A better title would be "New EUV light source built in Shenzhen". Light source said to be working, not fabbing chips yet. Few technical details in the Reuters article.
The light source is the “easy” bit. The mirrors, masks, and the rest of the machine are all individually as difficult if not more so.
The wafers have to be positioned to nanometer accuracy repeatedly and at high speed! It’s hard to believe that’s even possible, let alone commercially viable.
Managing the light source, specifically the 13.5nm length on the wave spectrum, that gets generated from overheated tin plasma, is in fact the most challenging part of the machine. Here "managing" includes the process of hitting a rightly sized tin droplet with lasers at the right angles, and all the rest of the complicated fluid math necessary to get the most of that precious lighting moment, as well as the proper handling of that spark event's after-effects, of course. As opposed to the rest of the machine parts (like directing the EUV light to the reticle through those mirrors you mention), the light generation part is dynamic, very easily to get wrong, and very costly to iterate on.
I'd argue ASML's moat isn't the machine itself but the ecosystem: Carl Zeiss optics, decades of supplier relationships, institutional knowledge.
This is clearly a significant achievement, but does anyone with semiconductor experience have a sense of how far "generates EUV light" is from "production-ready tool"?
The "problem" with China is that they move from "the amazing thing about a dog playing the piano is not that it plays it badly, but that it plays it all" to Franz Liszt very fast.
Read as "anyone connected flees to the US, anyone deemed political gets a free relocation to a Xinjiang re-education camp, and lots of new mainland 'mothers' live with those allowed to remain".
Why would anyone voluntarily sign up to have Winnie the Pooh's boot on their face?
We learn that before 2023 EUV lithography was worthless. "AI" is the only reason why China would want this technology!
EDIT: Given the dramatic downvotes, I repent: China will use these EUV machines to build AI sharks with lasers that will swim towards Taiwan! Is this better?
The knowledge came from former ASML employees. I wonder if countries will sanction these individuals given the geopolitical implications of their assistance.
It seems extremely dishonest to frame the project of improving computer chip manufacturing to the development of weapons of mass destruction— weapons that went on to be used against civilians. Sensationalist and propagandistic framing for what is otherwise an interesting article.
> It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines (EUVs)
This seems like the obvious conclusion of an ethnic bloc against a mercenary creedel nation?
Any westerner reading this right now wouldn’t die for their country, it’s almost absurd. It’s like asking them to die for Walmart.
> China’s prototype lags behind ASML’s machines largely because researchers have struggled to obtain optical systems such as those from Germany’s Carl Zeiss, one of ASML’s key suppliers, the two people said.
So, now they just need an old retired Chinese that worked for Zeiss and build a prototype for the optical devices they need.
They use armies of graduates just to literally copy, when they could build something new or different.
With Nvidia scaling down their consumer GPU production [0] I wonder if we will see consumer GPUs shipping from China in the future. Western companies seem to be abandoning the consumer/prosumer market which will have bad implications for hobbyists and aspiring professionals down the line.
At this point I’d straight up buy their PC components, because fuck Nvidia for doing that. Same goes for other manufacturers throwing the consumer segment into the dirt because of their greed.
I already got an Intel Arc to support more market competition (A580 was rough, B580 is a decent daily driver) and if the prices weren’t absolutely insane would have gotten the 245K (better than my 5800X, but not for the price).
> A "Manhattan Project" would be building some shocking new technology that didn't previously exist.
You’re missing forest for the trees. ASML at the moment has the monopoly on these machines. This is not only a great tool for the West to keep China at bay, but also a way to maintain economic dominance. Even if they can’t get the machine up and running until 2030, and the machine is a generation behind, China has effectively gained leverage in world theater.
From geopolitical perspective, it’s huge. Right now Taiwan produces the world’s chips, so China plays nice. The minute they can produce their own chips, even an older generation, they can invade Taiwan anytime they want. And then the rest of the world won’t even have older chips.
Also interesting huge project: China is building a $116 billion dam which, according to Bloomberg, is expected to generate 70 GW, just to compare: UK whole capacity (de-rated) is around 70 GW.
The current largest hydroelectric dam in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China. It can generate 22.5GW (40% more power than the dam in 2nd place, which is also Chinese).
Since Jan 2024, China has on average constructed 23GW of new solar power every month. So China has effectively been adding a "world's largest dam" worth of solar power, every single month for the last 24 months.
In 1945 as World War 2 wrapped up and the Cold War started, many in the US believed that it would take the Soviet Union 20+ years to build the atomic bomb. It took 4 years. There were several reasons for this. It became a national security interest, there were leaks to the USSR by people who thought the US shouldn't have a monopoly on the bomb and Americans in general viewed the Soviets as backward farmers.
I see the same thing with China. It's not so much espionage now (although there might be that) but China instead will just hire people with the right knowledge, so former employees of ASML, Nvidia, TSMC, etc.
I've been saying for awhile that China won't tolerate the export ban on ASML's best lithography machines and NVidia's best chips. It's a national security issue. And China is the one country on Earth I have faith can dedicate itself to a long term goal.
And yet I got the same reaction. "The Chinese will never catch up", etc. Reports have been comiung out that Huawei has started developing and using their own 7nm chips.
