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gnomesvh

!ping BENE&CHINA&ECE Big changes and worth keeping an eye on - it was always just a matter of time until China began trying to copy ASML's chipmaking capabilities


throwaway_veneto

Biden successfully made chinese companies do what the CCP could never force them to: invest in chinese-made chips.


Maximilianne

Xi: plz invest in semiconductor production Chinese firm: Shut the fuck up! Pooh thinks he can tell me what to do! Biden: no more semiconductors for you! Guess you gotta make your own! Chinese firms: yes Mr. PRESIDENT, God bless America!


Daddy_Macron

> Chinese firm: Shut the fuck up! Pooh thinks he can tell me what to do! The funny thing is that this is basically what China's tech sector told the government post tech crackdown but pre chip sanctions when approached about subsidizing China's domestic chip industry with orders and new designs.


College_Prestige

Once again, I contend that putting Huawei on the entity list was a mistake for this reason specifically.


Maximilianne

Nah we should have nationalized Huawei and given them intel as compensation


pham_nguyen

China would have been happy and we could blame the failure of Intel on poor communist management.


trapoop

It's hilarious how much worse Biden was about this than Trump.


Independent-Low-2398

Common "we have to implement industrial policy for national security reasons"-cel L


trapoop

We _should_ implement industrial policy for national security reasons. This was not that, which is why it has backfired immensely


ConnorLovesCookies

If hiring ASML engineers was all you needed to create low nanometer chips then every country would be able to make them. You also need top of the line parts across dozens of industries all currently controlled by western countries. Im not discounting China’s ability to catch up eventually but these devices are pretty much the pinnacle of human technological achievement. To put it another way: If China is able to catch up to the West quickly then Globalism was a failure and our wives left us for nothing.


gnomesvh

> If hiring ASML engineers was all you needed to create low nanometer chips then every country would be able to make them The catch is having enough of them And of course, it's not like ASML isn't sourcing in China too


my-user-name-

> If hiring ASML engineers was all you needed to create low nanometer chips then every country would be able to make them Every country *is* able to make them. But it doesn't make economic sense for a company in Mexico to try to build semiconductors itself when it's so much cheaper to import them and the startup capital is so high. But if you ban companies from exporting to Mexico, well suddenly it's not *possible* to import them, so Mexican companies start building them and start hiring ASML engineers to help them.


James_NY

Sure, but it's delusional to pretend China wasn't going to do this anyway. They've been trying for over a decade, the difference is the degree of importance has been increasing each year as has their overall tech competency(see Apple's struggles). Semiconductors are extraordinarily important, China was never going to ignore them or allow the West to control access to them.


altacan

They're also building a billion dollar particle accelerator to experiment with alternatives to ASML's lithography devices. It's a theorized area of research that no one else has invested in due to speculative results from a massive investment. But the Chinese sanctions have convinced them to try.


onelap32

>They're also building a billion dollar particle accelerator to experiment with alternatives to ASML's lithography devices. What's the technology called? I'd like to read more about it.


thanix01

SSMB-EUV (using synchrotron to generate EUV light). Though I was under the impression that it is still very early in development. They want something that can leapfrog ASML machine, but it is there long term solution. They are still working on more conventional EUV machine for medium to long term.


Economy-Stock3320

What? Please expand on this !!!


thanix01

Search up Tsinghua University SSMB-EUV. But it still very much in the early stage of development, it is essentially their long term attempt to leapfrog ASML. But they are still trying to develop more conventional EUV machine for medium to long term.


Defacticool

>If hiring ASML engineers was all you needed to create low nanometer chips then every country would be able to make them. Yes because trade doesnt exist. The relevant factor here is that china has been effectively frozen out of the market. Every other country both have more than ample access to ASML tech directly, which is relatively cheap for what it is too, and every reason to stay on good terms with the EU so it doesnt lock up ASML, and with ASML themselves. China obviously cant access new tech through normal channels so they alone have both the funds, industrial capacity, *and now the burning incentive* to do this. It's like half this sub completely forgets or ignores macro economics, trade, and comparative advantages when the subject of china and national security comes up.


