Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 126 posts

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#51

Post by jiggawatts »

jimbob45 wrote: post #42
bobjordan wrote: post #15

After 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…

Somewhat over-estimating the numbers, but even if your stats were accurate it wouldn’t change the critique that “the west” does the exact same thing.

This isn’t what-about-ism, this is simply acknowledging the realpolitik that there are great powers vying for control over the rest if the world through proxies. A game as old as civilisation itself.

We support Ukraine, they support Russia.

We support Israel, they support Iran.

We X, they Y.

Neither is more right or wrong than the other, and neither is the only bad actor.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#52

Post by rich_sasha »

It doesn't make me upset that China seems able and determined to catch up on the litography technology - what else are they supposed to do?

What does make me upset is that Europe has the technology and seems unwilling or unable to get it's act together and make some chips. China seems to have managed this part too, only without access to the latest chip making technology!

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#54

Post by t-writescode »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21
_ink_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't it easier to copy some existing approach than to create it from a green field? ASML tech is presumably highly protected, but China is also very good in spying, hacking etc.

This stuff is really hard to copy. China basically had to put in all the cold era materials research along with getting up to speed on current tech, from scratch. They were/are always going to catch up because they have the resources to, but there are no shortcuts.

The patent system is very strong evidence that there are shortcuts. So many that we have laws designed to protect and incentivize version 1.

Sure, there’s some hard lessons along the way; but far, far, far fewer than figuring it out in the first place.

And this misplaced assumption about how China won’t be able to innovate when standing on the shoulders of giants (with you saying ‘are always going to catch up’) looks only at the last 100 years and forgets the millenia before it. The West is not magically superior.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#55

Post by sudosysgen »

coderenegade wrote: post #46
sudosysgen wrote: post #20

Earlier 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…

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 t…

There is definitely comparative advantage in certain technologies which depend on a niche supply chain with deep materials science experience, simply due to experience and network economies. China has many such advantages too.

Lithography is very hard to dominate because if you want to do so, you have to convince your ecosystems to switch to domestic suppliers. But in the short term, they don't want to as that will hurt their competitiveness. That's why, for many sectors still and for lithography until the bans, there was no domestic program with realistic prospects to ever truly outcompete.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#56

Post by turgidpost »

rich_sasha wrote: post #52

It doesn't make me upset that China seems able and determined to catch up on the litography technology - what else are they supposed to do? What does make me upset is that Europe has the technology and seems unwilling or unable to get it's act together and make some chips. China seems to have managed this part too, only without access to the latest chip making technology!

The rulers of the West know their days are numbered because of how rapidly China is advancing. Rather than make Europe better, they’re currently looting it. It would not surprise me (though it always seems unlikely, doesn’t it?) that a war breaks out sooner or later, although at China’s scale they know how to quell uprisings the size of any European country without a big fuss. Besides, they’ve already taken over a lot of Europe. So as the saying goes, resistance is futile.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

LIMEVINCE wrote: post #29
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

I'm not sure how true this is but I've read in other threads that ASML employs many Chinese engineers, and also read other news that the Chinese state is paying engineers working abroad at companies like ASML alluring salaries to get them to work back home.

You can employ as many engineers as you want but if you compartilize them enough and separate key processes to a very small group of people (Dutch citizens or whatever, maybe military), you can actually protect the process as a whole.

It’s not like a nuclear bomb that even high school students can even figure out how to make without much help.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#58

Post by [deleted] »

nunez wrote: post #50
segfault99 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#59

Post by seanmcdirmid »

culi wrote: post #33
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in China for 9 years and I really don’t think it makes much of a difference. China is not dumb enough to think that just because they can get it from the west today they can get it from them tomorrow. They were always going to develop their own semiconductor and jet turbine tech and industries, among other. They didn’t do it just to spite the west for not selling them the chips they wanted.

Sure but nobody in the world is denying that China's recent lightspeed advances in these areas isn't due to the trade war Trump started in his first term. It had an immediate and massive impact on China's economy and they had an equally massive response to it. China experienced the equivalent of the 1973 energy crisis that the US experienced in response to its role in the 1973 Yom Kippur War

China started these investments long before Trump was on the radar, during later Bush and early Obama. They might have upped it from $10 billion to $20 billion, but the ball was already rolling in 2017.

Re: China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines

#60

Post by seanmcdirmid »

t-writescode wrote: post #54
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This stuff is really hard to copy. China basically had to put in all the cold era materials research along with getting up to speed on current tech, from scratch. They were/are always going to catch up because they have the resources to, but there are no shortcuts.

The patent system is very strong evidence that there are shortcuts. So many that we have laws designed to protect and incentivize version 1. Sure, there’s some hard lessons along the way; but far, far, far fewer than figuring it out in the first place. And this misplaced assumption about how China won’t be able to innovate when standing on the shoulders of giants (with you saying ‘are always going to catch up’) looks…

There are just some things that China can’t access and they have to reinvent on their own. Like 50 years of intensive materials research that is locked away in a safe and access is heavily restricted. Yes, China could innovate by standing on the shoulders of giants if they had access to the giants, they simply don’t have access.
Post reply on HN