The US looks to kill Chinese chipmaking ambitions with ASML sales ban

[midian182]

What just happened? China has long sought to lessen its reliance on foreign chipmakers and focus on its home-grown options, part of the Made in China 2025 plan to update its domestic manufacturing capabilities. But those ambitions could be scuppered by the US, which wants to ban the sale of lithography tools produced by Netherlands-based ASML to the country.

ASML, the world's largest supplier of lithography machines used in the chipmaking process, is already prohibited from selling its most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, which costs about $164 million per unit, to its Chinese customers as it cannot obtain an export license from the Dutch government due to pressure from the United States.

Bloomberg writes that the US government is now pushing ASML to also stop selling its older deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools to Chinese clients. Despite being a generation old, the technology is still used to create chips found in phones, autonomous cars, PCs, robots, and more. The US wants to ban the sale of the most advanced type of DUV technology, immersion lithography machines, to China. ASML is the main player in this field; it had a 95% market share when it came to sales of immersion lithography systems last year.

As noted by The Reg, while DUV systems are mostly used for older manufacturing processes like 30nm, multi-patterning techniques can be used to make denser nodes. TSMC, for example, uses DUV for the first two generations of its 7nm nodes.

The US is also trying to pressure Japanese companies such as Nikon to stop selling the same DUV tools to China, which has already seen several domestic companies banned from buying advanced chipmaking equipment from US firms.

If the US does get its way, ASML's bottom line could take a big hit. Chinese chipmakers accounted for 14.7 percent of ASML sales last year. To give you an idea of figures, SMIC, China's largest chipmaker, plans to invest $11 billion in growing its DUV capacity by 2023.

"The discussion is not new. No decisions have been made and we do not want to speculate or comment on rumors," an ASML spokeswoman said.

Last month, Chen Wenling, chief economist at the government-run China Center for International Economic Exchanges, called for China to seize Taiwan's TSMC "if the US and the West impose destructive sanctions on China like sanctions against Russia."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/95198-us-looks-hamper-chinese-chipmaking-ambitions-asml-sales.html

 

[R00sT3R]

If they can't buy it, they'll just steal the blueprints from somewhere and reverse engineer it.

At best, all it would accomplish for the West, is delaying their 2025 timetable, in the same way all we're doing is delaying Iran getting nukes.

 

[dangh]

Why tf again US wants to tell EU company what to do with their trade partner?
If US is not happy with chinese products, do not buy Chinese products.
I'm not happy with whatever happening in China and that crappy government of theirs, but still there are a lot of great people and small companies who doing good stuff.
If US thinks China have to be for some reason reduced from mass-producer of all the things waorld use, then maybe they could move this production to US and see how that would work for them?
Or maybe they would help Taiwan by fully commit to their separate nationality and treat them as a proper country. Which would be excellent stuff to do, or maybe limit Chinese greed on south china sea, where they artificially extends their borders. They can't limit their economy and private companies while letting government running wild, but obviously that would be too much to swallow.
I just hope Taiwan would become proper country, genocide in the west part be cancelled and responsibility taken, and make them respecting country borders include sea borders. Trying to reduce their high-end technology and still getting all of their low-end production is just a political and shortsighted move not sddressing the problem, but just trying to pretend US have a control.

 

[kiwigraeme]

How does this fly ?
Both The USA and China are bullies - The World Trade Organisation probably will do nothing to stop The USA ,
I get The American economy and Independence was based on IP theft . The USA stole endlessly from Britain and Europe .
I get the China is massive at the moment doing it and American Companies haven't stopped their IP theft either relying on lawyers to drown small guys , small countries no given little opportunity except by charity to stop the stealing of seed, genes etc from their local flora and fauna .
But really US Govt has no control over ASML if they say stuff you . The USA needs ASML - ASML sells everything they produce - they have the engineers
Ultimately it's only buying time - in a world system that is sub optimum
China will catch up - considering EUV is reaching limits - so turtles will be coming
I pretty sure China will have some tech in the next 20 years only they will have
Both The USA and China govt care not enough for other countries - they are both beholden to greater internal pressures .
If the other party get in - it will be like HIV under Reagan and later Bush- refusing aid to African countries with family planning and sex education . Better lots of babies are born with HIV and no parents than provide satanic condoms - Bush did provide aid for HIV - Reagan thought it was blessing bestowed on earth to cleanse the unclean

