Chinese semiconductor industry

Status
Not open for further replies.
Phead128

Phead128

Captain
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
gadgetcool5 said:
Taiwan and Korea didn't do EUV, they still rely on ASML. And the Netherlands didn't do it either, they rely on suppliers from the US and Germany. In fact a big part of the reason why Japan failed is because they tried to do everything domestically rather than relying on international suppliers. At that time (late 2000s) many companies were trying different methods of EUV. Cymer was the one pioneering LPP which wasn't necessarily seen as the most promising at the time. You never know where the best of the best will come from. It could be anywhere. Thus you need the flexibility to use supplies from anywhere in the world. Only once you have the best supplies can you integrate the best product. This is the problem with a "self-sufficiency drive" of trying to localize everything.
Click to expand...
Japan is only a single nation. China is like 25 nations combined, larger than USA+EU+JPN+CAN+AUS+UK combined, so it has the strength of a large talent pool of engineers and STEM graduates than Japanese can not match. That's why China will succeed where Japan has failed.
 
D

dfrtyhgj

Junior Member
Registered Member
Nah, it's not hard at all. The problem is China lacks hi-tech manufacturing (you will hear this word a lot) for the tolerances required, which they are addressing now.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Overbom said:
The same way you can reverse engineer an engine used in airplanes, you can also reverse engineer an EUV machine

TLDR: Impossible
Click to expand...
Not really. Jet engine markets are not a real market because of both monopoly (only a few major sellers) and monopsony (only a few major buyers). In addition the core components of the engine are made in house under trade secrets. That means there is no real price estimate possible and no way of really understanding the process other than just doing it.

EUV machines are a monopoly but not a monopsony. They can charge a high price but cannot charge uneconomical prices and have people still buy or force products through that make zero market sense through buyer seller collusion. In addition they buy all the critical parts from elsewhere and just assemble them. The key is in the integration, not a particular secret in house components.
 
S

styx

Junior Member
Registered Member
Overbom said:
The same way you can reverse engineer an engine used in airplanes, you can also reverse engineer an EUV machine

TLDR: Impossible
Click to expand...
there are some bottlenecks to overcome but its entirely feasible. When we talk about stealth or atomic bombs we talk about infinitely more complex techs covered by military secret not about "toy grade" civilian tech with some zeiss lenses COME ON.
 
T

tokenanalyst

Brigadier
Registered Member
Overbom said:
The same way you can reverse engineer an engine used in airplanes, you can also reverse engineer an EUV machine

TLDR: Impossible
Click to expand...
I don't think is impossible to reverse engineer an EUV machine but extremely difficult and i think even counterproductive, you see, this machines are not products but projects not very different from particle accelerators by example, all the effort is in the manufacturing process of the components rather than the components themselves, ASML learned while was making the machine, the tools, the software and so on. Having a EUV machine disassemble in front of you teach you nothing about those components, what process, tool tolerances and so on. SMEE can give the blueprints of their SSB-500 lithography machine and will still be difficult to manufacture one without knowing the manufacturing process of the components.
The Chinese are not new in EUV research, i think by the time the Chinese develop their EUV machine, i hope it will be soon, they will be rewarded not only with the machine but also with a whole ecosystem of supplier companies, engineers, technicians and knowledge.
A lot of research time could be wasted in reverse engineering because at the end of the day what is important is to master the manufacturing process of the components than the components themselves.​
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top