In 2020 and 2021 the consensus by stooges, including some guys here was that Huawei was finished, 28nm was a hard cap, as more ASML scanners got banned. YMTC was condemned to an 128L hard cap in NAND, all SMIC and YMTC tools should had been ossified by now and so on. Is safe to said that what the news says is not even the tip of the iceberg and what we post here is just the tip iceberg. The level secrecy in China semiconductor industry is almost reaching military levels and is blindsiding a lot of stooges in the US.
How Huawei keeps advancing in chip production? How their patterned M1 metal pitch at the same level of Intel? How they are maintaining their banned "imported" tools? How they are able to advance in 3DNAND? 3DRAM? Or as a guy put it when Huawei announced its Tau´s law. How the hell they were able to make high precision bonding tools? How they advanced so quickly <his words>?
SiCarrier and that Yuliangsheng are different companies. Yuliangsheng is in hiring spree so it seems to be legit lithography company.
I think is the contrary, the news are vastly underestimating the lithography situation in China. The production of immersion lithography has been going since 2021 in a 28nm process node, accelerated in 2024 with in a 14nm and think they are closer to 7nm node with domestic immersion lithography. The "mass" production of immersion systems has been happening since a few years ago. They had been iterating the system to get it to work in more advanced nodes.
EUV is bigger deal because I can put my hand on the fire that they already have pilot production lines with domestic EUV systems. There is not other way to explained.
I know you follow at deep level of Lithography (Patents and stuff) and my knowledge is nowhere close to yours as far as the Lithography Supply Chain goes.
One common misconception here is that any Tools good enough for 28nm level can be scaled down to sub 7 nm with small tweaking which is not correct. Etch, Deposition and other crucial steps going from 28nm to sub 7nm requires much more precision, accuracy (and the iteration does not happen overnight). This is why you'll notice even though Chinese companies tools had domesticated 28nm supply chain, sales of AMAT, LAM, TEL were exploding to China in 2024-2025 (for sub 7nm chips). By 2026 these Chinese companies tools became precise enough for sub 7nm Chips (albeit its still at 65-75% Sufficiency)
Now Lets talk about Lithography, from what I was reading in last 5-6 years, SMEE 28nm got delayed repeatedly which was supposed to debut in 2021-2022. But now in 2026 they are good enough for 7nm Chip. Now I don't kow what was happening during last 5 years. Did they have a Prototype DUVi which they were trying to get to work for 28nm or were they trying to get it to work all the way to 7nm.
Late 2023 -2024, Huawei tried to Poach SMEE employees because SMEE DUVi kept getting delayed repeatedly. So In last 2 -3 years the new UEAscend (YuliangSheng) was formed which took over SMEE DUVi to get to work in 7nm chip. So Last year I think it was getting verified in SMIC Fab through late 2025. Now in 2026 this tool is good enough for 7nm Chip (I am assuming). The Information reported 20 shipment in 2027 and ASML Ships approximately 90 DUVi each year to China.
Imagine by 2028 (with more feedback loop and iteration) UEAscend will be able to ship 50 to 60+ DUVi in China and by 2030, China will be 80-90% Self Sufficient in DUVi which is extraordinary to say the least.
Also by 2030 we will get our second or third generation of Huawei phone having chips patterened with a Chinese EUVL. The future is golden