 

[DSirius]

US just told the world: Welcome in "our" jungle. And with this "do as I say or I coerce u" the so called "US free economic market and competition" died.

 

[Thanthan]

If they can't buy it, they'll just steal the blueprints from somewhere and reverse engineer it.

At best, all it would accomplish for the West, is delaying their 2025 timetable, in the same way all we're doing is delaying Iran getting nukes.

Do you really think one single company would have a complete monopoly in a space this lucrative if it was as easy to copy their products as you suggest? When companies like intel and TSMC would rather pay billions of dollars for these machines than attempt to make in-house versions? This wouldn’t be just a minor setback… More like adding ten or fifteen years before chip production parity.

 

[DSirius]

The rest of the world can see that when US is loosing, besides spying and stealing all people's information (through NSA, CIA, FBI, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Intel) instead of competing, and after they start to cry, complain, sabotage, threaten, ban etc. Fascinating standards.

 

[Faelan]

Chips have become the new oil and now the US wants to effectively embargo a powerful saber rattling country in Asia. Where have I seen that before? Well, you know what they say about history repeating itself…

 

[Endymio]

Why tf again US wants to tell EU company what to do with their trade partner?

Probably because that "trade partner" has millions of people in slave-labor genocide camps, is actively engaged in stealing trillions of dollars of intellectual property from western companies, is threatening to invade Taiwan and take over the entire South China Sea, and is growing its military faster than the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia all combined.

 

[psycros]

Chips have become the new oil and now the US wants to effectively embargo a powerful saber rattling country in Asia. Where have I seen that before? Well, you know what they say about history repeating itself…

Except there is no Pearl Harbor this time so its fundamentally different.

 

[kira setsu]

Hmm?

seems the U.S. is just begging for china to take taiwan it seems. war is their business and since they've snatched womens rights and will have a steady stream of soldier fodder in a few yrs I guess were stoking the fires for the next fight it seems.

 

[Uncle Al]

Any way you look at it the world has become a highly unstable place with all players being guilty of what they point fingers at their neighbors for doing. Until we arrive at a time where all players are willing to cooperate and be considerate, the problems will continue. The "us vs. them" strategy has proven to be counterproductive, especially since any and all sides have proven they can walk away and bear the brunt of the punishments.

There is no simple solution. It will take decades of intense negotiations and proven agreements before this will be resolved, if ever. Under the current leaderships of the major players there is very little change of any of that happening. It is not the blame of any one single player but the blame of decades of abuse by all players. Strong, honest, dependable leadership is needed on all sides .....

 

[Faelan]

Except there is no Pearl Harbor this time so its fundamentally different.

A Pearl Harbor military type move would be difficult to pull off in this day and age anyway (launching nukes at military bases doesn’t count since you effectively just deleted yourself in the process), so yes - things would be different before we even consider potential locations and whether it would make sense.

But that’s besides the point. I was more referring to the overall picture of what triggered the whole affair to begin with. Basically, I was looking more at the forest than the trees. Of course the exact details will be different. It’s the general pattern that I’m concerned about.

But since you mentioned it, I suspect a modern day Pearl Harbor, were it to happen, would be more along the lines of a sudden massive cyber attack aimed at causing as much distraction and disruption as possible, possibly to make ongoing military action more effective or simply make a statement that things are about to get real if certain demands aren’t met.