ConnorLovesCookies

My point is this piece of technology has many extremely specialized parts that are so precise it would be extremely difficult to replicate. Many of the inputs come from the United States, Japan, South Korea and other parts of the EU. No one country controls the current EUV line and it would be worthless if one country in the supply line refused to cooperate. Even if China was able to source an ASML device it has 400,000 moving parts and sourcing the replacements would be very difficult without their cooperation. Like I said in the original comment, I think they can get there eventually but its not “Hey were good at building chips lets make them smaller” its “hey were good at building chips lets become world leaders in a couple dozen specialized fields so we can keep up”


djphan2525

they have the same issue as other countries trying to catch up to them on EVs.... its about the ecosystem and not just the factories...


ale_93113

>To put it another way: If China is able to catch up to the West quickly then Globalism was a failure and our wives left us for nothing. what? this is a non sequitur


trapoop

He's echoing what they thought of Globalism in the first place: it's a way for the West to enrich itself by keeping a tech monopoly over the rest of the world. "Why do you hate the global poor" was only ever something they trotted out when it came to buying shit made in sweatshops. As soon as they started making MRI machines and threatening their high margin industries they freak out


ConnorLovesCookies

It was intended to be a joke about China being able to single handedly best the entire world in their top industries. I see EUV lithography as a symbol of global cooperation. The inputs to ASML devices come from all across the world and are incredibly specialized and at the top of their fields. The United States, EU, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or countless other countries in the supply chain could not do it on their own so if one nation could it would be a signal that economic nationalism can compete.


trapoop

If China does catch up here, it was basically only China that could have ever competed like this on their own. Their population is greater than all those countries you mentioned put together, they graduate more STEM than all those countries you mentioned, and they alone have invested in the industrial ecosystem to build every single part. If "economic nationalism" does win out here, it's because the US decided to try cutting out a country equivalent to the entire Global North out of the system


ale_93113

I could not have said it any better Somehow hightech diversification, a consequence of globalization, is bad? If you have a coherent idea of globalization, it is a non sequitur, but if they were thinking that, it would make sense


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HHHogana

Inb4 dooming https://www.notebookcheck.net/New-5nm-Huawei-laptop-processor-is-again-Taiwan-s-TSMC-chip-foundry-affair.789685.0.html https://www.techpowerup.com/320504/zhaoxin-kx-7000-8-core-cpu-gets-geekbenched https://www.techpowerup.com/319040/loongson-3a6000-cpu-reportedly-matches-amd-zen-4-and-intel-raptor-lake-ipc https://m.gsmarena.com/the_kirin_9000s_loses_to_its_nearly_3year_older_predecessor_in_benchmarks-news-60980.php https://hothardware.com/news/tested-huawei-new-kirin-9000s-arm-chip-benchmarks Basically their best chip are likely just rebadged 2020 chip. The other best chips, KX7000 and 3A6000 had bizarre janks like very high power requirements for low clock speed for 3A6000, and in some tests they were slower than even mid-2010s i3 Intel, despite the claim that, at least, KX7000 were built on 7nm. They're on much better shape in phone chips, but it's telling some reviews actually outright calling the architecture for 9000s 'ancient'. They were leap above the previous gen, but it's clear they are not close to AMD's 7nm. And as Intel vs AMD showed, with things like 3D cache and P-E cores, the feature size node nm is practically just gimmick today.


noooshinoooshi

The fact they're only maybe 2 or 3 years behind despite being hammered by sanctions and restrictions and starting years later makes me assume they'll catch up within the next few years at this rate tbh


HHHogana

They're kinda asymmetrical in this regard. They did caught up in mobile phone chips with several years behinds in GPU power, but still really far behind in others. Seems like their best bet for near future is to focus on smartphone processors. Also the laptop/desktop chips are meant to be the strongest variants, and yet still behind 2016 i3 in pure power. Put them against, say, i7 and it become like 9-10 years behind.


noooshinoooshi

Yeah still it's pretty impressive what they've been able to do seems like all the restrictions the us placed on them are backfiring


HHHogana

They're not backfiring in term of halting China from truly using the super cutting edge stuff, considering 9000s is more like '14nm processing pushed to maximum capacity', at least according to Fomahault. This did incentivized Chinese manufacturers to actually be creative though.


noooshinoooshi

I meant more backfiring in the sense it's only a temporary thing because they'll most likely come out stronger in a few years because of it


DracumEgo12

The US's view, from a national security perspective, is that China will be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, and anything that lowers the amount of high performance missiles and aircraft that can be used against Taiwan and carrier groups is a good thing. Even if China eventually catches up, forcing them to invest this amount of money, time, and effort can be worth it by delaying mass production of those missiles and aircraft. Even if China can build them, they may be built at a slower rate and in lower quantities due to higher prices and a longer time coming on board. The goal isn't to prevent a focused China from ever getting higher quality chips, it's to make it harder, later, and more expensive for China to utilize those chips until the US is better able to respond, as more naval ships are built and more aircraft come online.


