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  • t.s - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    With DT spearheading, countries, manufacturers, companies, entities blatantly persecuting companies like Huawei. Something like this usually executed stealthily, carefully.
  • Zingam - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    I expect this will cause China to become completely self reliant at the end and to start manufacturing all of the equipment themselves and their talent pool is much larger.
  • Santoval - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Yes it will. China, i.e. largely SMIC, must have nearly all the required expertise already via the IP and tech they have "borrowed" from the Americans, the Koreans, the Taiwanese and the Japanese. Just from their joint venture with ARM (where they control the 51% of the company) I expect quite a lot of "transferring".
    The question though is ASML. Could they reverse engineer and reproduce their huge and extremely complex 7nm & 5nm node step-and-scan EUV machines? Unless they can do that or design and build an equivalent machine they cannot fab any of the latest SoCs, either for mobile or for larger factors. And this not a peanuts task, it would be quite a feat.
  • ads295 - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    EUV is bleeding edge tech right now. Granted, Huawei's newest chips from TSMC would have been fabbed on that, but on a need-to-maintain-continuity basis, the Chinese could still do a lot with 12nm or even 14nm for that matter...
  • Santoval - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    After already having released mobile phones with 7nm based SoCs? I wonder how their marketing teams could spin that...
  • Rookierookie - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Easy, just wait until Trump to issue a ban on the sale of consumer electronics to China.
  • Santoval - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    p.s. ASML (who are Dutch btw) have a true monopoly in step-and-scan machines. Companies such as Nikon and Canon, who have been in this business much earlier than ASML, used to compete with them but they gave up at around 28nm.
    One particularly delicate and intricate (and notoriously difficult, if not impossible to reverse engineer and copy) part of their EUV machines is their optics. These are made by Zeiss (a German company) and consist of mirrors polished down to a couple of nanometers scale accuracy. That is about 15 or so atoms. The reason is the very low tolerance and high sensitivity of EUV light to even the smallest lens imperfections, and these optics are the primary reason these machines are so expensive and take so long to manufacture. If the Chinese (or anyone else) could successfully copy and reproduce these mirrors, which I seriously doubt, then the most difficult part of their work would be done.
  • BedfordTim - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Is there any reason Zeiss couldn't sell optics to China?
  • FunBunny2 - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Zeiss isn't even the premier optics maker, anyway. that would be Leitz/Leica. polishing mirrors and lens glass (making which is the really tough part, btw) is a hundreds of years old skill. how to do it to 'a couple of nanometers'? use the right compound. how to know what that is? look at the periodic table. one needs measurement gear to know you've polished correctly (just ask the Hubble contractor, Perkin-Elmer NOT, btw NASA itself). and so on. it's all engineering, which isn't all that esoteric.
  • FullmetalTitan - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    EUV doesn't use glass optics and mirrors, they use extremely specialized multi-layer masks and exotic optics materials. It took ASML and industry partners over 15 years to get a viable EUV scanner system built for high volume manufacturing
  • tygrus - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    EUV requires a lot of power at the start because it looses so much along the way. It's very hard to convert a CO2 laser to EUV using vapourised droplets of tin. The mirrors and lenses absorb the EUV energy and so they need more cooling and don't last as long plus there's less EUV for the next mirror/lens so you increase the initial laser power causing more heat. The tolerances for 7nm FAB are so small, every little variation becomes a major issue. The 13.5nm EUV light fixes some limitations of 193nm light but creates a lot more problems. That's why it's taken longer as they improve or overcome the problems they found along the way. There's no free lunch.
  • soresu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Optics that require polishing are an incredibly old technology, as in centuries old.

    The new metalens technology (metamaterial lenses) will completely displace the old optics paradigm in less than 2 decades, perhaps even significantly impact it in a single decade,

    Likewise companies that rely on the old optics paradigm for business will have to quickly adapt or fail - because metalenses can be mass produced just like etched silicon wafers.
  • Ian Cutress - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Not to be picky, but ASML does most of its manufacturing in Wilton Connecticut - the Dutch offices are where the R&D happens. You can bet your bottom dollar that having a factory in the US would be used against them and customers.
  • HyperText - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Actually, Veldhoven is the biggest R&D and manufacturing site of the company. Wilton is the second biggest.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    That depends on how good ASML's security is.

