Chinese semiconductor industry
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what surprised me is that next year China will test EUV for 6-12 months
While working on EUV materials, there is some information about the company ZYGO, whose laser interferometer device is used to measure the surface area of EUV mirrors.
The good news is that Beijing Keyi Hongyuan, the American company ZYGO has overlapping technology and knowledge.
Beijing Keyi Hongyuan needs to develop a laser interferometer for the domestic market
The good news is that Beijing Keyi Hongyuan, the American company ZYGO has overlapping technology and knowledge.
Beijing Keyi Hongyuan needs to develop a laser interferometer for the domestic market
Overall, this is not surprising. The lackadaisical progress on DUVi is a reflection of several factors:
- China retains unrestricted access to such machines from ASML.
- Even if access is cut in the future, China already has a large stockpile of these machines.
- ASML does not have a monopoly on these machines, other suppliers are available which complicates any US effort to restrict China's access.
- DUVi research is much further along than EUV. Chinese DUVi has matured to the point where it's best to let market forces continue development.
- DUVi and EUV compete for the same talent pool. It makes no sense to allocate scarce resources to the former dead end technology at the expense of the critical latter technology.
That why i say KrF and I-line first because is easier to reach productivity innovation goals on those tools.
That why I said goverment founded or subsidize projects, private companies can do what ever they want and the Chinese already done it, i think certain goverment founded projects in the solar industry and other industries there are requirements or preference for some local tools. But ASML will be free to sell their tools in the private market.
BUT If the U.S manage to ban ASML from selling Immersion tools in China then task is much easier. Because why is the point of having ASML monopolizing the Chinese litho market if Chinese companies can't benefit by buying their best modern tools (immersion and EUV)? Their monopoly in their legacy tools (dry tools) are just a roadblock for everyone else including Chinese fabs that are subject to the lunacy of American zealots.
Either way it could happen even without goverment intervention if there is enough fear that ASML will be restricted in the future, it could force Chinese companies public and private to localize the litho industry in China. I just saying if the goverment put a requirement on legacy tools on some goverment founded projects it could help accelerate that trend a bit faster.
Now majority of real investment are local companies. Foreign companies are free to go.
Even futher, goverment funded projects and just dry tools like ArF, I-line and KrF will be enough.
Non-Western entities won't care, while the West is already overdrive trying to blame China for everything and pin every single thing on them, so it would change nothing. Besides, there is already a precedent of Western countries banning companies from their markets because they wanted to - Huawei - so why do you think that China banning ASML is worse than that?
You are again confusing US + Euro\Japanese\Korean cucks with "everywhere else". Those states already effectively banned SMIC, Huawei and loads of other companies from their markets, so why should China care about that? You guys already proved that you will ban successful Chinese companies anyway because any competition outside of your clique is perceived as "national security threat". So threatening vis-a-vis bans does little there - they will get banned the moment they become big anyway. Reciprocal bans at least cut money flows to the Western competitors that are benefitting from the Chinese market and create lifelines for the Chinese companies that will have domestic market.
Decent point but it is unlikely to happen. If that were true, then China would not have aircraft engines and many other technologies that the West already banned from exporting to China. When there is government oversight and demand for quality instruments, companies would be motivated to continue working, especially if, say, CETC branches out to civilian industries and creates additional competition.
China constitutes for 70% of the world's semiconductor demand. You really think it would be a huge loss for China but not for the West? Especially in advanced chips, where China is both a large market for the end-products that use 5-7 nm chips (Apple, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, so on) and large consumer of the chips themselves (all the Chinese electronics companies). Good luck trying to sustain exponentialy increasing R&D costs with shrinking demand and manufacturing any high-tech devices without Chinese rare earths where China is not only the largest producer of ores but also the largest refiner as well as producer of SOTA refining equipment. Will your semiconductor industries survive 10+ years of extremely high prices on rare earths? I don't think so.
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No worry. Huazhuo founder started research on the replacement technology few years ago.
Sorry I used the word "world" or "everywhere else" without clearly specify that we are talking of semiconductor equipment market. Currently this market is almost all in "US + his friends" + China + maybe some other more neutral countries like Singapore / Malaysia, but China together with "US + his friends" represent effectively almost all the world in this very specific and very niche market.
As you said "West is already overdrive trying to blame China for everything and pin every single thing on them" but nevertheless it would change a lot if also China would start to use these tricks. China banning ASML would create a precedent and a big hook for US that just hopes that China would make such a big blunder.
Reason for banning Chinese companies is not of course due to "national security threat", but to slow down China grow and technological development. This works and will work at some extent...until the day where it will not work anymore. As simple as that. Even US knows it, they clearly admit they can only slowdown but not stop China. But they hope that keeping provoking and pressuring and poking the eye of China, China makes a blunder (like Russia did in Ukraine BTW, I don't mean necessarily a military action, just a blunder that moves China from right side to wrong side).
US are masters provokers. To provoke a bad reaction is really their policy, it has always been. They are happy when this happens.
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