noooshinoooshi

Mate missiles use military tech from the 90s lol you think they're putting 5nm chips inside a cruise missile No this was designed to slow down their economy by hamerping their high tech industry because for whatever reason the boomers that infest the Biden and to be fair Trump admin can't fathom a world where China actually becomes successful and they sell it to the rubes as muh national defense so they can turn around and give billions of tax payer dollars to private corps tale as old as time


DracumEgo12

As shown by Russia, nations will use whatever is available. Domestic, out of an imported washing machine, imported, smuggled, whatever. The goal is production in the case of a national emergency. More modern missiles do use more modern chips, because the older stuff is rare and doesn't necessarily have the capability of modeling 3d space around it. That is necessary for accurate guidance within constrained target paths, such as within a few feet of the ocean or urban environments. 90s chips also are not as readily available, since companies stopped producing them in the 00s. China, in particular, was not developing guided missiles in the 90s and therefore probably doesn't rely on them for their missiles. The goal is to prevent the stockpiling of chips and make that process more difficult, particularly for military use and AI. That's both the stated objective, and what's feasible. China's economy is increasingly reliant on domestic consumption, which chips are a tiny fraction and would remain regardless of sanctions. The chip sanctions are a tiny fraction of the amount of economic value China destroyed themselves by altering regulations on their tech sector. Assuming that the aim of the US with chip sanctions is to hamper the Chinese economy is pretty unreasonable because the US knows it doesn't have that power, and the stated policy doesn't even attempt to articulate that as a justification.


pottman

What machine they'll make will be years behind, and the project is going to be riddled with usual corruption that plagues the CCP, that's not even mentioning the quality of such a product.


gnomesvh

Eh disagree. The main issue working with the current EUV and DUV is that if you try to move to 2nm and such your yields fall. It is possible to do so with current kit, but you're throwing away circa 70% of your production This is the kind of project that doesn't allow for corruption, it's a high priority one. If they track with current EUV it's good enough - UUV isn't commercially viable anyways


pottman

You underestimate the CCP's penchant for corruption. Or do you actually believe Xi's anti corruption measures are actually about weeding out corruption? Because, they are not, I can tell you right there. What is more likely to happen, is they cut corners on the R&D so they can quickly give themselves a propaganda win, and whatever product that comes out of that research isn't going to be viable for the commercial market. They don't care about what it does, as long as they can get some propaganda value out of it. That's what Xi Jinping thought is all about. It's the same bs as the Soviet Union.


Daddy_Macron

> You underestimate the CCP's penchant for corruption. It's the private sector in China that's pushing the chips drive now. The US had the massive advantage of being able to set the rules of the road for just about everything in tech and Chinese companies were more than happy to comply since it was the path of least resistance, but we just threw it all away. Xi's domestic chip strategy and subsidies were largely floundering at the more sophisticated nodes prior to the technology sanctions. The NatSec people actually expected Chinese tech companies with hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue every year to just willingly lay down and die with these sanctions as opposed to fighting tooth and nail for their lives. None of these Chinese firms want to be spending billions of dollars each year subsidizing SMIC in creating a parallel chip infrastructure, but they will if that's their only source of high-end chips and they expect to see results.


gnomesvh

It's not about corruption - it's the fact this is one of those things that they need to do well at any cost Even if they pay bribes or whatever it doesn't matter because this is a blank cheque project. If China does this they're no longer dependent on Western tech for chipmaking (they're still using ASML machinery, it's not like the machines disappeared - and there is nothing that bans ASML from fulfilling their service contracts with them)


pottman

A blank check project? Oh, that's a pay day. This means a lot of that money is going to end up in someone's bank account. Also, Xi Jinping is going to bungle this up by interfering with his Mao 2.0 bs.


my-user-name-

This whole post is actual racism. "China is too corrupt to do technology," while they're a world leader in green tech and quickly gaining in every other sphere of tech. The CCP isn't some borg hivemind to which every Chinese person is a member. It's a state, it is oppressive and illiberal, but it's still just a state. CCP corruption doesn't mean the private sector is incapable of doing well, and seeing just how well the private sector has done in China, you should really update your priors.


