How does this compare to EUV?
It's about 14x worse if you just look at the wavelength of light.
China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
41–50 of 126 posts
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#42After living and working in China 10yrs and fundamentally experiencing the growth rate and culture, it's been a bit horrifying to watch the Western world consistently decide withholding tech from China and giving them no other option but develop their own tech, is a good idea. They are the ultimate long-term planners and I have no doubt the existing gaps will be relatively short lived before China closes them.
China is single-handedly propping up Iran, NK, and Russia financially. If you ahem removed the top 1000 leaders of the CCP tomorrow, those three countries wouldn’t be able to continue their population repression and the world would be an immeasurably better place. Iran killed, what, 20k of their own population earlier this year? Russia has lost 10x that this year alone. Blocking tech from China directly hampers their funding of these countries. Am I wrong?
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The steelman of the argument is that, due to legacy in technology and comparative advantage, unless they expect a serious supply chain tech, many core technologies will be too expensive to duplicate for China and so there will be areas where they will not advance. There is some amount of evidence that was true for lithography, they did not seem to be making much progress until they were forced to, and there didn't se…
I'm not an expert at all so I have to wonder which core technologies were/are too expensive to duplicate for China? Afaik semiconductors represent the cutting edge of manufacturing technology; if China is able to duplicate (or even innovate, as demonstrated by "3d Logic folding") in this industry, I can't imagine how any other sectors would be too expensive to duplicate. Who knows how far they progressed in lithograp…
The cost is not just pure development. There are very high switching costs, and downstream opportunity costs affecting the entire ecosystem. As an example, Nikon was competitive with ASML in DUV for a while, but no one was willing to switch because the cost/risk was way too high. For lithography, that was essentially the issue - no serious foundry was willing to take the massive risk to move away from ASML - and, worse, to skip EUV.
A second reason is that Chinese foundries still had to compete with foreign foundries. The cost of doing lithography with new Chinese DUV machines will be significantly higher than with ASML DUV and then significantly higher than with ASML EUV. So to build an ecosystem that can one day truly compete with ASML, you'd need the entire Chinese semi industry to take significant losses to get to the point where they can compete with ASML and pose a threat in the market.
There is still many sectors like this where China has some kind of parity, but at a total cost of ownership so much higher than western competitors than they are not a serious market threat in the near future. In fact, the US, EU, etc... are in similar positions. Unless the Chinese economy becomes much stronger than the US/EU across the board, one would expect it to be case due to comparative advantage - the cost of directing industry to ignore superior alternatives will slow them down in other fields, unless the Chinese economy is just that much more effective. So without sanctions, it's difficult for the Chinese state to force enough cooperation to solve the issue without spending amounts of money that are a significant drag even to China.
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core stuff is under heavy lock and key. I’m not sure China can hire people that know the whole process, let alone the bits and pieces they can’t easily figure out on their own. The tech seems to have been locked down by a few western countries, and it’s hard to find any holes in their secrecy.
Espionage
Nah, you watch too many movies, they openly hired former asml employees.
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#45When China eventually catches up on conventional lithography, the goalposts will simply shift to silicon photonics and optical logic, a transition DARPA laid the publicly visible groundwork for decades ago through programs like POEM and PIPES while keeping the mature implementations strictly classified until needed.
Are these tippy top-secret Skunkworks Final Boss Wunderwaffen with you in the room right now?
More and more there seems to be some wishful thinking that the USA has another hidden generation of SR-71 or Stealth tech type surprises squirrelled away for a rainy day. Find this hard to believe when the best brains of the generation got hoovered up by hedge funds, click merchants, and now token slingers.
Is there anything to stop the Chinese doing a silicon photonics end run independent of cracking EUV at scale? Or is getting EUV right first on the critical path? This part is a genuine question.
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how the alternatives ends any differently? We manufacture in China, they copy the products with lower margins then western companies can't compete on price.
The steelman of the argument is that, due to legacy in technology and comparative advantage, unless they expect a serious supply chain tech, many core technologies will be too expensive to duplicate for China and so there will be areas where they will not advance. There is some amount of evidence that was true for lithography, they did not seem to be making much progress until they were forced to, and there didn't se…
What comparative advantage exists for high technology? I get it for things like agriculture and resources, but what intrinsic barriers are there to computer chips and cars? Especially when we're talking about the heart of the global supply chain, where there really is a comparative advantage in that standing up a logistical competitor would take decades of focused investment.