    Node shrinks are running out of steam anyway, so I wouldn't be suprised if SMIC and China stick to larger nodes, but shift towards advanced packaging and fringe technologies (photonics, silicon alternatives, etc).
  • Santoval - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    "Reverse engineering" does not require hacking the company, just "cracking" the machine itself and how it was designed, provided of course you have physical access to one. That is much more difficult than simply hacking them and stealing their designs but not impossible. Even if they had the complete design though that wouldn't guarantee they could build such a machine (in particular they would need to learn how to make its optics and its EUV light source).

    I agree that SMIC might choose to be more conservative, not moving beyond 14nm (that they already fab). They have already outlined plans for a "kind of 7nm" node (link below) though which does not require EUV at all. Per the article below they also have an EUV machine but "it has not been installed "reportedly because of restrictions imposed by the US". I have no idea how that might work, would an ASML employee be, er, required to guard the machine 24/7 to ensure it is not installed?
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/15649/smic-details-...
  • brucethemoose - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    AFAIK, it never shipped: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-us...
  • HyperText - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Without ASML support it is basically impossible to install a machine. There is no need for a guard.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Also, I bet every intelligence agency in the world has agents sleuthing around Veldhoven now.
  • bigvlada - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    And the Germans "transferred" technology from UK in 19th century, alongside the Americans to fuel their technological progress. And the Japanese did the same after WW2. Americans "transferred" mother loads of German tech after WW2. They got radar, jet engine and some other bits from Tizzard mission (Their domestic efforts were stone age compared to the British). Nuclear know how from Italians and Germans.
    German tech was labeled as cheap crap from the east in 19th century. Japanese had the same treatment in the fifties. They gradually got better. So will the Chinese.

    Stealing tech, buying tech, reverse engineering tech has been done since the stone ages. Collective moaning of the Americans on the Internet about Chinese IP theft is getting embarrassing.
  • mattbe - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    Classic whataboutism that serves nothing but to deflect the responsibility of the Chinese. Just because it has been done in the past by other countries is not a justification for IP infringement. It's even more hilarious when you ignore that some things that are deemed acceptable in the past might not longer acceptable in the present.
  • LiKenun - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link

    “My buddies and I got away with it in the past and we’re raking in the profits. But you gotta play by the rules because now we play by the rules.”
  • s.yu - Monday, July 27, 2020 - link

    Of course. Back to the analogy that got deleted, the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids with slavery thousands of years ago. Your argument suggests that you proudly expect to get away with slavery today.
  • s.yu - Monday, July 27, 2020 - link

    Yeah, basically we already said what you said but most of the thread got deleted.
  • Gc - Sunday, July 19, 2020 - link

    "their joint venture with ARM (where they control the 51% of the company)"
    (Just to be clear, 51% of ARM Technology China, the former subsidiary in China, was sold in 2018 to create the joint venture, not 51% of ARM.)
  • Samus - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    This is something smart politicians around the world have realized for decades. China's "ability" to scale is a global threat because they have an enormous population and the infrastructure is decades ahead of India and other 'scalable' countries.

    For this reason, particularly from a national security (read: military) perspective, we have attempted to keep China in a frienemy position where all sides are mutually comfortable. Now that China is uncomfortable due to reckless international pressure on its government and private sector, it's free to scale up and become self-reliant.

    This is a disaster for world order, because China is NOT a democracy.
  • bigvlada - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Don't worry, in a few decades the Chinese will start whining about the Indians stealing their trade secrets. And India is a democracy. As if that matters.
  • s.yu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    "Now that China is uncomfortable due to reckless international pressure"
    I think you've had it the other way around. There was about a month's time in which China was condemned by the majority of the international community regarding the Coronavirus, but China's been bolder than before since the start and shows no sign of relent. Circling aircraft carriers around Taiwan was months ago, then quashing HK dissent and replacing the whole government with its loyalists, which they've been quietly doing gradually by manipulating elections anyway(For some reason they claim they could rightfully ban HK citizens from emigrating to other countries, and I can't wrap my head around their legal or moral justification, if they even bothered with one?), and last month it was that brawl with India. Having examined whatever evidence I could get my hands on from both sides, I say India's innocent, or they would've spun a lie a magnitude more sophisticated than China's, because their story goes back decades to when Zhou Enlai once revealed a map in an international meeting supporting their current claim(which means every participant country would have records, and is nearly impossible to fake), to books from the 70's by European authors, and their current claim is accurate down to the patrol point, also mentioning previous Chinese aggression in another point along the border about 100km south of the brawl.
    OTOH, China's claim boils down to a line seen with their claim in all border disputes , "自古以来", i.e. "since ancient times"/"that which has always been". China's claim is vague and goes on nothing but its official statements(also vague) and its puppet media parroting the Xinhua agency.
    You're welcome to make a preliminary evaluation of my conclusion by comparing the amount of information on Wikipedia against that of Baidu Baike, and of course, all the Chinese media you could find against all the Indian media you could find, if you're eager, but AFAICT the discrepancies between the free encyclopedia and the "regulated" encyclopedia are quite representative of the whole picture.
  • t.s - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    1. "..about a month's time in which China was condemned by the majority of the international community regarding the Coronavirus." Don't be racist.

