Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
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It’s unrealistic to expect a tooling product to be integrated into production so soon after development. Customers need time to build experience with using the tool so that once integrated the product can work seamlessly. Otherwise all you’re doing is increasing the risk of disruption to the product lines that use the tool, which is extremely expensive for fabs. Give SMEE and it’s customers at least a year or two.
Could I interpret what you said as that domestic fabs would have to continue buying ASML tools to support their capacity expansion for the next year or two?
That really depends. On the short term new lithograph purchases are a function of fab expansion. The production lines that are already running also already have their tools in place. If ASML can’t reliably deliver new tooling due to geopolitical factors Chinese fabs will have to choose between not expanding or speeding up their integration process and eat some losses in efficiency. Those efficiency losses won’t be as bad for new production lines as it would be for replacing instruments in old production lines, since new production lines are always going to require some learning and trial periods, so that kind of result may be tolerable. If ASML can continue to deliver new instruments to Chinese fabs Chinese fabs will still have to weigh the risk of those instruments losing support mid-lifecycle due to geopolitical pressures, but in the short term they could take a dual track approach with building new lines with ASML tools while gaming their time integrating Chinese built instruments to reduce their risk and efficiency loss. A lot depends on how Chinese fabs weigh geopolitical risk, but so long as the US keeps hovering in the backdrop trying to prevent ASML from doing business with China, ASML becomes less and less appealing to the long term plans of Chinese fabs, and the appetite to eat some risk and cost to speed up adoption of Chinese tools will increase.
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@latenlazy excellent analysis, Dual Approach , its the only strategy for the Chinese to fall on to, Sir look at the Chinese reaction, they're not panicking. Its safe to assume that preparation had been made (ASML spare parts and supplies) with the domestic equivalent expansion going on for the mass production next year.
Keep in mind that if the "domestic" semi production line is vulnerable to western sanctions then it isn't really domestic. The whole point of having a domestic line to begin with was to beat western sanctions. So you are right, I would rather then not announce a "domestic semi production line" that is still reliant on US govt approval to exist
Also keep in mind that companies like YMTC that rely on the West up the wazoo have no problem publicly announcing their successes for the whole world to see. Of course, YMTC actually has confirmed succeeses.
So... Another possibility is that the semi production suppliers simply aren't succeeding in their research & it's a lot harder than they thought. Given that China spends only a tiny fraction of what the Western alliance spends annually on R&D across a broad range of fields, it would be shocking if China didn't fall further and further behind.
I can assure you that Chinese semiconductor companies put more effort into their R&D than you do into your alts and obsessive trolling, tidalwave.
Technology gaps look a lot smaller to the engineers who work on them than the people on the sidelines cheerleading the engineers.Keep in mind that if the "domestic" semi production line is vulnerable to western sanctions then it isn't really domestic. The whole point of having a domestic line to begin with was to beat western sanctions. So you are right, I would rather then not announce a "domestic semi production line" that is still reliant on US govt approval to exist
Also keep in mind that companies like YMTC that rely on the West up the wazoo have no problem publicly announcing their successes for the whole world to see. Of course, YMTC actually has confirmed succeeses.
So... Another possibility is that the semi production suppliers simply aren't succeeding in their research & it's a lot harder than they thought. Given that China spends only a tiny fraction of what the Western alliance spends annually on R&D across a broad range of fields, it would be shocking if China didn't fall further and further behind.
Ironically, YMTC has been shifting faster to domestic supplier faster that for example SMIC, they have been buying more equipment from deposition equipment from Naura, AMEC, polishing equipment from Hwatsing. cleaning equipment from ACM research, shifting for some domestic metrology equipment and so on. they even have a risk list which is a good thing.
Ignore him. He's falling back to the classic western trope of taking a little molehill and making a mountain out of it.
He probably believes everyone who's better than him cheats too, instead of simply working harder and smarter.
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