That is correct, Taiwan’s main AD threat to China is on the outer islands that house mostly older systems like the Sky bow 1 and and sky bow 2 but those would be destroyed quickly
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
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plawolf
Lieutenant General
In a Taiwan AR scenario, it would be like Taiwan was being double teamed by the older brothers of Israeli and Iran at the same time, as the PLA has an air force with several times the combat capabilities of the Israeli Air Force and a Rocket Force with orders or magnitude more numerous and capable missiles than Iran.
That’s not even bringing into account the navy and army or China’s frankly comically OP drone warfare capabilities. Desert Storm would look like a fair fight in comparison to how overwhelmingly the odds are stacked against Taiwan.
AR has not been about Taiwan’s own combat capability since before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
That’s not even bringing into account the navy and army or China’s frankly comically OP drone warfare capabilities. Desert Storm would look like a fair fight in comparison to how overwhelmingly the odds are stacked against Taiwan.
AR has not been about Taiwan’s own combat capability since before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Do Taiwan have similar rocket artillery that also can strike the Mainland?
Yes but only their 29 HIMARS can they can hit to 190 miles with ATACMS
Chinese companies having access to ASML machines (are currently better) will improve the competitiveness of China's semiconductor fabs. That has direct consequences downstream, from the production of semiconductors and finally to the software stack. This will directly benefit Chinese 6G and AI development for example.
Yes, that will likely mean fewer sales of Chinese machines at the beginning, but I see the downstream benefits being far greater.
And the key point is that this doesn't slow down the development of Chinese lithography machines, because:
1. Chinese companies like SMEE, SMIC and Huawei know that know that the supply of machines will likely be restricted again.
2. Once they develop competitive DUV/EUV machines, they will likely have a large price/performance advantage, and these companies will dominate the industry in the future, along with the profits.
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If you really want to use a drug analogy, then the drug addict knows he can't reply on an external supply of drugs. So he has to develop one himself. It may not be as good or inexpensive as his current supplier, but it will do for now. And it will likely be better and cheaper than the external alternative in the coming years.
As to the nature of this drug, it is legal and results in a lifetime performance boost (versus your competitors) because lithography machines last decades, and ASML versions are currently cheaper and better.
Like with older generation lithography machines, we will likely see 3rd party companies emerge which can service and maintain DUV and EUV machines from ASML. There doesn't have to be dependence.
We currently have 2 competitive suppliers for DUV machines (ASML and Nikon). And Nikon isn't doing very well with only 10% of the market. Realistically, there is only space in the market for a single competitive Chinese DUV supplier.
But I expect DUV machines to be available to every fab in China (and indeed overseas), because the government is sponsoring a lot of this development. The government want Chinese DUV machines to be used everywhere.
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With EUV, the market is even smaller. So there is currently only ASML. Again, realistically, there is only space for a single competitive Chinese EUV supplier. But you have the same dynamics as above.
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As for the profits, look at each step of the current structure:
ASML lithography machines: ~100%? profit margin
TSMC semiconductor fab: ~100%? profit margin
NVidia AI chips: ~800%? profit margin
So you can see:
1. There is a lot of excess profit for Chinese competitors to work with. I expect Chinese lithography machines to take a huge slice of the global sales in the future, due to lower prices and then better technology
2. If the profit margins for lithography machines drop, it has a huge impact on the cost of finished semiconductors
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As for ASML making future lithography investments:
1. They already have a mature EUV lithography design. At this point, ASML spending on EUV/DUV is more about incremental improvements which don't cost that much in terms of spending.
2. In terms of next-generation semiconductor technology research to replace EUV, China is far ahead of anyone else. Nature reports that China is double US output. The TSMC Chief Scientist (based in California) says China is where all this research is happening.
Yes, additional sales to ASML will increase their profits. But I don't see it making any difference to their R&D spending on existing DUV/EUV technology. And in the competition for next-gen semiconductors (10+ years away), I think Chinese companies already has a commanding lead and will be the first to commercialise.
I don't see it that way. Initial debugging of a new DUV lithography machine design is still part of the initial development timescale. You can have twice as many machines in operation, throwing up twice as many problems. But the constraint is still a single development team in charge of the lithography machine design.
After a certain threshold for the size of the development team, throwing more people and resources is unnecessary and arguably counterproductive. It just introduces more complexity and delays into the design/update process.
Agreed. But it would be so useful to have a EUV machine to compare and benchmark against.
And it's not about reverse engineering the entire machine.
It's about understanding the components, and where the gaps are.
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I feel this conversation is better off in the semi-conductor thread, where many of these points have already been made
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
This is exactly the mistake that cannot and must not be made. ASML is better now, so at the detriment of domestic lithograph sales, let's just use ASML. And we're back to where we started building on top of a foundation that is foreign controlled. The biggest blow China can make to the Western lithography cartel is the completely stop using thier shit and develop everything Chinese, then overtake them with the faster momentum, at first driving by desperation and need, then driven by success and experience.
Counter points have already been made. Companies will be lazy when they can be lazy. All fires die without fuel. This hope of yours risks everything China did since Trump's first term for some short term gains.
OK, yes, he needs to take his own, and not buy the external supply which transfers invesment power and development funds from his pocket into that of his enemy's.
The above reasoning already assumes this. If the drug was detrimental, he needs to quit completely.
1. There doesn't have to be, or there isn't? Is this a hope or is this fact?
2. The above points still stand. Nothing good comes from taking development money out of Chinese pockets and putting them into Western ones.
I don't even know how this replies to me. I said if you wanted massive profits to be a driving force, then the profits will always be higher without foreign competitors. So you say there's enough? There is no definition of enough. It's worse. And massive profits shouldn't even be the real driving force yet; it's independence and survival. Profits come after that is achieved.
1. I don't believe that ASML has no next gen projects in development.
2. Even if they didn't, profits will help them improve their current EUV, which is ahead of ours and we don't need that.
It's not enough. This is not an argument for siphoning off from us and giving it to them. There is no argument for that unless it is a matter of survival and we currently just can't. That's not China's situation.
Answered above.
After that phase, is the customer-based debugging and that's what I'm talking about. Customers used to ASML are customers that don't participate in this or participate in a reduced manner.
I also think it would be great to have just 1. But not to have them in number where they compete with domestic designs.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not sure if this is allowed to comment here remove if not. But I have a question for people here. How will China try to destroy or make Taiwan’s Chiashan Air Force base? It’s their mountain air base with hangers inside the mountains, it can hold up to around 200 aircraft’s what about 50% of their fleet, so how can China destroy it or atleast make it unusable? My guesses would be just being able to crater the runways and maybe being able to launch a missile at the entrance door. But does anyone have any more ideas how you think China would go ahead making it unusable for Taiwan?
Destroy the entrance? Launch air launched mines on the entrance to ensure anyone coming out gets blown up? Setup loitering drones to constantly fly and destroy any plane that comes out of the tunnels? Air drop Ground force to take over the base or setup bombs on the entrances?
Get Mainland spies working in the ROC military to plant C-4s inside the bunker.
Would be surprised if the PLA had not already set up micro-drones in Taiwan to launch attacks like what the Ukrainians or Israel did with the level of infiltration PRC has on Taiwan Island. Cost effective and very much possible in my opinion, especially for fortified airbases