I don't attach any value to that. I'm aware that much of it has been due to the back and forth in the Ladakh Flash front thread of this forum.
Not something to be even glad of. Btw,
Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
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Not something to be even glad of. Btw,
US may not contribute to security but US domestic Market largesse is a prerequisite for almost all European companies hoping to expand beyond their territories. Also, even though people may point fingers first at US, it is to be expected that EU as a group is antagonistic to China for reasons best known to itself. It's only convenient for EU to have US be blamed all the time.
If the Airbus - Boeing clash gave any lessons, it's that both these countries/group are far from being innocent, just players in Global economics. EU is interested in seeing China not be independent in semiconductors too.
Anyone who can paste the WSJ article?
Some of the most important machines in the tech industry are made next to the corn fields in the Netherlands. The US government is trying to make sure they don’t end up in China.
Beijing lobbied the Dutch government to allow its companies to buy ASML Holding’s flagship product ASML -2.35% NV: a machine called an extreme ultraviolet lithography system which is essential in the manufacture of advanced microprocessors.
The unique 180-ton machines are used by companies such as Intel Corp. INTC -1.51%, South Korea Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc.’s main supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to manufacture chips in everything from advanced smartphones and 5G cellular equipment to computers used for artificial intelligence.
China wants the $ 150 million machines for domestic chipmakers, so smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co. and other Chinese tech companies can be less dependent on foreign suppliers. But ASML did not send a single one because the Netherlands, under pressure from the United States, withheld an export license to China.
The Biden administration has asked the government to restrict sales on national security grounds, according to US officials. The position is a holdover from Trump’s White House, which first identified the machine’s strategic value and reached out to Dutch officials.
Washington has directly targeted Chinese companies like Huawei and has also tried to convince its foreign allies to restrict the use of Huawei equipment, over espionage concerns which Huawei says are unfounded. The pressure directed against ASML and the Netherlands is different, representing a form of collateral damage in a larger US-China technological cold war.
ASML CEO Peter Wennink, standing, discussed the results at a press conference in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, in 2020. Photo: piroschka van de wouw / Reuters
ASML chief executive Peter Wennink said the export restrictions could backfire.
When it comes to targeted and specific national security concerns, export controls are a valid tool, he said in a statement. However, as part of a broader national strategy on semiconductor leadership, governments need to consider how these tools, if overused, could slow innovation in the medium term by reducing R&D. He said that in the short to medium term, it is possible that the widespread use of export controls will reduce global chip manufacturing capacity, exacerbating supply chain problems.
US lobbying has strained Sino-Dutch relations. Chinese authorities regularly ask Dutch authorities why they do not grant a license that would allow ASML to ship the machines to China, according to people familiar with the matter. The then Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands told a Dutch newspaper last year that trade relations would be in jeopardy if ASML was not allowed to ship its advanced machines to China.
Less than a month after Mr. Bidens’ inauguration, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, spoke with his Dutch counterpart about what the White House described as close cooperation between the two countries on the matter. cutting-edge technology. U.S. officials have said continued limitations on ASML’s business with China were high on Sullivan’s to-do list.
The American pressure started under the Trump administration. Charles Kupperman, deputy national security adviser at the time, had invited Dutch diplomats to the White House in 2019. Good allies do not sell this type of material to China, he recalls telling them. He said he stressed that ASML machines would not work without American components and that the White House had the power to restrict exports of those parts to the Netherlands.
This is currently not on the table inside Biden’s White House, according to people familiar with the matter. The United States is trying to build alliances of Western countries to jointly work on export controls, people familiar with the matter said. The move could also have ramifications beyond ASML, further disrupting already energized semiconductor supply lines around the world.
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ASML originated from the Dutch conglomerate Royal Philips NV in the 1990s. It is based in the bucolic Veldhoven, near the Belgian border. She specializes in photolithography, the process of using light to print on photosensitive surfaces.