Anyone who understands China knows that they want to be the master of their own destiny, and China understands that this means self sufficiency when it comes to technology. This is one of the many lessons they learned from the "century of shame". Anyone who thinks they don't want to eventually dominate all technologies in the name of security hasn't really been paying attention.
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US does not want to compete with China. There’s no profit in it when compared to the riches available from having a captive marketplace.
Doesn’t China heavily restrict competition in its domestic markets? Probably only North Korea is worse. China is one of the most restrictive countries but expects full access to US market behaving like a US state or territory in its claims to US domestic markets lol. Last time I checked, China is not a US province or territory but maybe that is the state of affairs China aspires to in the long term with Trump looking…
American companies are banned the same reason TikTok and Huawei is banned in the US. Nobody wants spy apparatuses operating within their shore.
Also are you going to simply ignore the fact that Tesla, Apple et. al. are operating just fine in China?
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn’t China heavily restrict competition in its domestic markets? Probably only North Korea is worse. China is one of the most restrictive countries but expects full access to US market behaving like a US state or territory in its claims to US domestic markets lol. Last time I checked, China is not a US province or territory but maybe that is the state of affairs China aspires to in the long term with Trump looking…
American companies are banned the same reason TikTok and Huawei is banned in the US. Nobody wants spy apparatuses operating within their shore. Also are you going to simply ignore the fact that Tesla, Apple et. al. are operating just fine in China?
Look up when American companies got banned and when TikTok and Huawei got banned.
American companies have been banned decades earlier.
> Also are you going to simply ignore the fact that Tesla, Apple et. al. are operating just fine in China?
Also, are you and the other commenter ignoring the fact, thousands to millions of companies from China sell in the US?
Temu and Shein are still free to sell forced labor lead-infused goods. Lenovo still works. So do millions of tiny Chinese brands on Amazon.
You ignored that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are completely banned in China. Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Google Maps are completely unavailable in mainland China
TikTok wasn't banned (but had to restructure) and RedNote operates without any changes.
> Tesla, Apple et. al. are operating just fine in China
Yeah, and both companies manufacture heavily within China
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#49Ultimately a win for the consumer, China does not tend to ban technology as a weapon
Let's not act like China doesn't use export controls for their geopolitical desires.
"China halts rare-earth exports to Japan after Japan detains a Chinese fishing-boat captain near disputed islands" [1].
"China suspends natural-sand exports to Taiwan following Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taipei" [2].
"China bans exports of gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the United States in retaliation for new U.S. semiconductor restrictions" [3].
"China restricts exports of dual-use goods to U.S. defense companies in response to U.S. sanctions on Chinese firms" [4].
"China bans exports of dual-use goods that could strengthen Japan’s military following tensions over Taiwan" [5].
[1] [https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/revisiting-china-japan-rare-e...](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/revisiting-china-japan-rare-e...) [2] [https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/economic-sanction...](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/economic-sanction...) [3] [https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-expor...](https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-bans-expor...) [4] [https://apnews.com/article/1aebe98718e127365859b0fb0b63d07b](https://apnews.com/article/1aebe98718e127365859b0fb0b63d07b) [5] [https://apnews.com/article/0ea90fa798771c9fb650422ca3e21e09](https://apnews.com/article/0ea90fa798771c9fb650422ca3e21e09)
Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines
#50When China eventually catches up on conventional lithography, the goalposts will simply shift to silicon photonics and optical logic, a transition DARPA laid the publicly visible groundwork for decades ago through programs like POEM and PIPES while keeping the mature implementations strictly classified until needed.
Are these tippy top-secret Skunkworks Final Boss Wunderwaffen with you in the room right now? More and more there seems to be some wishful thinking that the USA has another hidden generation of SR-71 or Stealth tech type surprises squirrelled away for a rainy day. Find this hard to believe when the best brains of the generation got hoovered up by hedge funds, click merchants, and now token slingers. Is there anything…
There are a lot of very very very smart people working in defense. Gov doesn't pay the best but the benefits are unmatched.