Chip manufacturing isn’t rocket science…
It’s harder.Yep our everyday smartphones are the result of the biggest technological achievement of humanity yet.
The precision work required to make the modern chips inside those phones is insane. The know how and technologies required to do it surpasses anything else humanity has done.
Just the friggin EUV “lamp” for a high end process is $400 million!!
You can’t just assemble that shit like a piece of IKEA furniture, and even knowing the composition of things, doesn’t necessarily tell you how to make it so it works.
But China has the resources to make the best minds and technologies available to make it succeed, and eventually they will. Because every development team in the world is working under the same physical laws, so with enough skill and resources, they will succeed because it’s already proven to be possible. And that’s the advantage the catch up team always has, they don’t need to doubt whether it’s even possible.Plus they have all the materials required.
Anyone who has ever tackled a design problem knows exactly what this is about. It’s just a larger, more technologically advanced scale.
Having a target gets you there faster than throwing blindly.
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There have also been rumors that a Cymer EUV source was intercepted during transit and reverse-engineered in a covert Chinese lab. But even if individual components were acquired, Tom’s Hardware notes that such efforts are unlikely to produce a working system. Without the integrated software and supplier collaboration that make EUV viable, the hardware alone is effectively inert.
“China will never achieve domestic lithography!”
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“China will never make a domestic 90nm node!”
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“China will never achieve 20nm nodes via DUV!”
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“China will never achieve 7nm nor EUV!”
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“China will never get their EUV prototype working!”
Article seems like cope.
I agree with criticism of not made anything… Yet.
Validation of advances will come with product availability, instead of press releases. We definitely need more computing related production with western supply chains all pivoting away from “normal computing”
Picture the effect of the first EUV samples on the US stock market.
Actual EUV production in west started at 7nm in 2019. Device/chip sales did not skyrocket. TSMC/ASML did 5x in value over the time and are the most successful benefiaries of EUV, but most of the gains are during this AI era.
If you mean effect on US stock market from Chinese EUV production, it did take 9 years between EUV availability/existance and commercial production. China has solid 7nm production already, though costs are higher than tsmc. 5nm chips are in successful Huawei products this year already. Huawei released a patent for DUV 2nm chips this month. Near term improvement in the above processes will have much higher near term impact. Non US colonies will buy Chinese phones/PCs, like EVs, as Huawei software (Harmony OS) is already best in class, and production of other phone/pc associated hardware is enough to make great products.
Industry/west needs more short term RAM production, and China is likely to be the fastest source of ramping up that production and selling to west. Traditional chip industry will collapse if extortion/shortages persist in 2026.
I predict steady share gains in chips from China, rather than “a singularity EUV” moment on stock market.
Yeah I’m talking about the US stock market. You’re analysing production and material needs and that makes sense. The stock market prices predict future returns. In normal conditions it would probably take a while for Chinese EUV to bring down ASML’s stock. In the current conditions around the AI pump it might act as a trigger that pops the imagined huge returns because it’ll be a clear signal that China is very likely to eat NVIDIA’s lunch and therefore dependent firms. It might also act as a broader propaganda-piercing signal to investors that China catching up is real and near. That would question the broader semiconductor sector’s future returns too.