    2. "..quashing HK dissent and replacing the whole government with its loyalists." Maybe we can study again the relation between Hongkong, China, and Great Britain.

    Yes, China has their fault, especially with their boundaries. Not just India, but with Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippine too. But still, they're still better by far than what US-and-allies did until now. Iran. Syria. Indonesia. Vietnam, etc..

    With someone like DT, don't think that it will end just with Huawei. When you're not adhere to them, or when you're on par with, say, Huawei, you can become their target too.

    Bottom line is: what has been and will be done by this man can harm global technology progress. Except, if the progress is from US, or allies.
  • s.yu - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    1. There's nothing racist about simply stating the truth, unless you're one of those radical left.
    2. GB yielded under circumstance that HK be governed under the Basic Law for 100 years. Years ago when the Party broke faith regarding universal suffrage, it could only be regarded as a non-violation if the phrasing of the Basic Law were interpreted in a particularly twisted fashion. Such instance could still be regarded as miscalculation on the British side because the wording wasn't completely immune to malicious interpretation, but the Orwellian "National Security Law" is quite blatantly infringing on the autonomy of HK. Article 38 is especially devious as it encompasses the whole world. China, whose puppet congress passes any law directed by the Standing Committee anyway, passes a law that allows it to "legally" target every single individual around the world.

    >Iran. Syria. Indonesia. Vietnam
    Iran has nothing to do with the US, its secular government collapsed on its own and is now unfortunately ruled by religious fanatics. In a way that's similar to China though, since the Party's propaganda borders on religious preaching, or that used in pyramid schemes.
    I don't think you can claim moral high ground by stating that Arab Spring had an unjust cause, and the Syrian situation evolved from Arab Spring.
    Vietnam(half) and Indonesia, yes, those are on the US, in the backdrop of the cold war, but then Khmer Rouge is on China too, and that's what China achieved as a minor player decades ago. With the new aggressions in these ongoing disputes today, it's hard to say how far China will go.
  • tuxRoller - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    Can someone check my math?
    China ≈ 1.4 billion
    rest of the world ≈ 6.4 billion

    Thus the rest of the world, potentially, has a larger supply of talent than China.

    Also, China will still need access to external commodities, if nothing else.
    Going isolationist is not a good thing... but Trump isn't a savvy player (he's got one trick) and certainly isn't a long-term thinker.
  • FunBunny2 - Saturday, July 25, 2020 - link

    last time I looked, China had a lock on much of the variety and supply of rare earths. try building much of anything computer without them.
  • s.yu - Monday, July 27, 2020 - link

    Yeah, that's why there's active development of sources from Vietnam, Brazil and Australia.
  • anonomouse - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Not to argue semantics, but isn’t TSMC’s largest customer widely held to be Apple? The TSMC financial report that lists Company A at 23% in 2019 and 22% in 2018. Meanwhile, they list a Company B growing from 8% in 2018 to 14% in 2019 and given Apple’s smartphone sales trend it’s hard to imagine they doubled their purchases between those two years. Whereas by all accounts Huawei has tremendous growth both in smartphones and in other markets during the same period.
  • eek2121 - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    No, AMD currently is their largest, according to recent reports. Every console, CPU, and GPU is currently made by AMD using TSMC 7nm.
  • eastcoast_pete - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    The main question IMO is where Huawei/HiSilicon will move its manufacturing to. Assuming this ban continues, China will certainly move even more aggressively on building advanced fabs in China.
  • brucethemoose - Friday, July 17, 2020 - link

    Probably SMIC's smallest node. Perhaps they'll go for a 2-chiplet design to conserve SMIC's capacity.

