You know what kind of bothers me brother? The timeline, of this EUV inside China.
For certain, absolutely certain, they will build another synchrotron. Simply because that is just for science. So they will build it.
Will they build an adjacent building beside it, cough cough a fab, no one has said anything about that! But, they keep touting the precision work bench, lol.
You know when see the doctor and they tell us go do the chest X-ray? So we stand front of that machine and get zapped. Then we turn to our sides and raise our arm and get zapped again. We move because we are made of silicone. The machine that emits the X-ray light, does not move.
All factories have the same setup. The widget here starts at point A, then it goes on process chain or conveyor belt, gets processed, and would arrive at point B, the finished product.
So the silicone wafer gets prepped in one building, then it goes onto a conveyor, and that precision workbench that does all the moving, it goes outside and then goes into that other building and gets rubber stamped by that synchrotron thingy.
That is a cool setup. The CCP are run by engineers. They probably want to build something like this!
Here we get to the interesting part. The science is not really debatable here, wavelengths, power, chemicals, that should be all known. Should be all tested before they even start building that factory complex. The interesting part is how this works, if they build it.
There is only one stamping machine, but with several stamps. Therefore, they could have 10 different companies as fabs, all using the same building to do the rubber stamp synchrotron thingy. All 10 companies would have their conveyor moving widgets outside then into that synchrotron building.
The authorities on mainland China, should invite TSMC to build a fab beside the synchrotron building. TSMC would not even need to buy a EUV machine. They can lease time to do the stamping, and for sure they will get a good rate. If TSMC declines, then they are on their own.
This is an offer they cannot refuse.
This synchrotron building, with the rubber stamps, is a public-private-partnership. The state needs the synchrotron for basic research, but it can lease out some portions for commercial applications. This is gonna cost a lot less than buying several machines from ASML.
You know how the Chinese are, with the Confucian teachings and stuff, they will give TSMC a chance, but they not give ASML a chance, like what for? We see how that goes, if they actually do this.
This is not trying to catch up and build an EUV machine for IC, this synchrotron building with adjacent fabs, is a completely new model to do IC.
This is not China product versus foreign product. This is a Chinese model versus a foreign model.
Would the Chinese model of doing it this way with a synchrotron building as the rubber stamper and the adjacent fab, be more cost effective? Hey! That is what public-private-partnerships are for! Hehe.
Unless, of course, they still decide to pursue some other unknown methods or technology that is patented. Like, no way Jose!?
No one has said anything about this sort of setup, not rumours, and definitely not officially. But that precision workbench exists, and synchrotron exists. Since this is China, officially, they will NOT put 2 and 2 together. End of story.
When they say end of story, they really do mean end of story. Silence!
When was the real start date? This is year 2022 already, and the tech war with Huawei been going on since 2018, and before that it was ZTE in 2107? It was that long ago.
