I'm afraid they will....and sooner more than later too: relying on Japan to resist is a big gamble, Japan politicians are totally dominated by US, even more than the European ones. Moreover they already did this trick with South Korea in the past, so there is a precedent.
Chinese semiconductor thread II
- Thread starter vincent
- Start date
I'm afraid they will....and sooner more than later too: relying on Japan to resist is a big gamble, Japan politicians are totally dominated by US, even more than the European ones. Moreover they already did this trick with South Korea in the past, so there is a precedent.
they are waiting for Huawei's complete PC ecosystem... UOS can use Huawei's HAP system files in the future.. MTT's Musa ecosystem is taking time...
Chinese semiconductor industry
https://icspec.com/news/article-details/2226131 looks like Zensemi's (增芯科技) new 12-inch fab for MEMS hs been roofed and now will start moving in equipment. Production to start in June of 2024 Other MEMS fab I've seen from sai micro and SMEC are all 8-inch, so 12-inch part surprised me a little...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Last year I was wondering if there's any domestic alternative to TI's DMD chips for projectors. Now there is a report saying that HiSilicon will soon release a LCOS solution for compact home projectors.
Chinese projector makers have been very innovative at optics design, and both HiSilicon and Rockchip have SoCs for projectors. If HiSilicon can deliver on the crucial electro-optical steps then we'll have a whole supply chain safe from American control.
from this year, SMEE has started volume production. but yeah it will take few years before production hit at full scale. U-Precision , Guowang and RSLaser officially begun mass production too..
Personally, I view this as a sign of ineptitude that it took 5 years and counting from the start of their sanctions for them to figure out the technology stack and supply chain that they are regulating. That is 5 years time China has had to make adjustments in response and in business, 5 years is along time in business when it comes to operations and r&d as shown by SMIC and Huawei. They can pull all the levers they want, the problem is they gave up their advantage of surprise up in 2019 and time has been their enemy ever since. If they had consulted with industry to figure out the critical supply chain areas or portions of the technology stack to control, they could have implemented a sweeping blow instead of their thousand cuts.
While they got lucky with ASML by having control over critical sub-systems, the fact that even Applied Materials a US company was able to run circles under their nose shows their incompetence.
Photoresist is going the be the fastest growing segment in China.
Well, considering that to ban ASML they unilaterally changed the limit from 25% of US technology to 0% (yes, zero), I'd say they have control more on Dutch politicians (that silently accepted this), than on any critical sub-system.
Now is too late IMHO. Regarding chemicals, a possible ban will only speed up a process that is already ongoing, albeit too slowly. Regarding ASML, they can stop exports for all service and spare parts for all machines in China to hope to have some effect, but even in this extreme case, first of all maybe the Dutch government has one thing or two to say about it, second it is not clear what will be the outcome anyhow. Such a drastic ban was put in place for AMAT and the other US SME in 2022....but SMIC is today still able to churn out millions of Huawei 7nm chips anyhow...using this exactly same US equipment for which no service, no spare parts, no nothing is supposed to be available.
ASML employs 1500 highly skilled technicians in China...and for the largest part they are Chinese, they are not from Amsterdam or Boston...they will not disappear, no matter what.
My personal view is the ASML situation is analogous to the TSMC situation. The US had to change the limit to technology limit to zero precisely because the governing jurisdictions (Netherlands and Taiwan respectively) were not going to put in voluntary restrictions and companies have creative accounting methods for determining the "US technology contribution". Iirc, TSMC at one point claimed 10% US technology amount when they dropped the limit. If the national governments would go ahead and implement restrictions voluntarily, there is no reason to change those parameters. The setting of the limit to zero is to serve as a de facto ban, regardless of whether the country of incorporation agrees to it. Now to save face the Dutch agree to comply, but the lowering of the limit to zero is basically a warning shot that if you don't take the steps the US government will do it for you by applying the block to ASML directly. As creative as your accounting and lawyers can be, with the structure of a company like ASML or TSMC there was no way you could claim zero US technology contribution.
In the case of Scanners.
-China have been stockpiling scanners for not only expanding for also parts supply.
-These scanners are not meant for falling apart in a few years, so most of the replacement are consumables that could be supply by companies like Fortune Precision.
-There are companies in China dedicated to refurbish lithography scanners, I don't think they consult ASML and Nikon for that.
This companies are building lithography systems themselves but that is another story.
-When I said that China is building a lithography supply chain I don't meant it because they want to build 2 or 3 scanners a year, RSLaser and Gouwang optical are not only going to build subsystems for SMEE but also refurbish ASML, CYMER and Nikon, Gigaphoton ones. SMEE scanners are built to be similar to ASML scanners.
-China have been stockpiling scanners for not only expanding for also parts supply.
-These scanners are not meant for falling apart in a few years, so most of the replacement are consumables that could be supply by companies like Fortune Precision.
-There are companies in China dedicated to refurbish lithography scanners, I don't think they consult ASML and Nikon for that.
This companies are building lithography systems themselves but that is another story.
-When I said that China is building a lithography supply chain I don't meant it because they want to build 2 or 3 scanners a year, RSLaser and Gouwang optical are not only going to build subsystems for SMEE but also refurbish ASML, CYMER and Nikon, Gigaphoton ones. SMEE scanners are built to be similar to ASML scanners.
absolutely..
SMEE this year started volume production as Guouwang , U-Precision officially announced.. i know it will take some time before mass production of scanner hit the full scale but i believe we may have surprise next year in terms of total units produce by SMEE .. gloves are off now..
Shanghai government announced to give full subsidy to 16 major semiconductor ventures this year ..