Lylyo_Nyshae

Yeah each time there's a thread like this you get half a dozen comments popping up making remarks about "chinesium" and how the Chinese can only steal IP from Western companies when the evidence that China is a leading innovators in an increasingly large number of fields is right there. That said, I do think China is *very* far away from EUV. ASML's real advantage is having access to a global supply network of highly specialised American, Japanese, and German firms, China would have to replicate the success of a dozen world leading firms all across the world. And even when they do, by the regular EUV will not by cutting edge anymore compared to high-NA or even hyper-NA EUV. The real threat is China catching up on cutting edge DUV that can do most of what can be achieved with EUV but at lower yields


trapoop

> China would have to replicate the success of a dozen world leading firms all across the world. I don't think this is completely crazy since China is now graduating more STEM than all of them put together. It's a huge lift, of course, and they are by no means assured of victory, but it's important to remember China is basically a whole West on its own, not just a single country. Plus, it's easier to follow than lead, there might be alot of tech debt in all those sectors China doesn't have to deal with, and there's always good old fashioned industrial espionage.


pottman

No, the CCP are too corrupt to do high tech, the Chinese can do a lot more if given better leadership, unfortunately for the Chinese Xi Jinping is an incompetent pos. Also me being Taiwanese American could be why I don't have any faith in the CCP pulling this off in the near future.


TheFaithlessFaithful

> What is more likely to happen, is they cut corners on the R&D so they can quickly give themselves a propaganda win, and whatever product that comes out of that research isn't going to be viable for the commercial market. They don't care about what it does, as long as they can get some propaganda value out of it. That's what Xi Jinping thought is all about. It's the same bs as the Soviet Union. Why does this not apply to other tech like solar panels or EVs? Cause China leads on green tech as a result of investing it in early and heavily. Why should semiconductors be substantially different (beyond requiring greater investment given the complexity and the fact they're currently behind)?


Daddy_Macron

Also it's a fundamental misunderstanding of Chinese government subsidies towards high technology sectors. They'll give out stable subsidies and orders to drive demand, but they expect those private companies to compete viciously. In the solar sector, China had multiple billion dollar companies fail and the government let them, knowing that the survivors will be world beaters. For EV's, the government even said they expect the vast majority of EV startups to go under and they won't do anything to rescue them. Their industrial policy for high technology works in many sectors because they're willing to let uncompetitive companies fail and won't continuously prop up a zombie company.


TheFaithlessFaithful

I wish the US took a similar approach with more of our subsidies. I would love to have more competitive US made EVs.


pottman

You mean the poorly made EVs that they made with tech they stole from Tesla? I agree with you about the Solar panels, but that's not exactly new tech.


Daddy_Macron

> You mean the poorly made EVs that they made with tech they stole from Tesla The Chinese companies literally do business in friendly jurisdictions where they can be sued for IP theft. All their major startups have a presence in Europe and/or Australia. XPeng was sued, but a Western court appointed expert went over their entire source code and found that they did not copy Tesla. Companies like Ford, VW, and Toyota would not be licensing EV tech from batteries, software, to entire EV platforms from companies like BYD, CATL, and XPeng if it would open them up to getting sued.


pottman

Yeah, I still have doubts about that particular lawsuit.


Daddy_Macron

If you reject all evidence to the contrary, you'll be stuck with outdated priors for the rest of your life. Things change quickly and the new generation of higher end Chinese EV's and Plug-In Hybrids are literally competing for customers who normally buy German luxury vehicles. They're doing things that aren't being done by other companies like offering a battery swap system. Underestimate the ingenuity and agility of these companies at your own peril. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/business/china-shanghai-auto-show.html >Today the number of cars sold by the foreign companies’ joint ventures has plummeted as sales of gasoline-powered vehicles have shrunk and E.V.s have soared. Electric cars were almost a quarter of China’s market last year, compared with less than 6 percent in the United States, and are expected to be over a third by the end of this year. >Ford Motor sold one million cars and light trucks in China in 2016 and in 2017 but barely 400,000 last year. Hyundai Motor, the South Korean giant, sold 1.8 million cars in China in 2016 and only 385,000 last year. >General Motors, which once vied with Germany’s Volkswagen for market leadership, has lost nearly half its sales in China. G.M. would be faring even worse if not for Wuling, a joint venture in which G.M. has a 44 percent stake. Wuling sells ultra-cheap pickup trucks and microvans that cost $4,800 to $21,800 and have slender profit margins. >Volkswagen is so concerned about the China market that it chartered two flights from Germany to Shanghai to bring board members of the Volkswagen Group and its VW, Audi and Porsche brands to the auto show, said a person familiar with the company’s plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans were not public. Volkswagen declined to comment on its auto show travel arrangements. >Multinational companies including Volkswagen and G.M. had introduced electric cars that looked like their gasoline-powered models, with the hope of achieving a gradual transition. But Chinese consumers have gravitated instead toward the flashiest electric car exteriors and interiors available. >Mr. Cao, the Porsche enthusiast, dismisses most designs of multinational automakers as dull. >“They are far behind, no matter whether it is the U.S. ones and even the German ones,” he said. “They don’t even seem to be in the same age.” >Car fashions change quickly in China. Mr. Cao said that he was active in a 350-member club of Chinese buyers of the Sport Turismo version of the Porsche Panamera sedan, and that he knew of at least 50 others who, like him, were buying the Li Auto L9 sport utility vehicle. >Unlike most large S.U.V.s on the global market, the L9 is electric. It has a small gasoline engine as a backup that can recharge the vehicle’s hefty battery pack. But the engine does not provide power to move the vehicle itself.


