Very impressive. You always know China would have backup or alternative plans for strategic technologies such as semiconductor, still the speed and timing of the rollout of the SMEE 28nm DUV are surprising. We were surprised in May last year - pleasantly at least for some people - when HiSilicone announced they had secret backup plan B ("spare tires") for many of the components under work for many years when the US decided to put Huawei on the Entity List. Of course, Huawei is a company. We're talking about the Chinese state here.
Not only the SMEE 28nm DUV lithography, but it also appears there has been intensive R&D program on EUV lithography and substantial progress have been made, say, by Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics. All these fall under the No 2 project of the
(2006 - 2020). In 2015, when Obama administration announced the supercomputer chip (Intel Xeon and Xeon Phis) bans on a few Chinese organizations, China came back in about a year to reclaim the title of the world's fastest supercomputer with its own chips. A lot of times, these backup technologies or products don't even come to light or find wide applications because of the availability of better products in the market. The US bans on semiconductor equipment therefore pose a challenge as well as afford an opportunity to create and develop independent Chinese semiconductor industry. The biggest challenge for China to develop its own semiconductor industry at this stage is not technology or capital. It's the market and customers. With a large customer base, you can iterate and evolve your products, invest in R&D continuously, and close the gaps over time with the world's best.
Looking back at the recent history, the US has launched one after another bans on China in key technologies, without any successful records to show. This has been the case with satellite launches in the '90s, the AWACS aircraft in the '00s, the supercomputer chips in '10s. In each case, China ended up creating its own indigenous technologies and industry. The US currently still bans any cooperation between the two countries in space technologies and exploration, including attending related conferences in the US by Chinese space scientists. But look at what China has accomplished in space technologies, both peaceful and defense-related.
We'll see if the ban on semiconductor technologies will turn out differently this time.
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