Please be civil in the comments. Like and subscribe, and all. Check out the Semiconductor playlist for other videos on chips: ruclips.net/p/PLKtxx9TnH76QEYXdJx6KyycNGHePJQwWW
As someone about to finish a PhD in an optics discipline, software engineers typically earn more. The problem is that when you're in a very specialised field you have fewer potential employers, and therefore a worse negotiating position. Software engineers operate in a much, much bigger market and that drives salaries up.
there are enough professionals around the world, who are out of job and seeking opportunity to work in China. see. Lithography machine, weather DVU or EVU, whichever was developed and made by human, and human could develop and made the same in land of PR china. see. Investment, resource, time, professional ... could make any stuff on earth and china shared enough land on earth. see Before Beidou and Space Station, anyone from west claimed that Chinese could make it?
most software engineers starts with a low salary. Get to learn new languages to grow up.. How have you updated yourself? if the software engineers do not want to learn new, they stay at the same level. Unfortunately the growth in many fields are slow in terms of new technology. seldom you see a family doctor becomes a specialist or surgeon. They choose their field and live for it. Don't worry, every 7 or 8 years the software engineer looses his job. must struggle to get new job.
Thank you for taking the time in your life to purchase these journals, do this level of research and present information in an rather unbiased way, newsletter is worth the sub.
I think many people are missing the point of China's push in the industry. Commercially successful machines aren't that important, acquiring key technologies is. Having working prototypes and being able to make all components of computers and other electronics is what really matters. Being a huge market for foreign companies won't give China much leverage in international affairs if they don't have the possibility of replacing (albeit at a higher cost) those imports with domestic equivalents at will. Security is another factor: if the US and its allies were to impose a total embargo on China, having prototypes and knowhow in chipmaking could prevent the complete collapse of the economy. So successful and profitable products aren't what's driving China's push into the lithography market, in my opinion.
@obimk1 excatly, China is in better position in deposition and etching but they are badly behind asml that it is not even a joke. Asml recruits from the globe and China does not have access to the leve of talent that asml has.
24 NANOm & 3 NANOm! Who cares?! My car’s ecu still works! I don’t need to eat west caviar. I know how to cook fried rice for myself. I will survive. Until d day my child knows how to farm caviar!
@@prayagmehta9738 China doesn't need to match asml. China being the largest market in the world has enough leverage for asml to sell to China their machine. Without the China Market asml won't have the revenue for their r&d. Last year Asml only sold five euv machines.
@@djtan3313 The problem is that your child would have to farm caviar while everyone else has moved on to more advance methods, I understand the security concerns but refusing to participate in global trade network will deprive not just you but your descendances (that is an ethical problem not for you to decide).
If the machine are sold at the same price the more performant capture more of the market share , China is behind because of an embargo of the United state in certain product
Practically speaking, a Chinese alternative to ASML might be viable even if it lags technologically. As the world recently discovered with the semiconductor shortage, the chips that were impossible to find were not the cutting edge specimens, but older technology with thinner margins used in cars and other embedded devices. This suggests there might be a market opportunity for a company to build older process nodes, especially in an increasingly digitized society with smart devices everywhere.
Yes, in fact China has recently refocused its efforts into what it considers mature chip technology, instead of trying to catch-up with current cutting edge technology
Indeed. What actually use 28nm and smaller process chips? Cell phones. Nearly all the chips in your fridge, air conditioner, the elevator, etc, runs just fine on decades old several hundred nm processes without you ever noticing. Your car battery can't be drained by a 320nm chip, or a hundred. Once the 1.5nm wall is hit, it can't go smaller anyway without moving on to carbon based chips, and china already built a patent wall around that.
Good luck with china to produce 100 nanometer parts with milling/turning process, the optic, six sigma level deffects on waffer and 100% service level like ASML does since 2000
Well over 100k subscribers now! Congratulations and thanks for all the hard work that you do to keep us educated! Been a paying subscriber for months now - has been worth every dollar spent!
Having worked in lithography I can confidently say that semiconductor manufacturing is INSANELY complex and the rate of advancement is incredible. I don't know of any industry branch that even comes close. Whole batallions of scientists work on EUV optics, manufacturing mirrors with pm form errors, mechanical stages with insane speed and positioning precision, etc. You don't learn that stuff at university and companies like ASML, Zeiss or Cymer publish only what they need to to get a patent. Then you have to find ways around existing patents, although I'm not sure if that'll be an issue for some Chinese firms... ASML already has a couple of competitors (Nikon for example) with decades of experience in lithography (though not at EUV). There's no chance in hell a newcomer will be a real competitor at the smallest nodes anytime soon.
@@Renzsu That's not so simple. As the video mentioned, the most important factor in this industry is human resources. Without human, those complex lithography machine would be useless. You have to have the basic knowledge of how to run them, each and every nanometer of it's operated, maintenance, software and thousands of accessories that other tech company hold... China want to build an inhouse lithography machine is fine, but to compete it is close to impossible without a great breakthrough from talented scientist which they do not attract due to low pay and rigorous and unrealistic practice relate to China's policy and Chinese culture
Just want to say really appreciate the work. Just out of mechanical engineering college and recently started working as a tech in a fab. We're only really trained on our specific toolset so it's interesting to learn a lot more about the industry as a whole here.
The first company to develop a technology can commercialize it and make a ton of money - they have no competition on the market. When a competitor arrives years later their investments are already payed off and they can afford to keep prices so low that the late-comer could never cover their investments. In these cases the late-comer can only win if the leader makes a massive blunder, or the newcomer leap-frog to a new generation product both companies have no experience - like digital cameras allowing Sony to leapfrog Kodak, and electric cars allowing Tesla to gain on traditional automakers. In this case I think it is more about strategic security in case of a US embargo, rather than commercial profit in the next few decades.
The first company that created the photolithography machine is Texas Instruments (TI). And the first company that used that technology to mass produce microprocessor is Intel. None of them are market leader. TI is practically out of this, and Intel is gasping.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 Blunder of almost a decade of stuck at 14nm is what made Intel losing marketshare, even with all of that Intel actually still hold 75%(down from 90% in 2018) due of OEM and low end market. So Intel actually is still market leader at least for now.
Just like with electric cars, it's just a change of track and everyone starts to compete at the same level again. Otherwise, latecomers will never be able to catch up.
They don't lagged behind. It is just the obstacles of the existing patents and Chinese engineers are reinventing the wheel. But they are pretty close.TSMC will soon faded away. US can't build an EUV lithography on her own despite all the misinformation. Period.
Everything China have may be years behind but the importance is keep moving forward beside looking for alternatives. From years to months to someday more advance.
On China being years behind.... Is that the normal year? Or Chinese faster engineering year? 😁😁😁 It does make a difference, and wouldn't be so gloomy at all.
It takes far less time to develop a process when you already have a mature example to study. Even if they are 10 years behind in development chronologically, I expect they can catch up in 5. And even if not, in all but the smallest/densest electronics 10 vs 7 vs 2 nm does not make that big a difference.
Okay, maybe that's true, but I don't see how videos of cute Chinese girls whispering into microphones is going to help China geopol... oh... I think I misread that...
@@scarletmoon777 besides commercial purposes there are also strategic ones. A country without its own armaments is necessarily under someone's control.
@@ccwong75 They are already making lithography machines they are at 28 nm after that it is 14nm then 7nm ASML's most advanced machine currently is 7nm >In July Wen Xiaojun from China’s Electronics and Information Industry Development Institute said that Chinese foundries would achieve mass production of the 28nm node this year and 14nm next year, relying on end-to-end Chinese tools. SMEE’s 28nm lithography machine is now being shipped to clients too, but tech experts believe the jump to 14nm will prove more difficult
Why build an inferior car, when you can buy a market leading available car? To collect skills and tools required to one day build a market leading car. Meanwhile, if the market refuses to sell you a car, you can still have an inferior car. It does't work as well, but it still gets you point A to point B.
except this doesn't exclusively impact vehicles but the whole IT and electronics. And it's more an efficiency issue at more than a thousand scale rather than a matter of comfort.
China built inferior cars. Only 5 years ago, there were still exact copy pasta Chinese cars. 10-15 years ago, quite terrible cars. But now, they are making proper good cars. Bigger challenge with semiconductors but they'll sort it sooner or later.
@@TsLeng True, to be honest so many people are kinda.... racist, its a just a stereotype borderlines on the assumption of 1.4b ppl incapable of matching "tHe mAsTer rAcE" in the west, people acted the same way in the 80s towards the Japanese, now its the Chinese, and eventually Indians will get the same treatment.
@@TheRealIronMan Koreans somehow escaped because they are a puppet state of the US and never got strong enough. Well not yet. I hope Indians can realise this sooner than later because like you said, it's coming for them as soon as they gain power inevitably. Assuming the US still is a superpower that time lol
Great video! Love your content. Wanted to let you know that Cymer is pronounced “Symer”, and is derived from “excimer laser.” Looking forward to additional great content!
Сhina doesn't want to replace ASML, it just wants to have a homegrown alternative due to the US ban on ASML selling EUVs to Сhina. Which will only accelerate the process so they'll catch up sooner rather than later.
Not really , they’ve already proven that thei don’t have the intellectual capacity or work ethic to achieve this . That’s why China only does final assembly of hitech products (cars, computers , phones , locomotives) while nearly all the actual complex components inside them are made in US/Korea/Taiwan/EU/Japan
@UCMLk3NCHwp2_hzz8Rc00UBw Oh China of course can make it, we've been so used to Chinese manufacturing that we've given them blueprints to basically everything, or better yet, they conduct espionage. Even then, with the blueprints, they're so incompetent that they can't even copy it right 😂 Edit : the person I was commenting to deleted their comment for some reason.
@@randomdude4110 Dude, to build such a crazy machine to such insane tolerances needed as an EUV machine.. that's impossible for the Chinese. The EUV machine totals 4,5 million lines of code.. that's insane!
@@chronokoks To be completely fair, they have just about everything needed to do this, but the quality of it, would be subpar at most. Giant projects like that are rife with corruption and incompetency. Which leads into bad quality control, and countless other issues that other people more experienced in the field can explain better.
@@bigmedge Not really, every US ban has proven that China is perfectly capable of developing a homegrown alternative. That's exactly how they have developed the first reactor to ever use the third-generation nuclear power technology, became the world leader in the photovoltaic, drone, fintech and EV sectors, are at the forefront of quantum computing, created their BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, the homemade Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer chips, build the Tiangong Space Station, sent a rover on the dark side of the Moon and on Mars etc. etc. etc. All of which shows what happens in China after a US ban. As they say, what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger.
China's advancement really needs to be seen from the perspective of constantly being cut off or limited from the global supply chain due to political interference from the Untied States. This of course have hindered Chinese growth, BUT, it has also forced China to develop a domestic supply chain. Given time, China will achieve core technology independence.
The global supply chain is also what has helped China advance so fast from technology transfers, trade….It is only when China starts acting badly that the US pull back.
Or perhaps China acting badly is a result of it's hands being forced. It will be interesting to see how it continues to develop. The more its being force to do things its own way, the less it will need to conform to everyone's wishes. Ultimately, China should be focus on its own needs first, just like any other countries. Outside opinions be damned. There is no permanent friends esp in the political arena, just common interest. Build yourself up as strong as possible, as quick as possible. The lessons that are gained in the past from other countries ( opium war for China and gunboat diplomancy for Japan and other colonies) should not be forgotten. The weak will always fall prey to the strong. No one is as concern of our own survival as ourselves.
@@Highwind79 The reaction by the USA against China is based on a purely economic viewpoint that is disguised as a political or security action. As China use of mass protectionist measures and policies initiated an economic retaliation that resulted in the issues we have today. The current Xi administration policy of made-in-China-2025 was an incredible and unnecessary stupid action. As it was a pretty much like a giant middle finger to the west. As the initiated required and supported the use of forced-joint-ventures, state-directed IP theft, mass tariffs and industry quotas, direct targeting of foreign acquisitions to boost Chinese capabilities, encouragement of cyber-espionage, Local content requirements, forced technology transfers. A far more smarter and better approach would be to engage in a more slower, but more linked initiative that encouraged the incorporation of western companies and economies. As due to the greater connection between economies and the USA exports to China there would be a substantial greater penalty to the USA economies if the USA attempted to reduce trade with China. It would also result in a dramatically reduced desire of USA companies and politicians to reduce trade with China due to the massive balance of trade disparity between with the USA and China.
@@Highwind79 The weak will always fall prey to the strong. As the Tibetan and Uighurs know well just as China draws lessons from the opium war so too should all nations learn from how China treats the weak.
Practically speaking, China doesn't need to develop a better technology. As long as it can build an OK alternative showing the trend of catching up, it can leverage it as a bargaining chip to push the western companies to persuade the government to reopen the sale, fearing that they are losing the market share(China's domestic market and other companies which might try China's solution for lower price) and cultivating a competitor due to an ineffective policy. It's China's challenge as well as opportunity to decide if it will be on the table of US or at the table with US.
