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Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

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Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another poster has already said, the power is reduced 10 times, not by 10%. At such a power reduction, it should be possible to use a much smaller and cheaper EUV source, allowing the use of multiple lithography systems, or increase a lot the throughput achievable with the current EUV sources. I hope that they have modeled correctly the losses in the mirrors. Here the incidence angle of the EUV light on the mirror…

> Unfortunately this paper might be a hoax Not necessarily. It might just have performed at this peak capacity in ideal lab conditions. This would need to be reproduced, but like you pointed out ASML and Zeiss most likely tested this configuration out at some point in the last 25 years. That said, the English is very off on this paper - I did a re-read and it looks like they're proposing that they were able to cut th…

Their reference numbered [1] is a more recent book from 2020.

In this book it is said even if EUV mirrors have typically very poor reflectance at high incidence angles, it has become possible to make mirrors with a 60% to 70% reflectance even for high incidence angles (without specifying how high).

They have computed their power advantage using the 65% value which is a middle value between those from the book, so it is OK.

However they have used the same value for the ASML mirrors, which use low incidence angles, so they may have a higher reflectance.

So according to the book, their system should be feasible nowadays, but the actual improvement in light losses is unknown, because the losses in each mirror depend heavily on both the mirror construction and the light incidence angle, which are not taken into consideration in the paper.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASML having competition is good for everyone. Seems tariffs are a win/win/win

I haven't seen any success on the Trump/Biden tariffs. They only managed to weaken US companies by cutting access to Asian markets. China is doing just fine.

It's kind of obvious isn't it? High-tech is human-made and humans are not in short in China and elsewhere. Tech embargoes are a huge favor for the receiving side, enforcing a creation of a market for competitors where your companies can't compete and tariffs make sure that your companies don't have to innovate much when your people are suffering.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider that China is unable to get ASML equipment, they have strong incentive to improve on this technology immediately. If Chinese companies start this path, then the issue is not if ASML will have improved, but if they will be able to withstand the competition.

Eh, we've got time. When NATO allies stopped selling China engines for their fighter jets, it took China more than 15 years to bootstrap an aerospace industry that could design engines on-par with Russia. There are a lot of things that China has every incentive to invest in, but literally cannot as a result of sanctions. On top of that - an underappreciated aspect of lithography is yield. It's likely China can alread…

Competitiveness is an economic concern one can ignore while the government is willing to pour billions on a decade+ timeframe

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, we've got time. When NATO allies stopped selling China engines for their fighter jets, it took China more than 15 years to bootstrap an aerospace industry that could design engines on-par with Russia. There are a lot of things that China has every incentive to invest in, but literally cannot as a result of sanctions. On top of that - an underappreciated aspect of lithography is yield. It's likely China can alread…

Competitiveness is an economic concern one can ignore while the government is willing to pour billions on a decade+ timeframe

Sure, China said that about their engines too. When Pakistan came to them looking to buy an F-16 replacement under contract, China couldn't provide competitive designs without using Russian powerplants. They would build the JF-17 for export, and that jet (built in 2003) wouldn't receive domestic engines until a 2019 overhaul. By that time they were competing with a ~45 year old USSR-designed engine, the Klimov RD-33.

I full well expect that China is interested in producing silicon at-cost for the defense industry. It remains to be seen if they even have competitive designs though. Their premier domestic ISA, LoongArch, is based on 40-year-old MIPS architecture design. Cut off from international designs, it's not really clear how strong China's engineering chops are.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#66
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the immediate ban on ASML, China has made a geopolitical and strategic decision to obtain advanced chip manufacturing capabilities be it in 5, 10 or 20 years. Would be timely if Western politicians showed same concern for national manufacturing capabilities instead of continuously relying on outsourcing.

> Would be timely if Western politicians showed same concern for national manufacturing capabilities instead of continuously relying on outsourcing. You mean like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

The CHIPS act is a big mistake, they decided to give billions of dollars to companies like Intel that decided to layoff thousands of people a few months later. Like always, the US decided to give more money to unaccountable companies that will put this money into their management and shareholder's pockets.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the immediate ban on ASML, China has made a geopolitical and strategic decision to obtain advanced chip manufacturing capabilities be it in 5, 10 or 20 years. Would be timely if Western politicians showed same concern for national manufacturing capabilities instead of continuously relying on outsourcing.

You mean , like Asml , Zeiss and Jenoptics aren't national manufacturing capabilities? Or ist just your head national = American, western = American and not German , Dutch, European not Western?

For an American, national means built in the US. Unless you believe that Germany and other Europeans are just colonies of the US.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#68
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen any success on the Trump/Biden tariffs. They only managed to weaken US companies by cutting access to Asian markets. China is doing just fine.

It's kind of obvious isn't it? High-tech is human-made and humans are not in short in China and elsewhere. Tech embargoes are a huge favor for the receiving side, enforcing a creation of a market for competitors where your companies can't compete and tariffs make sure that your companies don't have to innovate much when your people are suffering.

Yes, tariffs may work for small countries, Cuba being the classical example (even though it only worked in the sense of keeping Cuba poor). But using tariffs against a country the size of China is a complete non-sense that could only come from the minds of stupid US politicians. The fact that it didn't work at all for Russia, which has an economy many times smaller, should be an early warning.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen any success on the Trump/Biden tariffs. They only managed to weaken US companies by cutting access to Asian markets. China is doing just fine.

tariffs/sanctions are meant to be long term, 15-30 years before showing effectiveness. they are meant to not stop progress but stop 'compounding' progress. if they show effectiveness sooner even better! but effects are better seen after 10 years. if A has $500 and B has $500 (and each put money away at the end of the year), tariffs on A are meant to 'eliminate' the compounding interest of the market. so over long hor…

That's laughable, China will spend 15-30 expanding on all kinds of technologies while cut from the US by design. I cannot see any long term benefit for the US when it lost access to the largest foreign market and suffers from fierce competition across the world. See the debacle of EV, where Chinese companies are already dominating sales on 3rd world countries and inside China.

Re: Japan on edge of EUV lithography chip-making revolution

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider that China is unable to get ASML equipment, they have strong incentive to improve on this technology immediately. If Chinese companies start this path, then the issue is not if ASML will have improved, but if they will be able to withstand the competition.

Eh, we've got time. When NATO allies stopped selling China engines for their fighter jets, it took China more than 15 years to bootstrap an aerospace industry that could design engines on-par with Russia. There are a lot of things that China has every incentive to invest in, but literally cannot as a result of sanctions. On top of that - an underappreciated aspect of lithography is yield. It's likely China can alread…

Enormous PRC indigenous turbo jet efforts progress exploded in last 10-15 years coincides with results of tertiary education reforms producing roughly OECD STEM talent combined. The problem post sanctions was there was a lot of work with not a lot of talent, it took time to build up talent generation engines, now PRC on trend to becoming the only country with enough semi talent for entire domestic semi supply chain - every other semi player projected to have 10k-100k+ talent shortage in short/medium term in the segments they specialize in. The real competition is whether a fragmented "western" semi ecosystem can ultimately compete with an integrated PRC one.
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