China begins producing advanced chipmaking deep-ultraviolet lithography machines • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by rdm_blackhole » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 8:33 AM UTC

locknitpicker wrote: post #78

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.

> (...) 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. This is a very ignorant and even cynical comment. You purposely omitted the fact that "the western world" was collaborating with China to the point where major corporations were developing tight partnerships, but only to see those par…

And you believe that no other western country on this planet is doing the same exact thing? Every country spies on its enemies, allies and trade partners.

That is just the name of the game. I copy you, you copy me and hopefully I can copy you more than you can copy me. Singling out China for something that everyone does is just disingenuous.

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

#82

Post by Alpha3031 » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 8:35 AM UTC

gkbrk wrote: post #69

jiggawatts wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suppo…

You’re insane if you think supporting Russia is not “more wrong” than supporting Ukraine during a war Russia started to invade Ukraine.

Didn't the US stop new aid since 2025? Sanctions against Russia sure (at least until they decided the spat with Iran was more important) but I feel like that moral high ground is little enough that proposing to "ahem remove"...

Actually on second thought even if the US is doing everything perfectly re Ukraine and Iran and whatever and general being the paragon of morality it really feels like jimbob45's proposal would be a speedrun of losing any possible moral high ground. The only thing that would do it faster is a first strike, and probably only by a couple of days or so. We're really discussing that as if "ahem removing" the leadership of a P5 (i.e. has enough nukes to end the world) country is a sane and normal thing to suggest?

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

#83

Post by rdm_blackhole » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 8:57 AM UTC

ezst wrote: post #77

truthbe wrote: post #37

Ultimately a win for the consumer, China does not tend to ban technology as a weapon

> Ultimately a win for the consumer, China does not tend to ban technology as a weapon Doesn't have to, China will just subsidize their businesses, sometimes at a substantial loss, for as long as it takes to bankrupt the international competitors. So yeah, if by that you mean "they end up unemployed and in overall economic pain, but for a short time some stuff was abnormally cheap" then yes, "it's a win for the consu…

Nobody is stopping the western countries of doing the same exact thing with their own industries. As a matter of fact, the EU and the US are subsiding a lot of their own companies or even entire sectors of their economy (agriculture/arms/space/IT... the list goes on) already so why is it a problem if China does it?

You can't complain about something that literally every single country on this planet is doing and then somehow be angry because China does it as well. Rules for thee not for me and all that.

The real difference between what China does and what the western countries are doing is that China jump starts some industries with heavy subsidies and then gives them time to catch up to international standards and finally turns off the money tap and it forces these companies to export their production outside of China and makes them ultra competitive which is clearly a win for the consumers.

That is exactly how it played out with EVs today. Compare that to the auto industry in the EU which has relied on the same state support for the last decades and instead of using this support to innovate and compete they simply squandered their advance in these industries and find themselves on the back-foot thinking that they could just keep doing the same thing and that everything will work out somehow.

Who made the EVs cheaper today? China by competing heavily while the rest of the world was busy milking as much cash as possible from their customers. What about solar panels, batteries, wind turbines? China, China and China again.

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

#84

Post by HSO » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:04 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #22

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.

Withholding technology is the only tool we have. If we let them have the tech it's not like they'll start depending on us. They will simply replicate the machinery and then someone else will be writing a comment on Nacker Hews in this alternative Earth about how we were such fools in the West to simply let them have our technology thinking that would make them depend on us. In fact, we have this evidence because all…

> They won't be grateful to us, they won't be dependent on us, they won't be supplicants.

Oh no!!!

And yea, to think china will be ``equivalent`` to you is such a westoid delusion i dont even know what to tell you

maybe keep dreaming

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

#85

Post by HSO » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:05 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #19

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.

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.

otoh they had a coordination problem and the idiot ``us`` solved it for them

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

#86

Post by maxglute » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:12 AM UTC

Basically game over for compute wars in ~5 years if PRC serious, PRC doesn't need EUV to win compute game. If they hammer DUV tools and commoditize semi (i.e. remove 50-80% margins along every step of supply chain) they will simply be able to sell chips at fraction price of west, even accounting for multi pattern inefficiencies. TCO may still swing leading edge favor depending on infra / energy price, but as far as compute race goes, PRC can hammer power, fabs, DCs all at much lower input costs. The bottleneck has always been semi tooling.

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

#87

Post by greatgib » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:27 AM UTC

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!

Sadly the only thing that European leaders are really trying to copy from China is internet censorship and privacy eroding regulations...

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

#88

Post by SanjayMehta » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:31 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #27

SanjayMehta wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have the entire resources of their state available for funding. They will catch up and pass the West. Take nuclear weapons: even Pakistan and North Korea were able to catch up.

Poor examples. Pakistan with a lot of Saudi backing, NK with a lot of Chinese backing. That aside, China will master chip making at bleeding edge global scale, just as it did with EVs and rare earth processing, etc.

How is it a poor example?

State level resources - even from decrepit countries like Pakistan and NK - will ALWAYS beat VC funding or whatever.

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

#89

Post by Haven880 » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:45 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #22

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.

Withholding technology is the only tool we have. If we let them have the tech it's not like they'll start depending on us. They will simply replicate the machinery and then someone else will be writing a comment on Nacker Hews in this alternative Earth about how we were such fools in the West to simply let them have our technology thinking that would make them depend on us. In fact, we have this evidence because all…

There is this thing called payback. Chinese has a history of ultimate payback. The infamous very first one written down was eunuch Zhao Gao wiped clean entire Qin clan of Qin dynasty. WIPE CLEAN. When Deng met up with Thatcher, he gave her ultimatum to cede or army will march in that afternoon. That was just right after She won the Falkland war. USA will get Chinese payback. The only way to stop this is to invoke friend and savior role. Unfortunately, USA is playing the ultimate sore loser card with a generous dose of bullying. Be worry. Be very worry.

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

#90

Post by coderenegade » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:46 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #55

coderenegade wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

None of that is inherent. You could have said the same thing a decade ago about vehicle production, or microelectronics a decade before that, and yet here we are. The lesson we should learn from Comac is that China is quite happy to use its local market as a testbed until the technology is mature, and in the same way that it's only a matter of time before Comac has an internationally certified airframe and comes after the aerospace incumbents, it's also only a matter of time before they catch up in chip fabrication. This isn't about money for them.