All China has to do is steal the tech via cyber or industrial espionage. Or let in a foreign company and force them to give up their secrets, then boot them out a few years later. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics!
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 : Indeed, doesn't seem to be working through, and as pointed out in the story, people are as, if not more so important. So unless China starts resorting to kidnapping, tech transfer is only going to do so much.
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 Lmao! You really believe that China could steal technology from western countries? The development of technology basically thanks to the talents who came back to China. The technology for western countries is like the gold to dragons and they protected their treasures very well.
the human capital is a very interesting aspect of this story. I suspect that they will continue to have significant braindrain until Chinese companies manage to retain actual talent. Hard work in the sense of working 12+ hours per day 6 days per week is rarely productive in R&D and only results in people burning out and leaving such companies.
Yup. Unfortunately for them they can't really change away from that because of the inherent structural limitations of the way China and the CCP work. If you're just an average person in China you are basically expected to put your nose to the grindstone until you've got no nose left, and then keep going.
One of the reasons why even though Taiwan and Korea, despite having such a robust semiconductor industry, never even attempted to work on a domestic lithography machine is that the IP barrier in this field is way too powerful. These two countries pretty much exports all of their semiconductor products, IP litigation would've severely disrupted the business, so they just didn't even dare to try. China is different, before opening their markets, their semiconductor ecosystem is strictly domestic. So they can go ahead and "borrow" patented technology without fear of a lawsuit and until recently Japan was secretly assisting their development efforts. But due to the straining of relationships with the entire West, China is going to have a hard time advancing in the lithography machine from now on.
The US also got a HUGE head start in all these fields when they stole every scrap of industrial know how from Germany after WW2. Operation Paperclip was way more than just bringing over scientists, and the millions of TONs of scientific and industrial knowledge has been jealously guarded by the US since.
Cutting China off from peresent production and chip technology was a tactical mistake. China has plenty excellent engineers and scientists (Those and kosmonaut are kids no. 1 dream job as opposed to RUclipsr in the west). China will have a hard time for a couple years, maybe even a decade, but if they focus their efforts, they will gain momentum and eventually overtake ASML, Japan and the US, especially if they do not neccessarily have to respect patents, that make it difficult to progress even if you fully develop your own technology. The more they get cut off, the less they have to care...
You misunderstand patents system it is not to block other ppl from using the technology and you can get very affordable mostly just percentage of sales license for every patent it is even the law. And this story about patents blocking access is total BS for masses in reality if this is simple and profitable nobody care about patents. In 99% of cases technology is not used due of patents but due of whole technology is very complicate and patent give too less of clue to really finish it. My company tried to copy some receipt from patent and we finished up by just contacting authors and get ready material cuz R&D and implementation of technology already burned few millions too many small details which take time and resources. You can watch document about Japanese transistors industry where licensing patent was just a formal and real know how was visiting the US factories and local training about manufacturing tricks cuz knowing few manufacturing fixtures and how to use it was worth more than whole patent description.
But therein lies a problem: Something like Global Foundries 14nm process is so damn cheap per wafer today that mucking about with 42nm is pointless. 14nm is about four times as dense as 42nm, so you get four times as many chips per wafer. And when your chips are only a quarter the size the packaging gets cheaper, etc, etc. Micron, Samsung Foundry, SK Hynix, Global Foundries, UMC, TSMC and many many more are already 14nm capable. And the automotive market is already shifting towards 10/12nm for the infotainment systems.. Investing in 42nm today is utterly pointless, as there is already excess production capability in that area.
@Simple Mechanics If you look back in history. Look how long it took Intel to get to 22nm. Intel had a lot of issues with double pattern alignment. Defect rates were thru the roof. But 14nm was the limit of their laser tech. Also EUV and DUV are US patented technologies. ASML applied to the US gov't for a license to further develop the technology for mass production. Besides most of this tech came from IBM. They just announced a 2nm process this past March. I expect TSMC to bid biggly for this process to keep Intel from mastering it 1st. I expect that the current ASML EUV machines can produce it.
@@andersjjensen what a nonesense. a. SMIC already produces 14nm chips using asml machines. b) excess production that is OUTSIDE of china, because for a country that imports 350 billion worth of chips every year localizing every node they can is of a great deal.
@@0xdeadbabe240 The point being that developing the tools to make DUV lithography is a dead end. Both Canon, Nikon and ASML makes DUV steppers and can deliver on request. Building a factory to build home grown steppers with a sub-par throughput is just bonkers. These are steppers that are going to be in less and less demand. I can certainly get behind the idea of competing for next-gen steppers that will ramp up in production over the next decade... But investing so heavily in something that is on the way *out* is... weird. Looks more like a pride thing than something with financial thinking behind it. Also I'm fairly certain that the majority of those 350 billion worth of imported chips are made on the advanced nodes. It's not like SMIC is a small fry with insignificant throughput. And both TSMC and GloFo has foundries in China too. So there is plenty of domestic production. There is plenty of opportunity to hold shares in domestic production.... but it's that pride thing, isn't it? It needs to be "purely Chinese", no matter if it makes sense or not, doesn't it?
People have often underestimated how fast China can leapfrog in a decade. China in 2010 was wildly different from China today. The 2030 China will surprise most.
I remember when Japanese cars were years and years behind their European and American counterparts and so, US and Euro car manufacturers became complacent. That worked out great, didn't it?
Anything up to 7 nm will be good enough to be self sufficient for most electronic appliances. Banning foreign chips would kill the market and foreign R&D will dropped.
@@1schwererziehbar1 Because there's only a handful few companies even in global market that need their processors to be fabricated at 7nm or smaller, all of which already had TSMC printing their chips. That, and the cost for machinery for fabricating chips gets exponentially more costly after 10nm mark. GlobalFoundries had halted their 7nm process upgrade for this reason.
@@prayagmehta9738 honestly, I think this is more a matter of what is the cheapest node for budget phones. Compared to a 45nm chip, the real gain is power efficiency rather than usage of more performance.
I truely enjoy the way you sprinkle in little bits of humour it really give a flavour, rather than just a dry info dump. Time to update that subscriber goal.
Although I agree with the author on SMEE lagging behind ASML , I feel he has not taken into account one important factor of how China catches up with the technologies. Although not the same but Fighter jet engines, is one of the most difficult technology in military space China was lagging behind others a few years ago, but now countries are shocked how China caught up in a short span. It's an incredible story worth mentioning. Moreover, ASML CEO in one article said it would take China 3 years to catch up with ASML. This maybe true or not but definitely China is catching up, it's just a matter of time a breakthrough happens. Here goes the saying semiconductors are man made not made by GOD.
Currently they have not catched up at any technology yet. Not like Japan or South Korea or not even as much as Taiwan. This mostly has to do with government style. Both Japan, South-Korea and Taiwan have democratic government style. Which is more reliable on important systems, rather than some control freaks in the CCP who can change the rule day by day. 3 years? Never, you know nothing about this world. China got zero EUV technology. That means automatically 10 years or more behind.
Besides, a lot can happen in a decade. Edit: Photo masks for immersion lithography among other components as mentioned in 8:45 can still be subject to an export ban upon China, thus driving the CCP to accelerate its research, and splurge ever more money into such research. So the next time you hear about a milestone in China's immersion lithography, pay attention to how much they've had to sink in.
Does it really matter how much they sink on it, if they consider it a core competency for economic security/independence? While ROI may be desired, this is more important than commercial manufacturing in the long term.
Thanks. I know NATA CEO, XC Sun. This is the first time that I heard them do photomask. He told me they do photoresist through acquiring another company. Their main business is metalorganics and arsine/phosphine gas for LED.
In 1977, they were 20 years behind the world leader in lithography. In 2021, they're still 20 years behind the world leader in lithography. I'm no expert, but this tells me that it is not easy to advance in this industry.
China just can't steal their way into being a world leader, that's what this tells me. Their universities are garbage--nothing but indoctrination centres that are focused on making sure the students don't learn too much, lest another Tiannemen "incident" happen.
This channel did a good story on other counties attempts. Controlling the small is very hard, and multiple reasons to fail. Plus, the leaders aren't standing still waiting for everyone else to catch up.
“I would like to reach 100,000 subscribers someday.” Well, that certainly happened a lot sooner than you imagined. Congratulations on that, well deserved!
@@stephenjenkins7971 Are you on medication ?? When did china bully Netherlands, Taiwan ? It's only after your 45th President's HOOHAA that relations took a backsliding. Stop projecting your absurd low mentality.
The reason why China's chip technology is backward is actually the result of the honeymoon period between China and the United States. Most Chinese companies can buy the chips they want from the United States or other countries, resulting in their weak willingness to support local chip companies in China. Since the start of the Sino-US trade war, the United States has increased its pressure on Chinese high-tech companies, turning the original desire to purchase products from European and American companies from local Chinese companies to purchasing. This is what China has been lacking before [business motivation to promote technological progress]
True possibly. Yet how about all those pop up companies that started just to steal grant money from the government and vanished? China is a crooked, corrupt, slimy country. A country where a lot of people have no morals which is why so much dirty bullshit corruption happens. Look at HK and Taiwan, same people but better!
@@Renwoxing13 Your username makes your opinion on China kinda moot. It's also quite bigoted. Don't like Chinese bigotry? Don't do it yourself; be better.
@@Renwoxing13 Corruption happens everywhere. Just look how much Trump's unfinished wall on the Mexican border cost. Trump's wall cost more on a per km basis than China's high speed rail. The reality is that China has not really funded semiconductor R&D at a national level over the past 20 years. The assumption was that free trade with the US would render such funding a waste of money.
Here is my 2 cents worth. Lithography machines are one of the most complicated piece of engineering which are developed in partnership with some of the best companies in their respective field. 1. Due to history of tech spying, best developers do not wish to work with any Chinese and US’s approach in re-aligning supply chain is going to make it impossible. 2. One small diplomatic quarrel is making Things much harder for China. Lithuania is one of the leading country in making laser equipments in the world and has 30-45% market share in each respective field. The current diplomatic disputes will make it much harder for Chinese to approach any of their technologies. This will add one more thing to develop but very very hard and costly to develop.
@@m2heavyindustries378 It makes perfect Chinese sense: "Our scientists are not nationalistic enough and recommend that we buy our lasers from Lithuania. Quick! Make up a reason to print in the news paper about how Lithuania is a racist/bigot/discriminating/infringing state that hates China so we can tell our scientists they need to work 80 hours a week to develop the lasers we need!" It is a clearly defined goal of the Chinese government to attempt to end all imports of any kind. Everything should be Chinese made in China. And most things should be Chinese made in the rest of the world.
There are only three countries in the world the that can produce argon fluoride excimer lasers, the US, China and Japan, i fail to see how Lithuania is going to help China in this situation.
I heard many joke everyone I visit YT. Only in YT I heard irrelevant country in tech arena appeared brought up by a stranger in YT. There's no top laser companies from Lithuania. I have checked Yole Development and market research.
this is pretty hard, since China has to make everything in house, even ASML doesn't do that. so its really not a fair comparsion. i think the biggest difference right now is that the gov has realistic expectations (compared to 20 years ago, they think it can be done with a guy from ASML). they set a timeline of 10 years
You can't compare a country with a company though. China isn't counting on a single company to replicate the whole lithography supply chain either. There is a whole network of people in academia and industry working on this.
No, the comparison is between today Chinese aggressive diplomacy forced them to try to imitate foreign technology and the peaceful, understanding China under Hu Jintao. We wouldn’t have to discuss China’s trying to do this. ASML would simply corporate with Chinese companies and laboratory to create better products, rather than China having to spend millions of dollars to get where they are. China don’t really want to spend the resource and effort to mobilise its military anyway, so why build those islands, threaten Taiwan, choking out Hong Kong? Is political popularity really needed such sacrifice? Didn’t an interconnected world beat the Nazi, then Soviet Union, which China was part of the winning side as well?