Photolithography is the key to chipmakers, who use light to draw a checkerboard of lines on a silicon wafer. Then they engrave these lines, like a knife in wood, but with chemicals. The remaining silicon squares become transistors.
The more transistors there are on a piece of silicon, the more powerful the chip. One of the best ways to wrap more transistors in silicon is to draw thinner lines. This is ASML’s specialty: its machines print the finest lines in the world.
The machines, which require three Boeing 747s to ship, use a laser and mirrors to draw lines five nanometers wide. Within a few years, it should decrease to less than a nanometer wide. In comparison, a strand of human hair is 75,000 nanometers wide.
After Chinese rideshare giant Didi debuted on Wall Street, Beijing announced plans to tighten rules for local businesses looking to raise funds overseas. WSJ Yoko Kubota takes a tour of Didi to explain what the crackdown means for tech titans and Chinese investors. Photographic illustration: Ang Li
Competitors such as Canon Inc. and Nikon Corp. only manufacture old generation chip making tools. Intel, Samsung and TSMC, recognizing the key role of technologies in advancing computing power, took equity stakes in the Dutch company in 2012.
ASML plans to manufacture 42 of its most advanced machines this year and 55 next year. China accounted for 17% of ASML’s overall sales in 2020. These sales, however, are for older generation machines. Analysts say that without ASML’s most advanced machines, Chinese chipmakers cannot make cutting-edge chips until domestically-made tools catch up.
Mr. Wennink, CEO of ASML, told analysts that restrictions on sales in China have not hurt business because demand from elsewhere is so high. ASML in 2020 reported sales of approximately $ 16.5 billion and profit of approximately $ 4.1 billion. Its share price has increased sevenfold over the past five years.
An estimate that China is at least 10 years away from the corresponding ASML technology prompted the Trump administration to start pushing the Netherlands for an export ban. It is in our mutual national security interests, Nazak Nikakhtar, a Commerce Department official in the Trump administration, told his Dutch counterparts.
—Bob Davis in Washington contributed to this article.
Write to Stu Woo at [email protected] and Yang Jie at [email protected]
Yes Cymer is necessary for ASML machines to work, but so is Zeiss and Trumpf. If the Netherlands and Germany really wanted to stand up for their right to sell to anyone including China, then they could present the U.S. with a mutually assured destruction scenario: If the US were to embargo ASML, then the entire world chip supply chain would be screwed. They also have the legal right to siphon off Cymer's intellectual property and move its operations to central Europe. The U.S. would not want that. Therefore, "U.S. pressure" is just an excuse. It's a Dutch and German decision, just as it is their decision to be a part of NATO.
Intel trying to acquire GloFo
Implications are there for Chinese semi. The consolidation means Intel /Samsung /TSMC will be a US/SK/TW Triad - better controlled and smoother functioning.
I'd like to know if Chiplets can be utilized by China and if China's adversaries can further build strength by pursuing this technology.
Implications are there for Chinese semi. The consolidation means Intel /Samsung /TSMC will be a US/SK/TW Triad - better controlled and smoother functioning.
I'd like to know if Chiplets can be utilized by China and if China's adversaries can further build strength by pursuing this technology.
Indian Chinese trade soared, look it up, so yes India lost half of their manufacturing to China. Where do you think they are getting the replacement from? All China. And soon the vast majority of all semiconductors will be from China.
It used to matter that ASML owns Cymer, but not any more. The US used to be rules-driven, but it is now rules-based. Just as the Mafia is rules-based: their actions may be "based" on the rules, but are not limited by scruples.
The critical point is that Cymer is located in the US, so the US has enormous leverage over it. For example, the American government could slap an export tax on Cymer's light sources, making them prohibitively expensive for the Dutch company. Ultimately, the US could use force to prevent Cymer from shipping anything to ASML.
Of course, when the US was somewhat sane, these arbitrary actions would have been against the Constitution, but that old document is no longer very healthy these days. So ASML is very vulnerable to the whims of the rules-based US government. The Dutch know this, which is probably why they caved so quickly to the US ban on selling EUVL to China.
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