for us?
At least if China pulls this off we might get some semi-affordable RAM and SSDs.
The question is "can anyone". Makes you wonder why the USA hasn't built one? Maybe the latest technology required some rare discovery. Just like nobody can replicate the taste of Coca Cola, maybe there some tiny detail that they discovered by experimenting.
They basically (almost) did. In 2013 ASML bought US Cymer(the maker of EUV light sources) and in 2001 ASML acquired the US-based lithography equipment manufacturer Silicon Valley Group (SVG) after it had encountered liquidity issues.
Basically, the US had everything needed, the EUV light sources and lithography machines, just spread over different companies facing financial issues, so ASML came at the right moment and bought them all and integrated into their own business.
Just because ASML is based in NL doesn't mean all of its EUV secret sauce IP is domestically Dutch. Most of it comes from the US, which is why the US government maintains such a high influence of ASML's trade restrictions.
Also ASML is not alone. In fact ASML can not exists without its partners, first and foremost American Department of Energy but also s IMEC in Belgium and Zeiss in Germany. Those are all SOTA in either R&D or production. They are not "some of the best" they are literally the best in their very complex expertise. In fact they have to collaborate reach such level.
... and yet, it's "just" that. There is nothing magical about ASML. Yes it might be practically impossible because of IP, economics, etc but still China (or anyone else) can definitely pour a lot of resources to try and make significant process. Will the result be competitive though in light of the moat ASML has, in particular partnerships, that is hard to imagine.
PS edit : I did like Chris Miller's "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology" and FWIW did have a former colleague working at ASML and been invited to IMEC events.