@@lc9245 The examples about Hong Kong and Taiwan are wrong, China is far from being aggressive in front of the US, not to mention they are both internal Chinese issues, unless one day China's overseas bases have spread to the doorstep of the Five Eyes Alliance, then it can be called aggressive, otherwise I prefer to call it a competitive disadvantage. Many people have forgotten that for so many years the two Chinese political parties in mainland China and Taiwan are currently only in a ceasefire, in reality the civil war has not ended at all, and the US government is well aware of this, so it has never officially recognized the legitimacy of the Taiwanese government, but behind the scenes it relies on the media to keep giving you the idea that they are independent. To better understand why East Asia has become what it is now, it would be better to understand the influence of the West in recent history and how China became a broken aristocracy, I think there is always something more important for a country than mere economic interests
@@meko8874 It wasn't economic interest, it's political interest. What kind of competitive advantage involves building artificial island and airbase in South China Sea? Ramming foreign fishing boats? What competitive advantage involves sending military vessel all the way to Guinea to Australia? What competitive advantage involves blocking Australian goods? Those are posturing to exude the image of powerful to political opponents, internal ones. The status of Taiwan and the state of war isn't connected. Nation independence depends on their ability to exercise power over their current claimant territory. Taiwan can do that, it has an independent army because it has the backing of the U.S. Regarding the one China problem, that's an excuse to hang onto when war started. After all, many parts of China today wasn't part of Chinese kingdom since ancient time, and China itself have had various independent kingdoms when it splits apart. I also failed to see how one China policy should prevent China from maintaining the status quo to reap the benefits from international trade. China under Hu Jintao had maintain the same stance against Taiwan yet still able to trade and benefits from relationship with Western companies. But, I concede, I do not know what Xi is going through internally. Perhaps the remnant of the old Jiang's influence necessitates a radical stance to maintain Xi's power. In any case, if it weren't for politics, China could have developed like Japan, slowly but steadily. The Japanese didn't catch up to the West, but they have their own technology and what they don't, they can simply import, rather than having to develop and manufacture their own like China due to political tension.
@@lc9245 go do some home work before regurgitating western narratives. Competitive advantage of the man made islands? How about national security from USA's aircraft carriers? Too blind to see that? Look at Iraq, accused of having WMD and country was destroyed with a small vial of laundry detergent. Of course you won't ever acknowledge that because if you did all your jibberish would be contradictory. You say the land china owns is not part of ancient china's yet they been part of china much longer than the land USA annexed from the indigenous people of North America. Why don't you ask USA to give the land back to the natives? If you don't know anything better just to stfu!
Being 20 years behind isn't as bad as it sounds, you can produce most of the todays chips with that technologies - no high end CPU or GPU and similar "on the edge products but most of the industrial technology that doesn't need a cooling fan doesn't depend on higher resolution. And in the worst case of an embargo a 20 year old CPU is better than none.
Lol. Do you think anyone would buy Chinese products like smartphones or telecommunication equipment like 5G if they used chip technology from 2001? Do you think Alibaba or Baidu can run their data centers with chip technology from 2001? Do you think Chinese car companies can compete in self-driving cars with GPUs from 2001? Give me a break.
20 years is a long period of time in tech advancement, this is really bad. Sure it's good enough for basic IC and discrete components but even on the microcontroller , DSP or MEM levels this is quite a huge technology gap. Sure you can build low power chips with that but not as integrated, performant and efficient as foreign chips. Sure industrial machines mostly use very old and basic electronics, they don't care about fanless though, but for other crucial tasks like R&D, design or communication companies need relatively performant computers. Without at least a 45nm node ready for production a tech embargo will be a difficult step backward for the interior market and whole infrastructures.
As a Chinese EE engineer in US and has working experience in semiconductor industry, the pay gap is much larger than shown in video. Assuming a top 5 university highly-skilled PhD graduate working in the top tier company like SIEMENS can not even afford a house in Beijing,China after 15 years hard work, sound ridiculous right? But this is what is happening in China. The land is owned by government and they gain so much from selling it which results in unbelievable high house price. Many people do nothing but gathering the rent from the young talent and what I get after 8 years studying EE is only despair. Even at 10hours per day and 6days per week, I can not afford a house and without a house my child can not even go to the public school! What a joke!!!! Now I move to US and work for a US semiconductor company. Fair compensation and reasonable house price,most important the child can get access to the public school even you live at an apartment. The easiest way to defeat China is to offer a green card to every Phd who are willing to move to US and the high tech industry will be ruined.
Reasonable house prices in the US? WHere? IDAHO? Your scheme would work until the racists start their culture wars again and treat all Chinese PhDs doing research as some sort of spy again.
The US is doing the opposite, kicking out Chinese talent. Plus , no one in their right mind would go to the US now. Seriously...Why? For the kids to go to school and practice active shooter drills? To pay a ransom when you need medical care? To enjoy the non existent labour laws?
It doesn't matter how things r now Taiwan began from nothing and look at where it is today. China can put in a lot of manpower that too highly skilled and in time,the graph will interpolate into the best or the semi conductor super power.when us and allies r struggling with internal political and social issues,china is single handedly marching towards , something really great. It's performance in ai ,quantum technologies and investment in securing rare earth metals give a clue to the Chinese check mate
30 years ago, China was "years and years", even decades behind, in everything you care to mention. You would think that they would be centuries behind in such things in Mars rovers and Space Stations. ASML is nervous. If it is not, then it would be stupid. They should not be nervous about their EUV technology. But unless their entire company is only selling EUV, they will be vulnerable to any encroachment in the lower level machines (this is true for ALL foreign semiconductor companies which considers China to be a major market). Because of the sanctions, ASML now all of a sudden has a competitor backed by the Chinese government. This is not Zimbabwe. This is a country with leading in so many fields where they were non-existent just a couple of decades ago. Will ASML get huge financial support from the Dutch government? Does ASML have to worry about quarterly earnings reports? The Chinese have a saying. You can look down on a white bearded grandfather, but you cannot underestimate a poor young man. Mr. Asianometry. You have to tell which is the old man, and which is the young one.
satellites and space stations need high level of technical expertise, but they do not need to compete on the global stage in terms of cost, customer relations, and earliest date of availability. there is a reason why there are more countries with space programs than there are countries with front-end semiconductor manufacturing industries. it doesnt matter if China's next spacecraft launches in 2022 or 2025, as long as it's within budget. Whether the americans or french did it in 2021 at half the cost doesn't affect China's ability to launch their own. But if chinese semi firms can't compete on cost and availability, the government either burns more money or those companies will eventual cease to exist. ASML is the last company i expect China to replace in the supply chain. U think Canon and Nikon didn't have engineering talents and money? They are definitely in better positions than China to compete with ASML. Are they out of their minds to leave such lucrative market entire to ASML? on the subject of money, China's Big fund for semiconductor development is indeed massive, but as of early 2021, its investments in domestic WFE companies is just shy of US$1 billion. ASML's recent 3Q results show they spent EUR$1.8bn in the last 9 month on R&D and has EUR$7bn in cash, which makes China's push in WFE look like a joke. Not to mention ASML has access to superior suppliers from around the globe, they'd be stupid to be scared of Chinese competition at its current state
@@doctorwilly If you are the CEO of my company, I will fire you. You are looking at today and next year. Not 10 years from now. You are not looking at where your biggest market is 10 years rom now. If the Koreans,, Japanese, and Americans cannot access the Chinese market when the Chinese get self sufficient and protective, even at the low end of the market, they will get outcompeted by China. Then who are you going to sell your lithography machines to? You are the one comparing spacecraft to lithography machines. Not me. You are again looking only at technology. I am talking about the will of the Chinese government and the Chinese people. The CEO of ASML is very uncomfortable now. He is fretting about the ban being very bad for his company in the long term. 10 years from now, will ASML be making a 0.5 nm machine? Even if they could do it, the fabs may not be able to use it, and the incremental benefit may not justify the cost. The danger to ASML is NOT when the Chinese can make a 3 nm lithography machine. It is if they succeed with graphene or photonics. That is why I would fire you if you were my CEO.
@@konaIII Just having a strong willpower is not enough and please you should please not talk about wonder materials like graphene that can never leave the lab. Even if you want graphene or photonics you will still need euv as it is an optical and mechanical process.
@@prayagmehta9738I can talk all I want. Like you are. Only people without imagination won't take about the future. Or people who are scared. Or people who are ignorant. Or people who are ill meaning. Will power is not enough. You need hard work, focus, talent, money.. People who will never have these qualities are the ones who won't dream and won't do. By the way, are you a leading world class scientist? If you are, will you let me know that the next step will be now that Moore's Law is failing? If not, please don't talk about anything.
@@prayagmehta9738 look around 50 years ago SONY was the world's biggest electronics company in 1980 GM and FORD were the biggest car companies Companies like Amazon Tesla, didn't exist Microsoft had 40 employees Apple had 1000 employees
ASML, despite being years ahead in its technological advancements, must remain vigilant about the rapid developments happening in its rear. China has made significant strides in various areas, such as poverty alleviation, transportation infrastructure including highways and high-speed rail networks, Beidou (GPS), the Tianzhou space station, solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectricity, and electric vehicle technology. These achievements have allowed them to catch up and even become leaders in these fields in recent years. The primary concern for the West is the fear that China consistently enjoys comprehensive policy support from the entire nation in any field they choose to pursue. Regardless of the pros and cons, China is willing to invest significant resources, both financial and human capital (STEM), to ensure success. Therefore, it would be unwise for any technology company to assume an insurmountable lead in the face of such competition.
Thanks for this. This has been the video I've been waiting for from Aaianometry. I defer to your research, but based on my research; 20yrs seems a little pesimistic. It's true that there is a gulf in knowledge/capability that is min 10yrs but I factor in that this is the first time Chip production has been a superpowers essential strategic resource. PRC will approach chip production with the level of determination approaching that of USAs determination to be the first country to put a man on the moon. This is compared to all previous chip development which, though, highly competitive, has been driven soley by commercial interests. My informed GUESS is that by 2035 PRC will have full range, secure Independent chip production
@SISYPHUS VASILIAS I agree with your assessment. China is between 10-20 years behind the leading edge, probably closer to 10 than 20. A fully domestic 28nm process will likely be possible within the next 2 years. After that, the move to 7nm will be fairly rapid. The real catch up will likely come with the move to 3D stacked chips. Historically major industry transitions are when latecomers have the best opportunities to catch up to and surpass the current leaders.
10 years or so is the usual estimate from experts as reported in the mainstream news media, so that's what I too would go along with. They face formidable obstacles, no doubt; what with the restrictions and sanctions from the US, but China has made amazing strides in some other tech fields, and as the current largest producer of low to medium level chips they are not starting from scratch. The motivation and determination is high, and there is strong political will and a whole-of-society push backed by the government purse. If they can't achieve it, then no one else could. Even the US is quite aware that ultimately it's just a matter of time.
My bet is also around 2035. It takes China 15 years to build their own GPS system and 25 years for space station. Semi is harder but all the physics principles are known. The problem is the manufacturing process.
And while they lack cutting edge tech for newest CPU, they have independent chip industry suitable for army needs (missiles, UAV and so on), thus securing this area completely
It appears EVERYONE is behind ASML. Their culture of partnering with the *best* companies with the *best* technology - regardless of origin - is their secret sauce.
@@TheNefastor That's just North/West European tradition pretty much... I have more paid vacation than ASML employees, and I'm just a lowly IT Tech who makes sure e-mail mail servers remember to check the stamps...
I understand that China is not yet at the frontier of some areas, but at the speed they are catching up.. its impressive.. how many countries can send humans to space, build passenger jet planes, high speed rails, aircraft carriers and stealth planes. i am sure given the govt's emphasis on semiconductors, it won't take longer than 10 or 15 years or so to catch up.
I live in Indian Subcontinent. The long hour (80-100hr/week or more), political intervention, tough assessment for bonuses are all too familiar to me. "Why would the company give u a promotion/bonus?" just think about your CEO openly declaring that on a company conference. My interest to take initiative instantly died when I heard that a few years ago. Maybe not that bad, but similar environment is common in India, China and all the "most rapidly growing" economies of Asia. This is why I believe none of them will never be able to go ahead of the west until the west itself falters.
Unfortunately, the West is destroying itself. Our social elites have been captured by a woke, globalist ideology that is eating us from within, like a cancer. We are abandoning the traits that made us so successful.
@@dalriada842 If the west is going down, then it's because of their demographics. Also, woke and nothing to do with globalist. Just because you dislike both doesn't mean one stems from another or are actually "problems". The "woke culture" is just a BS for the masses, and globalist ideology stems simply from the fact that the west already has too little working age citizen to keep the economy running and thus can't even survive let alone dominate if they don't outsource their work and import talented and/or hardworking young immigrants simultaneously.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 The demographic situation, 'wokeism', and globalism are all linked in the West. The woke Left are the glove puppets of the globalists, pushing a very similar agenda. It's a completely incestuous relationship. Both have sought to undermine the relations between the sexes, which has undermined family creation and the production of children. I'm in the UK. The English speaking parts of the West are at the epicentre of an all-encompassing anti-Western, anti-white, and anti-male ideology that is being indoctrinated into our children, and insinuating its way through all levels of government, the media, and industry. You're in India. To use the cancer analogy again. It's like you're feeling a small worrisome lump, whereas my organs are shutting down.