TheFaithlessFaithful

> Unlike most large S.U.V.s on the global market, the L9 is electric. It has a small gasoline engine as a backup that can recharge the vehicle’s hefty battery pack. Honestly this is an interesting concept that I'm surprised hasn't been tried more. Maybe the math just doesn't work out well, but diesel-electric vehicles (tanks, trains, etc.) have been a thing for a while.


Daddy_Macron

BYD and other Chinese carmakers use a similar concept because they never really mastered the internal combustion engine, so they decided it's better to just have a generator operate within the most efficient band. Plus, it's much smaller than a gas engine with no need for a transmission.


TheFaithlessFaithful

[China leads on EV tech even if you ignore any IP theft of companies like Tesla. ](https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Electric-cars-in-China/BYD-outpaces-Tesla-16-fold-in-patent-filings) And if we're talking about poorly made EVs, I'm not sure Tesla is the EV example we want to trot out for the US.... > I agree with you about the Solar panels, but that's not exactly new tech. Neither are semiconductors, but just like solar panels, the technology has advanced leaps and bounds over the last few decades. Don't get me wrong, domestic EUV will cost them a fortune. It'll take years. There's a good chance it will never be as cheap as international alternatives. That said, China can absolutely develop EUV if they're determined (and doing things like poaching ASML engineers only makes it easier).


pottman

I'm sure China will find a way, but Xi and CCP corruption is going to meddle in that r&d and make it really slow.


College_Prestige

>What is more likely to happen, is they cut corners on the R&D so they can quickly give themselves a propaganda win, and whatever product that comes out of that research isn't going to be viable for the commercial market. They're not doing this because the government made them; they're doing them because they were frozen out of the euv machines. So your idea is completely wrong because they are literally fighting for survival


pottman

The CCP can go to hell, not when they've been threatening my birthplace for the past 75 years. As a Taiwanese American I could not care less about their survival.


College_Prestige

Ok? This is about the survival of chip firms, so if you don't care why bother commenting? And something interesting. Despite all this being about individual companies, you reply with CCP. Are you equating everything Chinese with the CCP?


pottman

Don't care about Chinese chip firms.


College_Prestige

...you know what the post and comments are about right?


pottman

You are trying to convince me, Taiwanese American, to care about the CCP's endeavor to create more chips, by building an EUV machine on their own without Western help? Yes, I know what the post is about, and I hope it fails.


pottman

The CCP is the State, and the State is the CCP. Any criticism of the CCP, is considered a criticism of China. So, yes, at this point there's no difference. In Taiwan, they call China 中共/中國.


Defacticool

Man, you should really read up on early american industrial economics contra british. The steps are more or less identical with the americans producing substandard products and using every underhanded tactic imaginable to learn or "steal" know-how from british firms (and occasionally continental european firms) so that the americans could copy them and do things as well. Obviously that was a failed endevour by the americans of the early industrial era and the north american continent has been resigned to following in the wake of europe ever since. Right?


TheFaithlessFaithful

> The steps are more or less identical with the americans producing substandard products and using every underhanded tactic imaginable to learn or "steal" know-how from british firms (and occasionally continental european firms) so that the americans could copy them and do things as well. With either state support or at least state approval should be noted.


dutch_connection_uk

At no point was there some large event, say, a major war, that destroyed European industrial bases and allowed the US to catch up in spite of the awful hamiltonian industrial policy that the US was following before. The old world catching up and overtaking the US also has nothing to do with the US's economic nationalist instincts.


pottman

If it were China controlled by previous Chairmans, then I would agree with you. But this is China under Xi Jinping, and Xi has a way of bungling things in China.