I think the question is "is it more beneficial for SIOM/CIOMP to infringe on ASML's EUV IP to rapidly produce EUVs and maintain Huawei's competitive over the next 3-5+ years?"
OR "should SIOM/CIOMP invest the time in developing their own unique technology, which would delay production but potentially lead to long-term LPP EUV exports or EUV fabs abroad?"
Personally, I think in the context of this technology race, we urgently need EUV capabilities, preferably yesterday. ASML EUV IP became irrelevant once they excluded themselves from China market. Future EUV exports or EUV fabs are not a concern right now, and everyone is on-shoring now. OBOR or BRI members can benefit from 90nm-DUV fabs with SMEE equipment, but the crown jewels (EUV fabs) should be kept on the mainland. Taiwan's EUV fab off-shoring strategy is due to island's unique security situation, more of a survival technique in exchange for security protection than a model for emulation.
I think that is the wrong phrasing of the question, because it portrays the situation as a false dichotomy of "reverse engineer/infringe patents and you get EUV lithography faster but you can't export them due to IP reasons" versus "go domestic IP and you get EUV lithography slower, but you can export them".
My view is that regardless of which choice they go with for LPP EUV, it's going to take about the same amount of time anyway, simply because the main rate limiting step(s) with this tech stack isn't "IP" but rather it's the engineering, testing, verification and organizational aspects of it that will take the most time to hash out.
To quote myself in a previous post (28,499):
"
my personal feeling is that I do not think your suggestion would have been much meaningfully faster and if anything may have resulted in dividing of efforts, resources and money to two parallel projects. Heck it is even possible that a reverse engineered approach could actually be slower than a domestic approach.
Regardless of the source of IP, to actually implement, test and produce a product to be viable for use needs engineering effort, money and organisational drive. There are no shortcuts in that regard, and those all need time."
So to circle back to the "export potential" question for a Chinese LPP EUV, my view is that regardless of which route they're going to take with LPP EUV, it's not going to arrive "yesterday" -- people should probably take a step back and recognize how impressive it is that China will probably have working LPP EUV by the end of this decade.
Therefore if it is settled that LPP EUV is going to take ages regardless which route it takes, we can actually look at one of the less important questions for the longer term -- i.e.: will they perhaps have a desire to export LPP EUV into the very long term future (10+ years beyond).
My view for the future export question is also that regardless of which route they take (i.e.: domestic or reverse engineered IP), they will probably still try to export them in the long term:
- if they pursue a domestic IP option, then they can export it without issue
- if they pursue a reverse engineered IP option, it still makes sense in the future to change out the reverse engineered IP components with domestic IP components anyhow, which will enable export
This isn't to say that the future LPP EUV market internationally is something that should be a primary concern.
Or to summarize the entire "domestic IP vs reverse engineered IP" thing in terms of time and export viability:
- both domestic IP and reverse engineered IP options are likely to take significant amounts of time due to having common key rate limiting steps that are much more significant and complex than merely IP
- both domestic IP and reverse engineered IP options are likely to have viable long term potential for export; domestic IP option being exportable without needing changes, and reverse engineered IP option being exportable as new subcomponents are developed with time (for domestic use) that are likely to replace reverse engineered IP with domestic IP anyway thus allowing export