@@dalriada842 I can see that you aren't concerned for the future of the west of humanity at all. You are annoyed about the things that you don't like, and annoyed without having any kind of understanding on them. Look, I'm already tired of all the shits this year. So, just go eat QAnon or whoever is trending now and don't come to annoy people b4 u actually get some education.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 I'm very concerned about the future of the West. I also happen to live here, and see it first hand. I never followed QAnon. Had I realised what an arrogant fool you were, I wouldn't have bothered to reply to your comment. You're an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I wouldn't dream of pontificating about the current social situation in India, because I have no first hand knowledge of it. You, however, feel qualified to pontificate on the situation in the West. The mainstream media gives a highly distorted picture of things here in the West. What makes you think that anything you see, hear, or read in India comes anywhere close to an accurate portrayal?
the commentator, I presume a Chinese, is impartial and knowledgeable. We need this time of objective and yet well-informed analysis. I look forward to future videos like this. My gut feeling (I am not in the industry) that China may well be 20 years behind, but with the whole country behind her, she may not need 20 years to catch up. 5 years? There might be surprises The pay may not be good for an IT guy in China, but think of the parity and not the actual payment
They might be years behind, but Chinese are smart and they are good at self-organization as all East Asians are, the Chinese will catch up within 5 years and with past the US within ten.
I was presuming China is about 20 years behind on lithography technology and this video confirms it. Inventors don't just "grow on trees". There is no easy way to overcome this big technological gap even if China pours more resources on it. It's not just give people bigger wages and they suddenly become smarter, yes they can work harder and longer, but that might not be enough. Carl Zeiss is a unique company, they can't just build another like that in China for 10 years, or even for 20 years. ASML did almost "the impossible" EUV, because of Carl Zeiss optics. Even Canon and Nikon who are very good at DUV lithography couldn't build EUV machine and just surrendered their market share, rather than try to compete.
China uses money to attract talents from overseas. Why do you think China’s AI technology is so advanced? A Chinese American from Google went to work for CCP. Money talks.
It’s easier to catch up than to innovate or break ground. They lag to the most recent technology, but they will get there in faster time than what the original innovation took.
that doesn't mean they'll ever catch up with a late start on extremely complex tech. Seeing their rockets in free fall to earth out of control isn't a good sign.
You may argue that they will catch up eventually. However, this market was once owned by Nikon and Canon - and they lost their mojo. In other videos, Asianometry suggests cultural reasons for this - meaning difficulties in combining uni research, cross-company collaboration and ivory towers. And while certainly different in several aspects, Chinese companies are about as hierarchical as Japanese. You do what your boss tells you to do. ASML is pretty much exactly the opposite - which seems to be the secret sauce of their success.
I don't think it is years and years behind as semiconductor is hitting the technology wall very soon, that is why it make ASML very worried because USA is pushing China to developed their own semiconductor production line.
China already have home made DUV lithography machines, they think it’s good enough for consumers electronics and not as anxious about lack of EUV machines as some people thought they are.
I remember when Trump ban China from American technology in semiconductor manufacturing in 2017, China was only producing 50nm chips. The ‘expert’ says then China was far far far behind and will take 20 years before producing 10nm. Now, five years later, China is producing and selling 7nm. Even Intel is stuck at 10nm. This cycle has been repeated with jet engines, quantum computing, space program…don’t know why there are still program out there that still want to bet against China’s technology development.
Hey, thank you for all the great, informative content. Would you mind adding further reading or sources in which you pull this information from? I would like to read this stuff as well. Thanks.
It’s just unrealistic to have the capability of making everything in one country. Even US doesn’t do that. The key here is the fact that US can and will use semiconductor as a choking point. But China can also do the same with rare earth. In the end there will always be something the Chinese does better than the west and some thing the west does better. Let’s hope the politicians don’t use such matters as bargaining chips to advance their career to the extent of distrusting global economy. In which case only the consumers suffer.
The US has a lot of old rare earth mines that were closed due to environmental regulations, there's a lot of ore still down there. Those mines could be reopened in a pinch....
Plenty of rare earth resources around the world, including here in Australia. At last realization has dawned that we have to build our own processing plants and be prepared to pay more for the finished product, and also manage waste products. There will also be plenty of attempts to stampede investors into particular companies for no better reason than that they are going to process Rare Earths - do your research before laying out any money
So long China remains a challenger to US hegemony, there cannot really be peace between the two countries. US has enjoyed its privileged position for too long to give it up without a fight and their entire culture centered around their perceived superiority with concepts like Manifest Destiny. China is not going to back down after two centuries of being fucked by everyone and getting fucked themselves, so this century is their version of Manifest Destiny.
20 years ago when US banning China from ISS,they have the logic that China will never build a space station,but they can make it... I think the same logic applied in this case.It took times for China to develop their own EUV machine,but I think they will make it...
Misses the point doesnt it? In 10 years EUV will be old technology. This area is hot competition and its defence implications are important and so will recieve funding accordingly...
It will be a breakthrough if China also can come out with an alternative to the current photolithography technology. That will be a true break of the 40years old technology with bright potential.
SMEE and other Chinese firms had to operate in an open international competition environment before the Western bans, it's hard to justify spending millions or billions bringing a product to market when your potential customers, both domestic and foreign, can buy from someone else already established in the market. Now with the competition being blocked in China, ironically by the West, opportunities have risen for Chinese firms to build the domestic semiconductor market and supporting technologies. Also, pay, benefits and vacation days are not always a person's number one priority, national patriotism could play a big factor, more so in China now with the bans and sanctions. Western firms will lose millions or billions because of these bans. These Chinese markets lost perhaps forever. All that revenue and R&D investment will now just circulate domestically within China. Agreed, China may lag behind now due to historical circumstances and market conditions, but that's all changed now over the last few years, the gloves are off now.
Remember that There Chinese Bilionare, that Smugle ex-Soviet, Aircraft Carrier to China. He said he did it because Patriotism. or maybe he is a Spy and its his job. The crazy shit, is Huang Guangyu - China richest man. at similiar time, also bidding on 2 ex-British decomisioned Aircraft carrier. HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible was it true Patriotism ? its very interesting if it is
I do not think SMEE is competing with EUV machines. SMEE is still competing with nikon,canon and ASML. SMIC is still buying foreign lithography machines. Secondly This is high margin, low labour cost industry, so china do not have much advantage. Also Because now chips are linked to national security in every country, Countries are willing to give massive subsidies to these companies. They are not allowing foreign takeover like before.
Cut off from phone chip and telecom for Huawei only other still import and used foreign made chip , as long as the american don't ban all chip to china , the domestic firm only have 1 company that will always buy they chip cause they can't buy from other aka Huawei but even then the ban on Huawei will be lift so only customer left will be china govt and pla
Thank you for your pragmatic approach to your videos. In the US especially, hyperbole and invective rule the social spaces and your approach is refreshing in its open-eyed clarity and self awareness.
Heck imagine if someone managed to create a 250-90nm process litho machine, the size of a 42U server for less than $1mil, that would be a pretty massive achievement for research/ low production. Even if it were 1 wafer per day, it is incredible how the semiconductor is almost entirely dependent on only ASML
I love competition. I think ASML can't shrink to the chip any smaller. There you have it. Twenty years behind will become 2 years of catching up. Welcome to the real world.
China is way more than 2 years behind mass production of 3nm chips. Closer to 20. Photonic and graphene chips will be the new chip technology when silicon chip processes can no longer be viably shrunk...
Definitely an impressive breakthrough, but I would wait for reports about the transistor density and thermal performance of chips produced using SMIC's 7nm process. If China's 7nm chips perform comparably to TSMC's 7nm chips and Intel's 7nm Meteor Lake chips then it has reached parity with the US. South Korea and Taiwan are still in the lead with 5nm and 4nm chips in production with 3nm chips set to arrive in the near future.
@@JollyOldCanuck wow . Didn’t know 7nm Chinese chips actually possible . Thought that was at least 10 years away per early reports . Guess anything is possible nowadays.
Agreed. Theres are way too many specialized parts involved that come with their own specialized supply chains. Same exact reason China cant just copy fighter jets or aircraft carriers
You sir are correct, I dare anyone try to identify how many PhD's are on staff there? Now imagine a company that regularly has openings for dual PhD holders? The level of talent at that company is so damn impressive I have yet to see another company with such a robust pool. Truly amazing 👏
![[SFM] Risky Recital](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RzNkY1_Nk3o/mqdefault.jpg)
Please be civil in the comments. Like and subscribe, and all. Check out the Semiconductor playlist for other videos on chips: ruclips.net/p/PLKtxx9TnH76QEYXdJx6KyycNGHePJQwWW
First few comments and immediately civility is dead on arrival lol. Excellent video tho, albeit a bit disheartening :c
Im just genuinely confused with your sign off. You said you want to hit 100,000 subs but you’re already at 137,000…
I made this video three months ago, back then I was pretty far away from 100K. It's been sitting in Early Access for a while since then.
@@Asianometry yeah you’re channel has blown up recently. Congrats on the success and keep up the great work.
@Hans Otto Kroeger Kaethler While I do believe China is currently 20 years behind; though I suspect it may take it less than that to "catch up".
As someone about to finish a PhD in an optics discipline, software engineers typically earn more. The problem is that when you're in a very specialised field you have fewer potential employers, and therefore a worse negotiating position. Software engineers operate in a much, much bigger market and that drives salaries up.
thank you
there are enough professionals around the world, who are out of job and seeking opportunity to work in China. see. Lithography machine, weather DVU or EVU, whichever was developed and made by human, and human could develop and made the same in land of PR china. see. Investment, resource, time, professional ... could make any stuff on earth and china shared enough land on earth. see Before Beidou and Space Station, anyone from west claimed that Chinese could make it?
Sad truth
most software engineers starts with a low salary. Get to learn new languages to grow up.. How have you updated yourself? if the software engineers do not want to learn new, they stay at the same level. Unfortunately the growth in many fields are slow in terms of new technology. seldom you see a family doctor becomes a specialist or surgeon. They choose their field and live for it. Don't worry, every 7 or 8 years the software engineer looses his job. must struggle to get new job.
@@subramaniamchandrasekar1397 Not every country pays low salaries like India!!!! Your nation is doomed with current salaries!
Thank you for taking the time in your life to purchase these journals, do this level of research and present information in an rather unbiased way, newsletter is worth the sub.
exactly
Will do, only Fcuk CCP. Unless you are.
lol, this is biased for sure. One should take it with a grain of salt.
Unbiased way ? Your head
Purchase? Scihub is the way.
I think many people are missing the point of China's push in the industry. Commercially successful machines aren't that important, acquiring key technologies is.
Having working prototypes and being able to make all components of computers and other electronics is what really matters.
Being a huge market for foreign companies won't give China much leverage in international affairs if they don't have the possibility of replacing (albeit at a higher cost) those imports with domestic equivalents at will.
Security is another factor: if the US and its allies were to impose a total embargo on China, having prototypes and knowhow in chipmaking could prevent the complete collapse of the economy.
So successful and profitable products aren't what's driving China's push into the lithography market, in my opinion.
@obimk1 excatly, China is in better position in deposition and etching but they are badly behind asml that it is not even a joke.
Asml recruits from the globe and China does not have access to the leve of talent that asml has.
24 NANOm & 3 NANOm! Who cares?! My car’s ecu still works!
I don’t need to eat west caviar. I know how to cook fried rice for myself. I will survive. Until d day my child knows how to farm caviar!
@@prayagmehta9738 China doesn't need to match asml. China being the largest market in the world has enough leverage for asml to sell to China their machine. Without the China Market asml won't have the revenue for their r&d. Last year Asml only sold five euv machines.
@@djtan3313 The problem is that your child would have to farm caviar while everyone else has moved on to more advance methods, I understand the security concerns but refusing to participate in global trade network will deprive not just you but your descendances (that is an ethical problem not for you to decide).
If the machine are sold at the same price the more performant capture more of the market share ,
China is behind because of an embargo of the United state in certain product
Practically speaking, a Chinese alternative to ASML might be viable even if it lags technologically. As the world recently discovered with the semiconductor shortage, the chips that were impossible to find were not the cutting edge specimens, but older technology with thinner margins used in cars and other embedded devices.
This suggests there might be a market opportunity for a company to build older process nodes, especially in an increasingly digitized society with smart devices everywhere.
Yes, in fact China has recently refocused its efforts into what it considers mature chip technology, instead of trying to catch-up with current cutting edge technology
Indeed. What actually use 28nm and smaller process chips? Cell phones. Nearly all the chips in your fridge, air conditioner, the elevator, etc, runs just fine on decades old several hundred nm processes without you ever noticing. Your car battery can't be drained by a 320nm chip, or a hundred. Once the 1.5nm wall is hit, it can't go smaller anyway without moving on to carbon based chips, and china already built a patent wall around that.
@@georgedang449 There is physical limit to silicon, carbon nano is the future i would think, and i don't think anyones ahead.
@@johnm9893 They're not trying to make money on it, they just want to make sure sanctions don't disrupt their economy or supply chain.
Good luck with china to produce 100 nanometer parts with milling/turning process, the optic, six sigma level deffects on waffer and 100% service level like ASML does since 2000
Well over 100k subscribers now! Congratulations and thanks for all the hard work that you do to keep us educated! Been a paying subscriber for months now - has been worth every dollar spent!
