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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

#91

Post by mensetmanusman »

coliveira wrote: post #68
mrtksn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If China wants lower tariffs, all they have to do is purchase more to reduce the trade imbalance.

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

#92

Post by talldayo »

coliveira wrote: post #90
talldayo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't underestimate China, but I also don't take them at their word. They have a vested interest in appearing competitive even if they're not, same as the US does. I've acknowledged that both are nearly equals in terms of being importer-states reliant on foreign trade for competitive silicon. To my knowledge, China's most advanced domestic lithography is a dubious 7nm chip with unknown yields made entirely with DUV…

You don't need to take their word, just look at the products they're releasing, especially in the EV segment. It is now above everybody else, even with the head start western companies had. They're at the top of telecom tech as well, and Huawei had to be cancelled in the West to stop its total dominance. Even in chips, where they have closed the gap in many ways in a matter of a few years.

> just look at the products they're releasing, especially in the EV segment.

Since when have EVs required high-density silicon? China's EVs are impressive, but it's 100% more of an endorsement of their lithium supply chain than their silicon one.

> They're at the top of telecom tech as well

That's a funny rendering of events. Didn't Huawei get forcibly removed from the market after they refused to let governments audit their security? I don't think that's an industry-leading attitude compared to Cisco. The only thing Huawei can win on is low prices, which really isn't a priority of telecoms when you're trying to sell backdoored hardware.

Additionally - telecom tech doesn't require advanced silicon either. Most WiFi routers and Ethernet switches are made with the same silicon the US already manufactures in GlobalFoundries and Intel fabs. The fact that China has 24nm DUV is not at all impressive when half the world was already exporting similar density silicon for cars and routers.

So... yeah, I do need to look at better examples if I want to trust their word. From both the examples you've given me it seems like China is focusing on cheap low-density hardware that anyone can make, but China can make cheaper thanks to their political prisoners and labor camps. Not only is it unimpressive, it's not even a slight example of how China can put modern silicon nodes into mass-production.

You are describing 2010-era fab technology, when talking about EV and telecom chips. I just hope you know that's what you're bragging about here.

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

#93

Post by snowpid »

coliveira wrote: post #67
snowpid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well GP spoke about Western leaders and National strategies. I guess GP forgot some European companies.

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

#94

Post by silisili »

ahartmetz wrote: post #86
silisili wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I'm pretty confident we can, though. Not to take too much away from ASML who has done a good job in the time since, but don't forget that the US invented EUV with taxpayer money and basically only allowed ASML(and a company they bought) access. And the rest, as they say, is history.

EUV the concept is obvious. You want higher resolution, you need shorter wavelengths. But there are many devils in many details, and the relatively tiny US EUV program didn't do a whole lot about them. So no, EUV is not mainly a US development.

I'm not sure how true that is. The EUV concept was drawn up in the 90s, and the program was designed specifically to do further research to overcome technical hurdles. Multiple companies were interested in licensing this research, but all but ASML were blocked. Is it no coincidence that they are the only ones who achieved it?

In fairness, I don't know all the inner workings of what was already in place and how much more they had to do initially, it just feels peculiar that the denied interested parties(large Japanese companies) never achieved it.

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

#95

Post by jolux »

coliveira wrote: post #66
jolux wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It also gave a lot of money to TSMC and to the DoD to study and support chipmaking directly, though.

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

#96

Post by ibaikov »

ksec wrote: post #3

A few points in terms of context. 1. The original paper in Japanese claim to use only 4 mirrors to achieve the same results. Although this story only mentions >the EUV equipment’s optical system is greatly simplified 1. Japan isn't new to lithography. Both Canon and Nikon are in the market as well and eventually gave on EUV research and focuses on DUV. 2. Power consumption is reduced by a factor of ten is extremely i…

> 30%+ of the raw cost of chip manufacturing goes to energy usage

Are there any links to this data? Curious to read more about it, thanks.

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

#97

Post by fngjdflmdflg »

bitsage wrote: post #81
coliveira wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s remarkable that China even manages to do subsidies better than us. Blanket incentives to an industry would be far better than the regulatory capture we get here… Same story for EVs.

Chinese also have their fare share of subsidy fraud.[0][1][2][3] The most notable of these is probably Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing, which essentially wasted billions of dollars, a lot of which was funded by the local government.[1][3] FWIW, I suspect China will create EUV machines anyway. While there has been a lot of fraud, there is also a lot of talent in China. And solving an already solved problem is much easier than solving it the first time.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65022389

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/36Kr-KrASIA/Semiconductor-f...

[2] https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3206470/greates...

[3] https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3126124/chinas...

(A lot of these sources mention the same incidents, they are not all separate, just wanted to give more than one source)

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

#98

Post by coliveira »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91
coliveira wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If China wants lower tariffs, all they have to do is purchase more to reduce the trade imbalance.

How would they buy more if the US gov is making this illegal? The Trump/Biden policies are only increasing the US trade deficit.

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

#99

Post by deadfoxygrandpa »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #78
coliveira wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if China invades Taiwan (Xi explicitly says he plans too) I don't think anyone will want to buy from China. the US chip sanctions are viewed happily by the entire industry - except China. This means other countries have a chance to further displace China in the sector. Not agreeing with a certain sanction is fine but my point stands: they are meant to hobble countries long term.

lol, xi doesnt "explicitly say he plans to". stop lying

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

#100

Post by hcfman »

legacynl wrote: post #10
roenxi wrote: post #2

Will this attempt work out commercially? Maybe, maybe not. But more interesting here is the strategic situation beyond the currently understood tech. The US has made it clear that it sees semiconductors as a vector to attack power centres in Asia. Today it is China. Democracies are notoriously fickle, tomorrow it could be India, Japan, Korea or anyone really. There is a strategic need here to break the remaining Euro…

> Democracies are notoriously fickle, are they really though? At least in democracies things require oversight, debates and people are being held responsible. It's exactly authoritarian regimes that can turn on a dime, if the supreme leader feels like it.

Are you really suggesting that we have oversight and people being held responsible? Not in the Netherlands in any case, where did you think this was happening?
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