    Memory will be an issue as well. Flash... maybe not so much?
  • soresu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    China already has a company going for 128 layer NAND flash - YMTC.
  • s.yu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Yes, which requires a completely different process from logic. YMTC and a few other rising Chinese players will probably crash the NAND market soon.
  • azfacea - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    NAND is not going to crash anytime soon. it is drinking market share from hard drives and has plenty of room for growth. and as you correctly pointed out its not the same as CMOS. they dont need very expensive equipment. you just need the very reliable etching techniques. otherwise pre-immersion tools should suffice.
  • s.yu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    In fact IIRC China already has EUV, announced about a year ago, but it could only be used for flash.
  • nrlz - Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - link

    China is using older machines for the EUV. Not the latest tech.
  • s.yu - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Don't count on SMIC in the near term, more than 50% of their raw material(that require precision chemistry) is imported from Japan, SK, the US or EU. If they're found out to be fabbing for Huawei(which is inevitable, it's consumer electronics that at least hundreds of Youtubers will take apart under camera), they will face sanctions.
  • brucethemoose - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    Thats very interesting. A sanction would be a pretty bold stab at China, as I don't imagine SMIC has many customers outside of China's orbit.
  • azfacea - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link

    SMIC will be attacked sooner or later regardless of what they do or don't for Huawei. I suspect China is making a huge effort to gain supply chain independence in semi, right now as we speak but that will take many years to for example drop ASML and be fine. more likely though China will pressure Washington with carrots and sticks (corn purchase, Iran 400 billion deal, maybe even arm shipments ) to get trump to back down. he has made a phase 1 deal in the past he could do another. I think every one is waiting for Nov 3 right now
  • brucethemoose - Sunday, July 19, 2020 - link

    Some kind of trade deal is going to happen before Nov 3.

    Either that, or relations are going to deteriorate to the point that any candidate will have trouble regaining lost ground.
  • s.yu - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    ASML? A decade at the very least. For the moment they can't even solve high purity fluorine, which was also an issue SK faced when Moon tried to blackmail Japan with historical issues settled by treaties. The quality required for advanced nodes is produced nowhere but Japan.
    That said, I don't believe SMIC's an immediate target, because to get concessions out of the Party, Huawei is enough, and SMIC is too small a figure in the industry. SMIC will no doubt receive strong policy support so I suppose the apparent importance of SMIC as estimated by the Party's extent of non-market support to them will be a gauge of the risk that they will be targeted in the future.
  • azfacea - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    I agree and disagree. I dont think it takes a decade. i think 5 years is enough for full semi independence depending how seriously they pursue it. its not harder than hypersonics or hydrogen bombs with 50s and 60s technology. but I already said semi conductor supply chain is complicated and will take many years. which is why i think they will seek a deal with US but are waiting for the election outcome.

    I think the recent news of 400 billion deal between china and iran was mostly to generate leverage against Washington. i dont think china actually plans to go ahead with it.
  • s.yu - Monday, July 27, 2020 - link

    Well what do you mean by serious then? AFAICT they burn tens of billions annually and for the past decade failed to make any significant progress on CMOS...I'm not aware of China's lithography being competitive with Canon and Nikon at the moment, and I think it's safe to say that Canon and Nikon, if they were to try, need more than half a decade to reach where ASML is today.

    Hmm, the Party definitely needs leverage against Washington, because even Russia refuses to be that leverage, but I have no idea how they plan "not to go ahead with it".
  • alufan - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    Am really not understanding on what level TSMC has to stop supplying a Customer, are TSMC not an independent company carrying out free Trade with others, how can the Government of a foreign Country decide who an independent Company can and cannot trade with can someone explain this to me, it just stinks of blatant protectionism to keep US companies on Top and just shows how Apple manages to get away with so much.

    All this will do is spur the Chinese on to greater things, you watch when the rest of the world is taking enough product the Chinese will stop all shipments to the US of everything and start selling US stock at a loss they have the money and the infrastructure to do it
  • t.s - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    They (China) could do that, but it's lose-lose solution. IMO, China won't do that. It's last resort. And, it's not that simple.
  • azfacea - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    this is why global govt is such a dangerous proposition. you can never predict who will do what. slogans will not protect you. history is not over. supply chain independence matters. national sovereignty matters.
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  • fuckyou - Thursday, July 30, 2020 - link

    Because of Coping other intellectual property and other hard work is Chinese main goal.
  • vortmax2 - Wednesday, August 12, 2020 - link

    "However, once this stock runs out and if the political situation hasn’t been resolved by then, it would mean big troubles for the Chinese vendor."

    This really isn't a "political situation." It's a business situation in which Huawei got themselves into by their "owners," the Chinese government.
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