Having worked in lithography I can confidently say that semiconductor manufacturing is INSANELY complex and the rate of advancement is incredible. I don't know of any industry branch that even comes close. Whole batallions of scientists work on EUV optics, manufacturing mirrors with pm form errors, mechanical stages with insane speed and positioning precision, etc.
You don't learn that stuff at university and companies like ASML, Zeiss or Cymer publish only what they need to to get a patent. Then you have to find ways around existing patents, although I'm not sure if that'll be an issue for some Chinese firms...
ASML already has a couple of competitors (Nikon for example) with decades of experience in lithography (though not at EUV). There's no chance in hell a newcomer will be a real competitor at the smallest nodes anytime soon.
Not without a healthy dose of industrial espionage.
@@Renzsu That's not so simple. As the video mentioned, the most important factor in this industry is human resources. Without human, those complex lithography machine would be useless. You have to have the basic knowledge of how to run them, each and every nanometer of it's operated, maintenance, software and thousands of accessories that other tech company hold... China want to build an inhouse lithography machine is fine, but to compete it is close to impossible without a great breakthrough from talented scientist which they do not attract due to low pay and rigorous and unrealistic practice relate to China's policy and Chinese culture
@@lynch8067 You're right of course. I was in a bad mood when I made that comment.
@@Renzsu they had a board member working in ASML once he went on holiday he didn't return and set this up.
@@lynch8067 Humans? The species pre-AI and Quantum computers?
Just want to say really appreciate the work. Just out of mechanical engineering college and recently started working as a tech in a fab. We're only really trained on our specific toolset so it's interesting to learn a lot more about the industry as a whole here.
It seems to me they have made some decent progress. They can address close to 50% of their TAM and keep improving the technology while they do it.
the massive domestic market and the deep connection in east asia tech company seems really beneficial, we have to look at long term....
Shhhhh, just let the west keep on believing their narrative, China still needs to buy some time
The first company to develop a technology can commercialize it and make a ton of money - they have no competition on the market. When a competitor arrives years later their investments are already payed off and they can afford to keep prices so low that the late-comer could never cover their investments.
In these cases the late-comer can only win if the leader makes a massive blunder, or the newcomer leap-frog to a new generation product both companies have no experience - like digital cameras allowing Sony to leapfrog Kodak, and electric cars allowing Tesla to gain on traditional automakers.
In this case I think it is more about strategic security in case of a US embargo, rather than commercial profit in the next few decades.
The first company that created the photolithography machine is Texas Instruments (TI). And the first company that used that technology to mass produce microprocessor is Intel. None of them are market leader. TI is practically out of this, and Intel is gasping.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 Blunder of almost a decade of stuck at 14nm is what made Intel losing marketshare, even with all of that Intel actually still hold 75%(down from 90% in 2018) due of OEM and low end market. So Intel actually is still market leader at least for now.
excellent explanation of the first mover advantage
Just like with electric cars, it's just a change of track and everyone starts to compete at the same level again. Otherwise, latecomers will never be able to catch up.
It doesn't matter how much they lag behind. What all matters is they attempt and already did something. No other country has guts to do that.
It is not about gut, it is about necessity.
Exactly 💯
Low effort post. ASML definitely has competition. Nikon? Canon? LAM? Applied Materials? KLA?
They don't lagged behind. It is just the obstacles of the existing patents and Chinese engineers are reinventing the wheel. But they are pretty close.TSMC will soon faded away. US can't build an EUV lithography on her own despite all the misinformation. Period.
@@vengefulspirit99this company work with supply chain but Chinese company setup entire supply chain in china
Everything China have may be years behind but the importance is keep moving forward beside looking for alternatives. From years to months to someday more advance.
On China being years behind.... Is that the normal year? Or Chinese faster engineering year? 😁😁😁
It does make a difference, and wouldn't be so gloomy at all.
It takes far less time to develop a process when you already have a mature example to study. Even if they are 10 years behind in development chronologically, I expect they can catch up in 5. And even if not, in all but the smallest/densest electronics 10 vs 7 vs 2 nm does not make that big a difference.
Okay, maybe that's true, but I don't see how videos of cute Chinese girls whispering into microphones is going to help China geopol... oh... I think I misread that...
Oh, they'll hypnotize you
No
"Years Behind" is much, much better than countries that even have not started.
how about better than can't even manufacture correctly after given the full recipe?
Only if they get a real return on all those billions if they don't then the country's that never tried are much better off.
@@scarletmoon777 besides commercial purposes there are also strategic ones. A country without its own armaments is necessarily under someone's control.
@@ccwong75 They are already making lithography machines they are at 28 nm after that it is 14nm then 7nm
ASML's most advanced machine currently is 7nm
>In July Wen Xiaojun from China’s Electronics and Information Industry Development Institute said that Chinese foundries would achieve mass production of the 28nm node this year and 14nm next year, relying on end-to-end Chinese tools. SMEE’s 28nm lithography machine is now being shipped to clients too, but tech experts believe the jump to 14nm will prove more difficult
@@xblade11230 you do realize Chinas 28nm machine has loads of core japanese made components in it and that can also be stopped in an instant
Can you update this based on the current situation where Minerva is a 7nm chip made in CN?
He can’t do that for near future. You know, narrative is a thing nowadays.
You got you 100k subs! Great quality as usual!
Why build an inferior car, when you can buy a market leading available car?
To collect skills and tools required to one day build a market leading car.
Meanwhile, if the market refuses to sell you a car, you can still have an inferior car.
It does't work as well, but it still gets you point A to point B.
except this doesn't exclusively impact vehicles but the whole IT and electronics. And it's more an efficiency issue at more than a thousand scale rather than a matter of comfort.
China built inferior cars. Only 5 years ago, there were still exact copy pasta Chinese cars. 10-15 years ago, quite terrible cars.
But now, they are making proper good cars.
Bigger challenge with semiconductors but they'll sort it sooner or later.
@@TsLeng True, to be honest so many people are kinda.... racist, its a just a stereotype borderlines on the assumption of 1.4b ppl incapable of matching "tHe mAsTer rAcE" in the west, people acted the same way in the 80s towards the Japanese, now its the Chinese, and eventually Indians will get the same treatment.
@@TheRealIronMan Koreans somehow escaped because they are a puppet state of the US and never got strong enough. Well not yet.
I hope Indians can realise this sooner than later because like you said, it's coming for them as soon as they gain power inevitably. Assuming the US still is a superpower that time lol
But that is not guaranteed that this way you get a market leading car. It's one big gamble.
Great video! Love your content. Wanted to let you know that Cymer is pronounced “Symer”, and is derived from “excimer laser.”
Looking forward to additional great content!
Сhina doesn't want to replace ASML, it just wants to have a homegrown alternative due to the US ban on ASML selling EUVs to Сhina. Which will only accelerate the process so they'll catch up sooner rather than later.
Not really , they’ve already proven that thei don’t have the intellectual capacity or work ethic to achieve this . That’s why China only does final assembly of hitech products (cars, computers , phones , locomotives) while nearly all the actual complex components inside them are made in US/Korea/Taiwan/EU/Japan
@UCMLk3NCHwp2_hzz8Rc00UBw Oh China of course can make it, we've been so used to Chinese manufacturing that we've given them blueprints to basically everything, or better yet, they conduct espionage.
Even then, with the blueprints, they're so incompetent that they can't even copy it right 😂
Edit : the person I was commenting to deleted their comment for some reason.
@@randomdude4110 Dude, to build such a crazy machine to such insane tolerances needed as an EUV machine.. that's impossible for the Chinese. The EUV machine totals 4,5 million lines of code.. that's insane!
@@chronokoks To be completely fair, they have just about everything needed to do this, but the quality of it, would be subpar at most.
Giant projects like that are rife with corruption and incompetency. Which leads into bad quality control, and countless other issues that other people more experienced in the field can explain better.
@@bigmedge Not really, every US ban has proven that China is perfectly capable of developing a homegrown alternative. That's exactly how they have developed the first reactor to ever use the third-generation nuclear power technology, became the world leader in the photovoltaic, drone, fintech and EV sectors, are at the forefront of quantum computing, created their BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, the homemade Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer chips, build the Tiangong Space Station, sent a rover on the dark side of the Moon and on Mars etc. etc. etc. All of which shows what happens in China after a US ban. As they say, what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger.
China's advancement really needs to be seen from the perspective of constantly being cut off or limited from the global supply chain due to political interference from the Untied States.
This of course have hindered Chinese growth, BUT, it has also forced China to develop a domestic supply chain. Given time, China will achieve core technology independence.
The global supply chain is also what has helped China advance so fast from technology transfers, trade….It is only when China starts acting badly that the US pull back.
Or perhaps China acting badly is a result of it's hands being forced.
It will be interesting to see how it continues to develop. The more its being force to do things its own way, the less it will need to conform to everyone's wishes.
Ultimately, China should be focus on its own needs first, just like any other countries. Outside opinions be damned. There is no permanent friends esp in the political arena, just common interest. Build yourself up as strong as possible, as quick as possible. The lessons that are gained in the past from other countries ( opium war for China and gunboat diplomancy for Japan and other colonies) should not be forgotten. The weak will always fall prey to the strong.
No one is as concern of our own survival as ourselves.
@@johnl.7754 "acting badly" by challenging the American hegemony.
@@Highwind79 The reaction by the USA against China is based on a purely economic viewpoint that is disguised as a political or security action. As China use of mass protectionist measures and policies initiated an economic retaliation that resulted in the issues we have today.
The current Xi administration policy of made-in-China-2025 was an incredible and unnecessary stupid action. As it was a pretty much like a giant middle finger to the west. As the initiated required and supported the use of forced-joint-ventures, state-directed IP
theft, mass tariffs and industry quotas, direct targeting of foreign acquisitions to boost Chinese capabilities, encouragement of cyber-espionage, Local content requirements, forced technology transfers.
A far more smarter and better approach would be to engage in a more slower, but more linked initiative that encouraged the incorporation of western companies and economies. As due to the greater connection between economies and the USA exports to China there would be a substantial greater penalty to the USA economies if the USA attempted to reduce trade with China. It would also result in a dramatically reduced desire of USA companies and politicians to reduce trade with China due to the massive balance of trade disparity between with the USA and China.
@@Highwind79 The weak will always fall prey to the strong. As the Tibetan and Uighurs know well just as China draws lessons from the opium war so too should all nations learn from how China treats the weak.
Practically speaking, China doesn't need to develop a better technology. As long as it can build an OK alternative showing the trend of catching up, it can leverage it as a bargaining chip to push the western companies to persuade the government to reopen the sale, fearing that they are losing the market share(China's domestic market and other companies which might try China's solution for lower price) and cultivating a competitor due to an ineffective policy. It's China's challenge as well as opportunity to decide if it will be on the table of US or at the table with US.
However if China stop developing new technology, US will try everything it could to kill China immediatelly
This guy gets it.
All China has to do is steal the tech via cyber or industrial espionage. Or let in a foreign company and force them to give up their secrets, then boot them out a few years later.
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics!
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 : Indeed, doesn't seem to be working through, and as pointed out in the story, people are as, if not more so important. So unless China starts resorting to kidnapping, tech transfer is only going to do so much.
@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368 Lmao! You really believe that China could steal technology from western countries? The development of technology basically thanks to the talents who came back to China. The technology for western countries is like the gold to dragons and they protected their treasures very well.
the human capital is a very interesting aspect of this story. I suspect that they will continue to have significant braindrain until Chinese companies manage to retain actual talent. Hard work in the sense of working 12+ hours per day 6 days per week is rarely productive in R&D and only results in people burning out and leaving such companies.
Yup. Unfortunately for them they can't really change away from that because of the inherent structural limitations of the way China and the CCP work. If you're just an average person in China you are basically expected to put your nose to the grindstone until you've got no nose left, and then keep going.
One of the reasons why even though Taiwan and Korea, despite having such a robust semiconductor industry, never even attempted to work on a domestic lithography machine is that the IP barrier in this field is way too powerful. These two countries pretty much exports all of their semiconductor products, IP litigation would've severely disrupted the business, so they just didn't even dare to try. China is different, before opening their markets, their semiconductor ecosystem is strictly domestic. So they can go ahead and "borrow" patented technology without fear of a lawsuit and until recently Japan was secretly assisting their development efforts. But due to the straining of relationships with the entire West, China is going to have a hard time advancing in the lithography machine from now on.
The US also got a HUGE head start in all these fields when they stole every scrap of industrial know how from Germany after WW2. Operation Paperclip was way more than just bringing over scientists, and the millions of TONs of scientific and industrial knowledge has been jealously guarded by the US since.
@@excitedbox5705 a small price to pay for wrecking most of europe
Did AsML not 'borrow' from the Japanese before as well? That's how tech industry works. No company is an island.