Weirdly, the US created this problem. By restricting exports of chips to China, Chinese manufacturers had no choice but to develop their own chips. Had China been flooded with NVidia chips, there would be far less market opportunity.
The American economy is essentially a bet on an AI future now. Were it not for like 7 tech companies, we'd be in a technical recession. I also believe that bubble is going to burst. But the economy as a whole pretty much now requires US dominance of an AI future and I think a lot of people are in for a rude shock as China completely disrupts that.
China hasn't caught up yet. There are still many steps in the supply chain and chip design as a whole but making their own chips at sub-7nm is a massive step in that direction.
It's kind of nasty that a fresh society of capable people has the drive to achieve technological excellence and the incumbents do whatever they can to delay this, even though it's inevitable and there's a lot to gain by empowering them. All in the name of "they are not us".
World has gained so much from modern Chinese industrial revolution. Why suddenly everyone got cold feet? Nobody was stopping Germany or Japan on their way up even though they were literal former enemies with history of brutal warfare. China never done anything even comparable to others.
Pretty sure the US pressured Japan to up their exchange rate which was one of the factors in their stagflation. Germany never threatened the power of the US
Good for them, I don't see this as a big deal other than my fear of west china invading china (taiwan! :) ).
Don't get me wrong, I want the west to succeed, but a competition from China is exactly what is needed. They're building datacenters in arizona and india for TSMC because of this competition.
I really hope we get past historical political rivalry and get along with China better. Competition is good, hostility sucks.
> I don't see this as a big deal other than my fear of west china invading china (taiwan! :) ).
Isn't that "other than" clause a big deal, though? I've read a survey and a number of articles from defense and foreign policy types, and the general feeling is there's a ~25% chance that China will invade Taiwan this decade. That's really damn big. If there's rollback in Taiwan then the first island chain could plausibly fall, or if not you will surely see Japan and maybe South Korea nuclearize. Why must we keep assuming the best with these security calculations instead of believing someone when they keep saying what they're going to do?
Give you some more historical context: China (ROC) planned to invade west China until the plan was given up in 60's. Both sides wanted reunification by force. When China's navy and air force was superior in early 1950's, it tried to "establish blockade of trade with west China (PRC) along the Chinese coast" (1)
China eventually gave up the plan in 1960's not because it didn't want to but because the balance of the power weighting over to west China. In 80's and 90's both agree to make peace given the premise that both sides belong to China.
TSMC was a product of industry policy from None-democratic China government. The founder Morris Chang ， an American born in the west China ，never visited China before 50 years old.
Both China (before 90') and west China used to want reunification , by force or not. China changed a bit later. The motivation of west China to invade China has little to do with chips although US thought that's the critical incentive. West China will still let TSMC provide the chips to the world in case it would have successfully invaded China in my view.
This is undoubtedly a good news story, and the most wonderful part is that the article mentions that 14 organizations declined to comment on the matter.
The "Manhattan Project" part is that the research lab was confidential...which doesn't seem that unusual for a high profile research lab, but that aside.
Comparing China's public efforts to build a computer chips industry to the US effort to nuke Japan is kinda wild. Outside of the bait part, the piece coming from Japan Times makes it that much spicier.
It's wild to me that so many skeptical westerners who want to nitpick certain unproven technicalities, when the entire world only gets bits and pieces of the on the ground reality of China's progress, like the original Reuters article which was clearly fed information by insiders.
You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision making off of that.
Is "Manhattan Project" supposed to be sounding threatening or something? Is anyone in on Japanese newspapers and whether they often us such rhetoric, when reporting things about China? It reads really kind of idiotic. As if chips are to be equal to atomic bombs and could be dropped on Tokyo any moment now. Maximum alarmist. That on the background of recent clumsiness of the Japanese PM ... It starts to paint a certain picture.
Why is it that whenever China is concerned, their most non-violent aspirations are always framed as evil? Manhattan project for anything outside a literal nuke is pretty wild for a headline.
If I were running this show, I would have a second concurrent project as a hedge and as a chance of leapfrogging the West: trying to make free electron laser lithography work.
Free electron lasers have lots of (theoretical) advantages: no tin debris, better wavelength control, the ability to get even shorter wavelengths, higher power, higher efficiency, and it’s less Rube Goldberg-ish. Also the barrier to entry for basic research is pretty low: I visited a little FEL in a small lab that looked like it had been built for an entirely reasonable price and did not require any clean rooms.
So far it seems like Japan is working on this, but I have the impression that no one is trying all that hard.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 77.5 ms ] threadThe wafers have to be positioned to nanometer accuracy repeatedly and at high speed! It’s hard to believe that’s even possible, let alone commercially viable.
This is clearly a significant achievement, but does anyone with semiconductor experience have a sense of how far "generates EUV light" is from "production-ready tool"?
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ch...
Why would anyone voluntarily sign up to have Winnie the Pooh's boot on their face?
EDIT: Given the dramatic downvotes, I repent: China will use these EUV machines to build AI sharks with lasers that will swim towards Taiwan! Is this better?