Cutting China off from peresent production and chip technology was a tactical mistake. China has plenty excellent engineers and scientists (Those and kosmonaut are kids no. 1 dream job as opposed to RUclipsr in the west). China will have a hard time for a couple years, maybe even a decade, but if they focus their efforts, they will gain momentum and eventually overtake ASML, Japan and the US, especially if they do not neccessarily have to respect patents, that make it difficult to progress even if you fully develop your own technology. The more they get cut off, the less they have to care...
You misunderstand patents system it is not to block other ppl from using the technology and you can get very affordable mostly just percentage of sales license for every patent it is even the law. And this story about patents blocking access is total BS for masses in reality if this is simple and profitable nobody care about patents. In 99% of cases technology is not used due of patents but due of whole technology is very complicate and patent give too less of clue to really finish it. My company tried to copy some receipt from patent and we finished up by just contacting authors and get ready material cuz R&D and implementation of technology already burned few millions too many small details which take time and resources. You can watch document about Japanese transistors industry where licensing patent was just a formal and real know how was visiting the US factories and local training about manufacturing tricks cuz knowing few manufacturing fixtures and how to use it was worth more than whole patent description.
Not every chip need 5nm or less. They can build chips only for cars or something else and earn a billions.
But therein lies a problem: Something like Global Foundries 14nm process is so damn cheap per wafer today that mucking about with 42nm is pointless. 14nm is about four times as dense as 42nm, so you get four times as many chips per wafer. And when your chips are only a quarter the size the packaging gets cheaper, etc, etc. Micron, Samsung Foundry, SK Hynix, Global Foundries, UMC, TSMC and many many more are already 14nm capable. And the automotive market is already shifting towards 10/12nm for the infotainment systems.. Investing in 42nm today is utterly pointless, as there is already excess production capability in that area.
China likes to play the price war game.
@Simple Mechanics If you look back in history. Look how long it took Intel to get to 22nm. Intel had a lot of issues with double pattern alignment. Defect rates were thru the roof. But 14nm was the limit of their laser tech. Also EUV and DUV are US patented technologies. ASML applied to the US gov't for a license to further develop the technology for mass production. Besides most of this tech came from IBM. They just announced a 2nm process this past March. I expect TSMC to bid biggly for this process to keep Intel from mastering it 1st. I expect that the current ASML EUV machines can produce it.
@@andersjjensen what a nonesense. a. SMIC already produces 14nm chips using asml machines. b) excess production that is OUTSIDE of china, because for a country that imports 350 billion worth of chips every year localizing every node they can is of a great deal.
@@0xdeadbabe240 The point being that developing the tools to make DUV lithography is a dead end. Both Canon, Nikon and ASML makes DUV steppers and can deliver on request. Building a factory to build home grown steppers with a sub-par throughput is just bonkers. These are steppers that are going to be in less and less demand. I can certainly get behind the idea of competing for next-gen steppers that will ramp up in production over the next decade... But investing so heavily in something that is on the way *out* is... weird. Looks more like a pride thing than something with financial thinking behind it.
Also I'm fairly certain that the majority of those 350 billion worth of imported chips are made on the advanced nodes. It's not like SMIC is a small fry with insignificant throughput. And both TSMC and GloFo has foundries in China too. So there is plenty of domestic production. There is plenty of opportunity to hold shares in domestic production.... but it's that pride thing, isn't it? It needs to be "purely Chinese", no matter if it makes sense or not, doesn't it?
People have often underestimated how fast China can leapfrog in a decade. China in 2010 was wildly different from China today. The 2030 China will surprise most.
If we aren't in ww3 by then.
@@danielcockerill3761 when the pitchforks come, money won’t be put to making chips
I remember when Japanese cars were years and years behind their European and American counterparts and so, US and Euro car manufacturers became complacent.
That worked out great, didn't it?
If you don't think they can catch up, you obviously havent been taking notice the last 20 years.
This is really really good info on what’s going on behind the scenes in Chinese lithography. I hope SemiWiki covers this at some point ..
Well, you've already got above 100k subscribers, so mission accomplished.
Yeah didn't he notice or something? He's already 40k over. Lol.
He probably means 100k subscribers to his email newsletter ...
I deeply appreciate your coverage on china. Very enlightening and saves me the trouble of sifting through murky waters.
Anything up to 7 nm will be good enough to be self sufficient for most electronic appliances. Banning foreign chips would kill the market and foreign R&D will dropped.
Why would 7nm be the magic number? What is cutting edge now will not be cutting edge forever.
@@1schwererziehbar1 Because there's only a handful few companies even in global market that need their processors to be fabricated at 7nm or smaller, all of which already had TSMC printing their chips.
That, and the cost for machinery for fabricating chips gets exponentially more costly after 10nm mark. GlobalFoundries had halted their 7nm process upgrade for this reason.
@@1schwererziehbar1 only the latest phones have 7nm and below chips .Everything else is on mature nodes
@@s.k634 no even budget phones are beginning to use 7nm chips
@@prayagmehta9738 honestly, I think this is more a matter of what is the cheapest node for budget phones. Compared to a 45nm chip, the real gain is power efficiency rather than usage of more performance.
I truely enjoy the way you sprinkle in little bits of humour it really give a flavour, rather than just a dry info dump. Time to update that subscriber goal.
Thanks for the great video. I work in the semiconductor equipment sector. Competition is tough.
Although I agree with the author on SMEE lagging behind ASML , I feel he has not taken into account one important factor of how China catches up with the technologies. Although not the same but Fighter jet engines, is one of the most difficult technology in military space China was lagging behind others a few years ago, but now countries are shocked how China caught up in a short span. It's an incredible story worth mentioning. Moreover, ASML CEO in one article said it would take China 3 years to catch up with ASML. This maybe true or not but definitely China is catching up, it's just a matter of time a breakthrough happens. Here goes the saying semiconductors are man made not made by GOD.
Is it true? Has China really caught up in Jet Engine?
No he said it would take about 15 years, not 3! They are not catching up in the next 10 years for sure. Especially not 3!
@@militaryrankings4325 Probably not, his ASML CEO quote is also wrong.
@badger, the ASML CEO said it would take China about 5 years to developed EUV technology
Currently they have not catched up at any technology yet. Not like Japan or South Korea or not even as much as Taiwan. This mostly has to do with government style. Both Japan, South-Korea and Taiwan have democratic government style. Which is more reliable on important systems, rather than some control freaks in the CCP who can change the rule day by day. 3 years? Never, you know nothing about this world. China got zero EUV technology. That means automatically 10 years or more behind.
Your channel deserves more than 1 million subscribers!
Besides, a lot can happen in a decade.
Edit: Photo masks for immersion lithography among other components as mentioned in 8:45 can still be subject to an export ban upon China, thus driving the CCP to accelerate its research, and splurge ever more money into such research. So the next time you hear about a milestone in China's immersion lithography, pay attention to how much they've had to sink in.
Does it really matter how much they sink on it, if they consider it a core competency for economic security/independence? While ROI may be desired, this is more important than commercial manufacturing in the long term.
Thanks. I know NATA CEO, XC Sun. This is the first time that I heard them do photomask. He told me they do photoresist through acquiring another company. Their main business is metalorganics and arsine/phosphine gas for LED.
In 1977, they were 20 years behind the world leader in lithography. In 2021, they're still 20 years behind the world leader in lithography. I'm no expert, but this tells me that it is not easy to advance in this industry.
China just can't steal their way into being a world leader, that's what this tells me.
Their universities are garbage--nothing but indoctrination centres that are focused on making sure the students don't learn too much, lest another Tiannemen "incident" happen.
This channel did a good story on other counties attempts. Controlling the small is very hard, and multiple reasons to fail. Plus, the leaders aren't standing still waiting for everyone else to catch up.
It tells me they haven't been really trying hard since they had unlimited access to chips from overseas.
@@JohnWayne-dh8gl I'm quoting the video.
“I would like to reach 100,000 subscribers someday.” Well, that certainly happened a lot sooner than you imagined. Congratulations on that, well deserved!
China: willing buyer
ASML: willing seller
US: "wait that's illegal"
China: bullies US allies
US: stops trading certain tech
China: "Wait, that's illegal"
US: bans China from buying SoC
China: produces their own SoC
US: wait, that's illegal
@@Janaale You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig....
@@stephenjenkins7971 The US has banned the export of high technology to China for 70 years
@@stephenjenkins7971 Are you on medication ?? When did china bully Netherlands, Taiwan ? It's only after your 45th President's HOOHAA that relations took a backsliding. Stop projecting your absurd low mentality.
Behind is a fact and the other fact is that China is making progress...
The reason why China's chip technology is backward is actually the result of the honeymoon period between China and the United States.
Most Chinese companies can buy the chips they want from the United States or other countries,
resulting in their weak willingness to support local chip companies in China. Since the start of the Sino-US trade war,
the United States has increased its pressure on Chinese high-tech companies, turning the original desire to purchase products from European and American companies from local Chinese companies to purchasing. This is what China has been lacking before [business motivation to promote technological progress]
True possibly. Yet how about all those pop up companies that started just to steal grant money from the government and vanished? China is a crooked, corrupt, slimy country. A country where a lot of people have no morals which is why so much dirty bullshit corruption happens. Look at HK and Taiwan, same people but better!
@@Renwoxing13 Your username makes your opinion on China kinda moot. It's also quite bigoted. Don't like Chinese bigotry? Don't do it yourself; be better.
@@Renwoxing13 Corruption happens everywhere. Just look how much Trump's unfinished wall on the Mexican border cost. Trump's wall cost more on a per km basis than China's high speed rail.
The reality is that China has not really funded semiconductor R&D at a national level over the past 20 years. The assumption was that free trade with the US would render such funding a waste of money.
@@jefferyzhang1851 Try watching non-propaganda news channels.
@@AuthGate does that even exist? Lol
Thanks!
Here is my 2 cents worth.
Lithography machines are one of the most complicated piece of engineering which are developed in partnership with some of the best companies in their respective field.
1. Due to history of tech spying, best developers do not wish to work with any Chinese and US’s approach in re-aligning supply chain is going to make it impossible.
2. One small diplomatic quarrel is making Things much harder for China. Lithuania is one of the leading country in making laser equipments in the world and has 30-45% market share in each respective field. The current diplomatic disputes will make it much harder for Chinese to approach any of their technologies. This will add one more thing to develop but very very hard and costly to develop.
Of all the countries to get upset at, in what universe does it make sense to target Lithuania? Doesn't make any sense.
@@m2heavyindustries378 It makes perfect Chinese sense: "Our scientists are not nationalistic enough and recommend that we buy our lasers from Lithuania. Quick! Make up a reason to print in the news paper about how Lithuania is a racist/bigot/discriminating/infringing state that hates China so we can tell our scientists they need to work 80 hours a week to develop the lasers we need!"
It is a clearly defined goal of the Chinese government to attempt to end all imports of any kind. Everything should be Chinese made in China. And most things should be Chinese made in the rest of the world.
There are only three countries in the world the that can produce argon fluoride excimer lasers, the US, China and Japan, i fail to see how Lithuania is going to help China in this situation.
lithuiania a leader in laser tech? what a joke.
I heard many joke everyone I visit YT. Only in YT I heard irrelevant country in tech arena appeared brought up by a stranger in YT. There's no top laser companies from Lithuania. I have checked Yole Development and market research.
This video popped up on my feed yesterday but i forgot to watch it. I'm glad it popped up again. You are doing a good job btw, I love all your videos.
this is pretty hard, since China has to make everything in house, even ASML doesn't do that. so its really not a fair comparsion.
i think the biggest difference right now is that the gov has realistic expectations (compared to 20 years ago, they think it can be done with a guy from ASML). they set a timeline of 10 years
You can't compare a country with a company though. China isn't counting on a single company to replicate the whole lithography supply chain either. There is a whole network of people in academia and industry working on this.
No, the comparison is between today Chinese aggressive diplomacy forced them to try to imitate foreign technology and the peaceful, understanding China under Hu Jintao. We wouldn’t have to discuss China’s trying to do this. ASML would simply corporate with Chinese companies and laboratory to create better products, rather than China having to spend millions of dollars to get where they are. China don’t really want to spend the resource and effort to mobilise its military anyway, so why build those islands, threaten Taiwan, choking out Hong Kong? Is political popularity really needed such sacrifice? Didn’t an interconnected world beat the Nazi, then Soviet Union, which China was part of the winning side as well?
@@lc9245 The examples about Hong Kong and Taiwan are wrong, China is far from being aggressive in front of the US, not to mention they are both internal Chinese issues, unless one day China's overseas bases have spread to the doorstep of the Five Eyes Alliance, then it can be called aggressive, otherwise I prefer to call it a competitive disadvantage. Many people have forgotten that for so many years the two Chinese political parties in mainland China and Taiwan are currently only in a ceasefire, in reality the civil war has not ended at all, and the US government is well aware of this, so it has never officially recognized the legitimacy of the Taiwanese government, but behind the scenes it relies on the media to keep giving you the idea that they are independent. To better understand why East Asia has become what it is now, it would be better to understand the influence of the West in recent history and how China became a broken aristocracy, I think there is always something more important for a country than mere economic interests
@@meko8874 It wasn't economic interest, it's political interest. What kind of competitive advantage involves building artificial island and airbase in South China Sea? Ramming foreign fishing boats? What competitive advantage involves sending military vessel all the way to Guinea to Australia? What competitive advantage involves blocking Australian goods? Those are posturing to exude the image of powerful to political opponents, internal ones.
The status of Taiwan and the state of war isn't connected. Nation independence depends on their ability to exercise power over their current claimant territory. Taiwan can do that, it has an independent army because it has the backing of the U.S. Regarding the one China problem, that's an excuse to hang onto when war started. After all, many parts of China today wasn't part of Chinese kingdom since ancient time, and China itself have had various independent kingdoms when it splits apart. I also failed to see how one China policy should prevent China from maintaining the status quo to reap the benefits from international trade. China under Hu Jintao had maintain the same stance against Taiwan yet still able to trade and benefits from relationship with Western companies.
But, I concede, I do not know what Xi is going through internally. Perhaps the remnant of the old Jiang's influence necessitates a radical stance to maintain Xi's power. In any case, if it weren't for politics, China could have developed like Japan, slowly but steadily. The Japanese didn't catch up to the West, but they have their own technology and what they don't, they can simply import, rather than having to develop and manufacture their own like China due to political tension.
@@lc9245 go do some home work before regurgitating western narratives. Competitive advantage of the man made islands? How about national security from USA's aircraft carriers? Too blind to see that? Look at Iraq, accused of having WMD and country was destroyed with a small vial of laundry detergent. Of course you won't ever acknowledge that because if you did all your jibberish would be contradictory.
You say the land china owns is not part of ancient china's yet they been part of china much longer than the land USA annexed from the indigenous people of North America. Why don't you ask USA to give the land back to the natives? If you don't know anything better just to stfu!
This is a great channel.
Thank you for your informative and insightful commentry
Being 20 years behind isn't as bad as it sounds, you can produce most of the todays chips with that technologies - no high end CPU or GPU and similar "on the edge products but most of the industrial technology that doesn't need a cooling fan doesn't depend on higher resolution. And in the worst case of an embargo a 20 year old CPU is better than none.
Lol. Do you think anyone would buy Chinese products like smartphones or telecommunication equipment like 5G if they used chip technology from 2001? Do you think Alibaba or Baidu can run their data centers with chip technology from 2001? Do you think Chinese car companies can compete in self-driving cars with GPUs from 2001? Give me a break.
20 years is a long period of time in tech advancement, this is really bad. Sure it's good enough for basic IC and discrete components but even on the microcontroller , DSP or MEM levels this is quite a huge technology gap. Sure you can build low power chips with that but not as integrated, performant and efficient as foreign chips. Sure industrial machines mostly use very old and basic electronics, they don't care about fanless though, but for other crucial tasks like R&D, design or communication companies need relatively performant computers.
Without at least a 45nm node ready for production a tech embargo will be a difficult step backward for the interior market and whole infrastructures.
20 years behind is bad, thats practically useless for modern demands.
Disagree. The exponential growth in nature of semiconductors makes the 20 year gap much larger than any other industry.
20 years is bad.
Imagine swapping your smartphone, PC laptop, TV, for stuff powered by chips from 20 years ago.
As a Chinese EE engineer in US and has working experience in semiconductor industry, the pay gap is much larger than shown in video. Assuming a top 5 university highly-skilled PhD graduate working in the top tier company like SIEMENS can not even afford a house in Beijing,China after 15 years hard work, sound ridiculous right? But this is what is happening in China. The land is
owned by government and they gain so much from selling it which results in unbelievable high house price. Many people do nothing but gathering the rent from the young talent and what I get after 8 years studying EE is only despair. Even at 10hours per day and 6days per week, I can not afford a house and without a house my child can not even go to the public school! What a joke!!!!
Now I move to US and work for a US semiconductor company. Fair compensation and reasonable house price,most important the child can get access to the public school even you live at an apartment. The easiest way to defeat China is to offer a green card to every Phd who are willing to move to US and the high tech industry will be ruined.
Reasonable house prices in the US? WHere? IDAHO? Your scheme would work until the racists start their culture wars again and treat all Chinese PhDs doing research as some sort of spy again.
The US is doing the opposite, kicking out Chinese talent. Plus , no one in their right mind would go to the US now.
Seriously...Why? For the kids to go to school and practice active shooter drills? To pay a ransom when you need medical care? To enjoy the non existent labour laws?
I think if you go calculating evry thing together that it is even bether to work in the Netherlands
It doesn't matter how things r now
Taiwan began from nothing and look at where it is today.
China can put in a lot of manpower that too highly skilled and in time,the graph will interpolate into the best or the semi conductor super power.when us and allies r struggling with internal political and social issues,china is single handedly marching towards , something really great.
It's performance in ai ,quantum technologies and investment in securing rare earth metals give a clue to the Chinese check mate
30 years ago, China was "years and years", even decades behind, in everything you care to mention. You would think that they would be centuries behind in such things in Mars rovers and Space Stations.
ASML is nervous. If it is not, then it would be stupid. They should not be nervous about their EUV technology. But unless their entire company is only selling EUV, they will be vulnerable to any encroachment in the lower level machines (this is true for ALL foreign semiconductor companies which considers China to be a major market). Because of the sanctions, ASML now all of a sudden has a competitor backed by the Chinese government. This is not Zimbabwe. This is a country with leading in so many fields where they were non-existent just a couple of decades ago. Will ASML get huge financial support from the Dutch government? Does ASML have to worry about quarterly earnings reports?
The Chinese have a saying. You can look down on a white bearded grandfather, but you cannot underestimate a poor young man. Mr. Asianometry. You have to tell which is the old man, and which is the young one.
satellites and space stations need high level of technical expertise, but they do not need to compete on the global stage in terms of cost, customer relations, and earliest date of availability. there is a reason why there are more countries with space programs than there are countries with front-end semiconductor manufacturing industries. it doesnt matter if China's next spacecraft launches in 2022 or 2025, as long as it's within budget. Whether the americans or french did it in 2021 at half the cost doesn't affect China's ability to launch their own. But if chinese semi firms can't compete on cost and availability, the government either burns more money or those companies will eventual cease to exist.
ASML is the last company i expect China to replace in the supply chain. U think Canon and Nikon didn't have engineering talents and money? They are definitely in better positions than China to compete with ASML. Are they out of their minds to leave such lucrative market entire to ASML? on the subject of money, China's Big fund for semiconductor development is indeed massive, but as of early 2021, its investments in domestic WFE companies is just shy of US$1 billion. ASML's recent 3Q results show they spent EUR$1.8bn in the last 9 month on R&D and has EUR$7bn in cash, which makes China's push in WFE look like a joke. Not to mention ASML has access to superior suppliers from around the globe, they'd be stupid to be scared of Chinese competition at its current state
@@doctorwilly If you are the CEO of my company, I will fire you. You are looking at today and next year. Not 10 years from now. You are not looking at where your biggest market is 10 years rom now. If the Koreans,, Japanese, and Americans cannot access the Chinese market when the Chinese get self sufficient and protective, even at the low end of the market, they will get outcompeted by China. Then who are you going to sell your lithography machines to?
You are the one comparing spacecraft to lithography machines. Not me. You are again looking only at technology. I am talking about the will of the Chinese government and the Chinese people.
The CEO of ASML is very uncomfortable now. He is fretting about the ban being very bad for his company in the long term. 10 years from now, will ASML be making a 0.5 nm machine? Even if they could do it, the fabs may not be able to use it, and the incremental benefit may not justify the cost. The danger to ASML is NOT when the Chinese can make a 3 nm lithography machine. It is if they succeed with graphene or photonics.
That is why I would fire you if you were my CEO.
@@konaIII Just having a strong willpower is not enough and please you should please not talk about wonder materials like graphene that can never leave the lab. Even if you want graphene or photonics you will still need euv as it is an optical and mechanical process.
@@prayagmehta9738I can talk all I want. Like you are. Only people without imagination won't take about the future. Or people who are scared. Or people who are ignorant. Or people who are ill meaning. Will power is not enough. You need hard work, focus, talent, money.. People who will never have these qualities are the ones who won't dream and won't do. By the way, are you a leading world class scientist? If you are, will you let me know that the next step will be now that Moore's Law is failing? If not, please don't talk about anything.
@@prayagmehta9738 look around 50 years ago
SONY was the world's biggest electronics company in 1980
GM and FORD were the biggest car companies
Companies like Amazon Tesla, didn't exist
Microsoft had 40 employees Apple had 1000 employees
Heard this before. Especially true when Intel had a 5+years lead on AMD/Global/TSMC. Those leads shrink very fast when there isnt anything behind it.
Better then any Sci-Fi thing I've ever heard of
ASML, despite being years ahead in its technological advancements, must remain vigilant about the rapid developments happening in its rear. China has made significant strides in various areas, such as poverty alleviation, transportation infrastructure including highways and high-speed rail networks, Beidou (GPS), the Tianzhou space station, solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectricity, and electric vehicle technology. These achievements have allowed them to catch up and even become leaders in these fields in recent years. The primary concern for the West is the fear that China consistently enjoys comprehensive policy support from the entire nation in any field they choose to pursue. Regardless of the pros and cons, China is willing to invest significant resources, both financial and human capital (STEM), to ensure success. Therefore, it would be unwise for any technology company to assume an insurmountable lead in the face of such competition.
Very interesting video. I like how well researched you present the info! Subbed since I found the videos on Russian Oil topic.
Thanks for this. This has been the video I've been waiting for from Aaianometry.
I defer to your research, but based on my research; 20yrs seems a little pesimistic.
It's true that there is a gulf in knowledge/capability that is min 10yrs but I factor in that this is the first time Chip production has been a superpowers essential strategic resource. PRC will approach chip production with the level of determination approaching that of USAs determination to be the first country to put a man on the moon.
This is compared to all previous chip development which, though, highly competitive, has been driven soley by commercial interests.
My informed GUESS is that by 2035 PRC will have full range, secure Independent chip production
@SISYPHUS VASILIAS I agree with your assessment. China is between 10-20 years behind the leading edge, probably closer to 10 than 20. A fully domestic 28nm process will likely be possible within the next 2 years. After that, the move to 7nm will be fairly rapid.
The real catch up will likely come with the move to 3D stacked chips. Historically major industry transitions are when latecomers have the best opportunities to catch up to and surpass the current leaders.
10 years or so is the usual estimate from experts as reported in the mainstream news media, so that's what I too would go along with. They face formidable obstacles, no doubt; what with the restrictions and sanctions from the US, but China has made amazing strides in some other tech fields, and as the current largest producer of low to medium level chips they are not starting from scratch. The motivation and determination is high, and there is strong political will and a whole-of-society push backed by the government purse. If they can't achieve it, then no one else could. Even the US is quite aware that ultimately it's just a matter of time.
My bet is also around 2035. It takes China 15 years to build their own GPS system and 25 years for space station. Semi is harder but all the physics principles are known. The problem is the manufacturing process.
And while they lack cutting edge tech for newest CPU, they have independent chip industry suitable for army needs (missiles, UAV and so on), thus securing this area completely
Before you know it, they will make these machines better and cheaper than what is made elsewhere. It’s only a matter of time.
Especially since Biden stopped the "china initiative" which targeted China spies at US universities, in return for $31 million in bribe money.
No way. China developped in the last three decades because the us allowed it to. Now meh
Better? LMFAO
It appears EVERYONE is behind ASML. Their culture of partnering with the *best* companies with the *best* technology - regardless of origin - is their secret sauce.
"secret sauce".. is that you Secretary Blinken?
@@maddoo23 I like A1 steak sauce
According to the video, it's also better employee treatment and therefore retention of talent.
@@TheNefastor That's just North/West European tradition pretty much... I have more paid vacation than ASML employees, and I'm just a lowly IT Tech who makes sure e-mail mail servers remember to check the stamps...
@@maddoo23 In my understanding, the term 'secret sauce' was first used by McDonald's to refer to the mayo that go in their Big Macs.
Extremely detailed and accurately realised videos! Thank you for these contents
I understand that China is not yet at the frontier of some areas, but at the speed they are catching up.. its impressive.. how many countries can send humans to space, build passenger jet planes, high speed rails, aircraft carriers and stealth planes.
i am sure given the govt's emphasis on semiconductors, it won't take longer than 10 or 15 years or so to catch up.
@@FooBar89 china has all those things that he listed.
I like how the logo of SMEE is just two Enron logos combined.
without the dutch, you can't do much.
What do you mean by reaching 100K subscribers? You're at 141K already!
Anyway, great video as always - thanks for doing this.