This seems like the obvious conclusion of an ethnic bloc against a mercenary creedel nation?
Any westerner reading this right now wouldn’t die for their country, it’s almost absurd. It’s like asking them to die for Walmart.
So, now they just need an old retired Chinese that worked for Zeiss and build a prototype for the optical devices they need.
They use armies of graduates just to literally copy, when they could build something new or different.
[0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/nvidia-might-cut-rtx-50-gpu-suppl...
I already got an Intel Arc to support more market competition (A580 was rough, B580 is a decent daily driver) and if the prices weren’t absolutely insane would have gotten the 245K (better than my 5800X, but not for the price).
They're kinda rubbish, but as a starting point / MVP for a parallel gaming hardware ecosystem its 100% viable.
If they're cobbling together old parts, it sounds more like something you'd to to keep things running in case a conflict erupts:
> The availability of parts from older ASML machines on secondary markets has allowed China to build a domestic prototype
I think that both Germany and USSR were not in the least shocked ... just the USA had the resources to finish it.
Once they break even they can overshoot into shocking new technology territory.
You’re missing forest for the trees. ASML at the moment has the monopoly on these machines. This is not only a great tool for the West to keep China at bay, but also a way to maintain economic dominance. Even if they can’t get the machine up and running until 2030, and the machine is a generation behind, China has effectively gained leverage in world theater.
From geopolitical perspective, it’s huge. Right now Taiwan produces the world’s chips, so China plays nice. The minute they can produce their own chips, even an older generation, they can invade Taiwan anytime they want. And then the rest of the world won’t even have older chips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAwJESmfy10
Since Jan 2024, China has on average constructed 23GW of new solar power every month. So China has effectively been adding a "world's largest dam" worth of solar power, every single month for the last 24 months.
I see the same thing with China. It's not so much espionage now (although there might be that) but China instead will just hire people with the right knowledge, so former employees of ASML, Nvidia, TSMC, etc.
I've been saying for awhile that China won't tolerate the export ban on ASML's best lithography machines and NVidia's best chips. It's a national security issue. And China is the one country on Earth I have faith can dedicate itself to a long term goal.
And yet I got the same reaction. "The Chinese will never catch up", etc. Reports have been comiung out that Huawei has started developing and using their own 7nm chips.
Weirdly, the US created this problem. By restricting exports of chips to China, Chinese manufacturers had no choice but to develop their own chips. Had China been flooded with NVidia chips, there would be far less market opportunity.
The American economy is essentially a bet on an AI future now. Were it not for like 7 tech companies, we'd be in a technical recession. I also believe that bubble is going to burst. But the economy as a whole pretty much now requires US dominance of an AI future and I think a lot of people are in for a rude shock as China completely disrupts that.
China hasn't caught up yet. There are still many steps in the supply chain and chip design as a whole but making their own chips at sub-7nm is a massive step in that direction.
World has gained so much from modern Chinese industrial revolution. Why suddenly everyone got cold feet? Nobody was stopping Germany or Japan on their way up even though they were literal former enemies with history of brutal warfare. China never done anything even comparable to others.
Pretty sure the US pressured Japan to up their exchange rate which was one of the factors in their stagflation. Germany never threatened the power of the US
Don't get me wrong, I want the west to succeed, but a competition from China is exactly what is needed. They're building datacenters in arizona and india for TSMC because of this competition.
I really hope we get past historical political rivalry and get along with China better. Competition is good, hostility sucks.
Isn't that "other than" clause a big deal, though? I've read a survey and a number of articles from defense and foreign policy types, and the general feeling is there's a ~25% chance that China will invade Taiwan this decade. That's really damn big. If there's rollback in Taiwan then the first island chain could plausibly fall, or if not you will surely see Japan and maybe South Korea nuclearize. Why must we keep assuming the best with these security calculations instead of believing someone when they keep saying what they're going to do?
China eventually gave up the plan in 1960's not because it didn't want to but because the balance of the power weighting over to west China. In 80's and 90's both agree to make peace given the premise that both sides belong to China.
TSMC was a product of industry policy from None-democratic China government. The founder Morris Chang ， an American born in the west China ，never visited China before 50 years old.
Both China (before 90') and west China used to want reunification , by force or not. China changed a bit later. The motivation of west China to invade China has little to do with chips although US thought that's the critical incentive. West China will still let TSMC provide the chips to the world in case it would have successfully invaded China in my view.
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_the_Tuapse
Comparing China's public efforts to build a computer chips industry to the US effort to nuke Japan is kinda wild. Outside of the bait part, the piece coming from Japan Times makes it that much spicier.
You should be living in the world of "China has successfully developed EUV and equivalent litho supply chain" and basing your decision making off of that.
Free electron lasers have lots of (theoretical) advantages: no tin debris, better wavelength control, the ability to get even shorter wavelengths, higher power, higher efficiency, and it’s less Rube Goldberg-ish. Also the barrier to entry for basic research is pretty low: I visited a little FEL in a small lab that looked like it had been built for an entirely reasonable price and did not require any clean rooms.
So far it seems like Japan is working on this, but I have the impression that no one is trying all that hard.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.35848/1347-4065/acc18c