I live in Indian Subcontinent. The long hour (80-100hr/week or more), political intervention, tough assessment for bonuses are all too familiar to me. "Why would the company give u a promotion/bonus?" just think about your CEO openly declaring that on a company conference. My interest to take initiative instantly died when I heard that a few years ago. Maybe not that bad, but similar environment is common in India, China and all the "most rapidly growing" economies of Asia. This is why I believe none of them will never be able to go ahead of the west until the west itself falters.
Unfortunately, the West is destroying itself. Our social elites have been captured by a woke, globalist ideology that is eating us from within, like a cancer. We are abandoning the traits that made us so successful.
@@dalriada842 If the west is going down, then it's because of their demographics. Also, woke and nothing to do with globalist. Just because you dislike both doesn't mean one stems from another or are actually "problems". The "woke culture" is just a BS for the masses, and globalist ideology stems simply from the fact that the west already has too little working age citizen to keep the economy running and thus can't even survive let alone dominate if they don't outsource their work and import talented and/or hardworking young immigrants simultaneously.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 The demographic situation, 'wokeism', and globalism are all linked in the West. The woke Left are the glove puppets of the globalists, pushing a very similar agenda. It's a completely incestuous relationship. Both have sought to undermine the relations between the sexes, which has undermined family creation and the production of children. I'm in the UK. The English speaking parts of the West are at the epicentre of an all-encompassing anti-Western, anti-white, and anti-male ideology that is being indoctrinated into our children, and insinuating its way through all levels of government, the media, and industry.
You're in India. To use the cancer analogy again. It's like you're feeling a small worrisome lump, whereas my organs are shutting down.
@@dalriada842 I can see that you aren't concerned for the future of the west of humanity at all. You are annoyed about the things that you don't like, and annoyed without having any kind of understanding on them.
Look, I'm already tired of all the shits this year. So, just go eat QAnon or whoever is trending now and don't come to annoy people b4 u actually get some education.
@@aniksamiurrahman6365 I'm very concerned about the future of the West. I also happen to live here, and see it first hand. I never followed QAnon. Had I realised what an arrogant fool you were, I wouldn't have bothered to reply to your comment. You're an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I wouldn't dream of pontificating about the current social situation in India, because I have no first hand knowledge of it. You, however, feel qualified to pontificate on the situation in the West. The mainstream media gives a highly distorted picture of things here in the West. What makes you think that anything you see, hear, or read in India comes anywhere close to an accurate portrayal?
Subscribed because you shortened argon fluoride laser to ArF "because it sounds cute"
the commentator, I presume a Chinese, is impartial and knowledgeable. We need this time of objective and yet well-informed analysis. I look forward to future videos like this. My gut feeling (I am not in the industry) that China may well be 20 years behind, but with the whole country behind her, she may not need 20 years to catch up. 5 years? There might be surprises
The pay may not be good for an IT guy in China, but think of the parity and not the actual payment
Give China 5 years. I'd be surprised if it took 10 years.
They might be years behind, but Chinese are smart and they are good at self-organization as all East Asians are, the Chinese will catch up within 5 years and with past the US within ten.
I really enjoy your videos. Very informative and easy to undedrstand.
I was presuming China is about 20 years behind on lithography technology and this video confirms it. Inventors don't just "grow on trees". There is no easy way to overcome this big technological gap even if China pours more resources on it. It's not just give people bigger wages and they suddenly become smarter, yes they can work harder and longer, but that might not be enough. Carl Zeiss is a unique company, they can't just build another like that in China for 10 years, or even for 20 years. ASML did almost "the impossible" EUV, because of Carl Zeiss optics. Even Canon and Nikon who are very good at DUV lithography couldn't build EUV machine and just surrendered their market share, rather than try to compete.
china is much better at stealing the technology from others rather then teach their people to be free thinkers and come up with their own designs.
@@larryheath1195 Yeah that was my thought as well, even if I wasn't bold enough to say it lol.
China uses money to attract talents from overseas. Why do you think China’s AI technology is so advanced? A Chinese American from Google went to work for CCP. Money talks.
I wouldn't worry too much for China. They'll just lift the technology from other countries like usual.
China will do what they do best. Steal
It’s easier to catch up than to innovate or break ground. They lag to the most recent technology, but they will get there in faster time than what the original innovation took.
that doesn't mean they'll ever catch up with a late start on extremely complex tech. Seeing their rockets in free fall to earth out of control isn't a good sign.
You may argue that they will catch up eventually. However, this market was once owned by Nikon and Canon - and they lost their mojo. In other videos, Asianometry suggests cultural reasons for this - meaning difficulties in combining uni research, cross-company collaboration and ivory towers. And while certainly different in several aspects, Chinese companies are about as hierarchical as Japanese. You do what your boss tells you to do. ASML is pretty much exactly the opposite - which seems to be the secret sauce of their success.
The value is that only Chinese semiconductor equipment is free of US sanctions. It's an additional advantage.
ASML is more like a system integrator, the difference is that it can buy all the components it needs from the whole world.
8 months later, China is shipping 7nm crypto mining rigs.
China caught up faster than expected.
Indeed, just googled and pretty shocked
I don't think it is years and years behind as semiconductor is hitting the technology wall very soon, that is why it make ASML very worried because USA is pushing China to developed their own semiconductor production line.
having the opposite effect on China in the long run? By stimulating their tech self sufficiency?
China already have home made DUV lithography machines, they think it’s good enough for consumers electronics and not as anxious about lack of EUV machines as some people thought they are.
I remember when Trump ban China from American technology in semiconductor manufacturing in 2017, China was only producing 50nm chips. The ‘expert’ says then China was far far far behind and will take 20 years before producing 10nm. Now, five years later, China is producing and selling 7nm. Even Intel is stuck at 10nm. This cycle has been repeated with jet engines, quantum computing, space program…don’t know why there are still program out there that still want to bet against China’s technology development.
Any update on this topic? Has anything changed? Thanks
Keep in mind that during the chip shortage, the world was more desperate for 28nm chips.
Hey, thank you for all the great, informative content. Would you mind adding further reading or sources in which you pull this information from? I would like to read this stuff as well. Thanks.
It’s just unrealistic to have the capability of making everything in one country. Even US doesn’t do that. The key here is the fact that US can and will use semiconductor as a choking point. But China can also do the same with rare earth. In the end there will always be something the Chinese does better than the west and some thing the west does better. Let’s hope the politicians don’t use such matters as bargaining chips to advance their career to the extent of distrusting global economy. In which case only the consumers suffer.
The US has a lot of old rare earth mines that were closed due to environmental regulations, there's a lot of ore still down there. Those mines could be reopened in a pinch....
Plenty of rare earth resources around the world, including here in Australia. At last realization has dawned that we have to build our own processing plants and be prepared to pay more for the finished product, and also manage waste products. There will also be plenty of attempts to stampede investors into particular companies for no better reason than that they are going to process Rare Earths - do your research before laying out any money
So long China remains a challenger to US hegemony, there cannot really be peace between the two countries. US has enjoyed its privileged position for too long to give it up without a fight and their entire culture centered around their perceived superiority with concepts like Manifest Destiny. China is not going to back down after two centuries of being fucked by everyone and getting fucked themselves, so this century is their version of Manifest Destiny.
Very convincing presentation. Good job.
我很享受这个频道带来的实用知识，看得出来您有过硬的中文内容的背景，期待您的下一部内容。祝愿您生活愉快！
The Chinese lithography machine is 20 decades behind ASML but they are making something better than nothing.
20 years ago when US banning China from ISS,they have the logic that China will never build a space station,but they can make it...
I think the same logic applied in this case.It took times for China to develop their own EUV machine,but I think they will make it...
Misses the point doesnt it? In 10 years EUV will be old technology. This area is hot competition and its defence implications are important and so will recieve funding accordingly...
ASML will not just be sitting there for 20 years waiting for China to catch up. Plus, ISS is actually easier than producing commercially viable chips
This sounded like ASML recruitment advert
It will be a breakthrough if China also can come out with an alternative to the current photolithography technology.
That will be a true break of the 40years old technology with bright potential.
Talking about displays here, wonder if you know anything about microOLED tech in China/Taiwan/SEA?
Thanks!
TCL huaxing display in china has release the product of microOLED TV.
2 more weeks?
I almost felt proud to see @11:52 that Mr. John uses the same translator add-on as me :)
THANKYOU , I ENJOYED THIS REVIEW AND FOUND IT VERY INTERESTING , WELL DONE
Ball bearings!
I'd totally forgotten how important these things actually are~
(Not joking. Great video presentation, BTW!)
Yup. Without ball bearings pretty much everything stops.
SMEE and other Chinese firms had to operate in an open international competition environment before the Western bans, it's hard to justify spending millions or billions bringing a product to market when your potential customers, both domestic and foreign, can buy from someone else already established in the market. Now with the competition being blocked in China, ironically by the West, opportunities have risen for Chinese firms to build the domestic semiconductor market and supporting technologies. Also, pay, benefits and vacation days are not always a person's number one priority, national patriotism could play a big factor, more so in China now with the bans and sanctions. Western firms will lose millions or billions because of these bans. These Chinese markets lost perhaps forever. All that revenue and R&D investment will now just circulate domestically within China. Agreed, China may lag behind now due to historical circumstances and market conditions, but that's all changed now over the last few years, the gloves are off now.
Remember that There Chinese Bilionare, that Smugle ex-Soviet, Aircraft Carrier to China.
He said he did it because Patriotism. or maybe he is a Spy and its his job.
The crazy shit, is Huang Guangyu - China richest man. at similiar time, also bidding on 2 ex-British decomisioned Aircraft carrier. HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible
was it true Patriotism ? its very interesting if it is
Agreed. One simple reason for the unjustified and underhand tactics by US and the West boil down to sinophobia.
I do not think SMEE is competing with EUV machines. SMEE is still competing with nikon,canon and ASML. SMIC is still buying foreign lithography machines.
Secondly This is high margin, low labour cost industry, so china do not have much advantage. Also Because now chips are linked to national security in every country, Countries are willing to give massive subsidies to these companies. They are not allowing foreign takeover like before.
i dunno how chinese firm can be stronger after being cut off from important global suppliers. Their chances of success is better before the ban
Cut off from phone chip and telecom for Huawei only other still import and used foreign made chip , as long as the american don't ban all chip to china , the domestic firm only have 1 company that will always buy they chip cause they can't buy from other aka Huawei but even then the ban on Huawei will be lift so only customer left will be china govt and pla
As always, "20 years" means 5 years in Chinese Time.
2023, and they are still promising 28 nm "next year."
What a great content!
Thank you for your pragmatic approach to your videos. In the US especially, hyperbole and invective rule the social spaces and your approach is refreshing in its open-eyed clarity and self awareness.
Man really pulled out the thesaurus for this comment huh?
Heck imagine if someone managed to create a 250-90nm process litho machine, the size of a 42U server for less than $1mil, that would be a pretty massive achievement for research/ low production.
Even if it were 1 wafer per day, it is incredible how the semiconductor is almost entirely dependent on only ASML
I love competition. I think ASML can't shrink to the chip any smaller. There you have it. Twenty years behind will become 2 years of catching up. Welcome to the real world.
China is way more than 2 years behind mass production of 3nm chips. Closer to 20. Photonic and graphene chips will be the new chip technology when silicon chip processes can no longer be viably shrunk...
Thank you for your insights and analysis and research. Some hard-truths but it is necessary.
Can you talk about China’s recent 7nm chip?
Definitely an impressive breakthrough, but I would wait for reports about the transistor density and thermal performance of chips produced using SMIC's 7nm process. If China's 7nm chips perform comparably to TSMC's 7nm chips and Intel's 7nm Meteor Lake chips then it has reached parity with the US. South Korea and Taiwan are still in the lead with 5nm and 4nm chips in production with 3nm chips set to arrive in the near future.
@@JollyOldCanuck wow . Didn’t know 7nm Chinese chips actually possible . Thought that was at least 10 years away per early reports . Guess anything is possible nowadays.
@@yoichikirigami607 Based on what is being reported SMIC closed the gap by poaching engineers from TSMC by offering them absurd sums of money.
@@JollyOldCanuckcrazy so it won’t be long before we get 1 nm and below chips! Exciting !!!
I'm just waiting for new graphics cards and lower prices.
Good video, gave me perspective I wouldn´t find anywhere else, thanks!
ASMLs core business is so complicated, that the chinese can't copy it even with countless machines to look at and reverse engineer.
Agreed. Theres are way too many specialized parts involved that come with their own specialized supply chains. Same exact reason China cant just copy fighter jets or aircraft carriers
China treyed to coppy ASML, but evry thing is holded secrit ore is patent
You sir are correct, I dare anyone try to identify how many PhD's are on staff there? Now imagine a company that regularly has openings for dual PhD holders?
The level of talent at that company is so damn impressive I have yet to see another company with such a robust pool. Truly amazing 👏