 

[DSirius]

I suggest a better title:
The US looks to CHILL Chinese chipmaking ambitions with ASML sales ban. "Kill" will be rather impossible.

 

[Geralt]

Chinese government is horrible, but the American government is slowly approaching and becoming a disgusting bunch of crazy/aggressive people.

 

[OortCloud]

Don't know which is more disturbing - the article - or the comments. I'm not from the US but it makes me mad when people compare the US state to China. There really is no comparison. For a start if you were in China you would be 'disappeared' for just making these remarks. You probably wouldn't have been able to read this article at all because it would be firewalled off. If you happen to belong to any ethnic minority you would have been taken away to camps and if you try to protest they would run you over with a tank. Comparing Joe Biden to Ji Xinping is like comparing a Labrador to a Rottweiler.

 

[BadThad]

Chinese government is horrible, but the American government is slowly approaching and becoming a disgusting bunch of crazy/aggressive people.

Slowly? In under 2 years America is in HORRIBLE condition - a COMPLETE 180! The current ineptocracy doesn't have any qualified people working in gov! A consequence of selecting positions not based on competency but based on skin color and sexual preference. Just image if all companies went this route - we'd be COMPLETELY doomed!

 

[nodfor]

Don't know which is more disturbing - the article - or the comments. I'm not from the US but it makes me mad when people compare the US state to China. There really is no comparison.

The US has a constitution, an opposition party, a supreme court and an armed citizenry - all the above are factors that limit gov overreach and the woke crowd is working against all 4
They want to effectively ban the right to bear arms, hunt down the opposition with show trials and express disgust every time the supreme court limits gov overreach.

 

[mcclurken]

Is it fair? Nope. Is it 'bullying'? Probably. Is it wrong? Well...
In the history of human civilization there is always an entity with more power than others and that power is used to their own benefit. Be it a single tribal leader or a city or a state, the same pattern continues. The USA has set the Western world order ever since WWII and since the fall of the USSR it has largely set the global order. Why? The USA has been vastly more powerful than any other state both economically and militarily. If you don't like that I would suggest one to consider how things might play out if another country, say China or Russia, were calling the shots, controlling trade, enforcing their will. Who's will would you rather have? Because a vacuum will always be filled no matter how many utopian sci-fi stories we write.

For anyone curious about these ideas, I found The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan enlightening. Not saying he's completely correct but it is food for thought. I also want fairness and everybody to play by the rules, but somebody writes the rules - Who will that be?

 

[DSirius]

Don't know which is more disturbing - the article - or the comments. I'm not from the US but it makes me mad when people compare the US state to China. There really is no comparison. For a start if you were in China you would be 'disappeared' for just making these remarks. You probably wouldn't have been able to read this article at all because it would be firewalled off. If you happen to belong to any ethnic minority you would have been taken away to camps and if you try to protest they would run you over with a tank. Comparing Joe Biden to Ji Xinping is like comparing a Labrador to a Rottweiler.

Is possible that America u write is from a parallel world.
Joe Biden is not a good example for sure.

Biden holds notes that read 'YOU enter the Roosevelt Room,' 'YOU take YOUR seat'

President Biden held notes during a White House meeting on Thursday showing specific directions that read, "YOU enter the Roosevelt Room" and "YOU take YOUR seat."

www.foxnews.com

Watch as Joe Biden Confuses Himself, Gets Lost While Reading His Notes

Sad.

thefederalistpapers.org

Rather others rules US now and Joe Biden is just the front puppet man which barely fulfill his protocol role.
We can compare US and China, both governs perhaps did and do horrible things. Just that US is doing worldwide, China locally. US is number 1 in spying and stealing peoples information all over the world (inventions included), and use it against them, including USA citizens, through NSA, FBI, Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel.
Whatever damage control you are trying to do is not helping.
If u imply that US is not making people which expose their atrocities to disappear, or reduce them to silence, than check Guantanamo bay base, and also search for Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Asange and others, the list is disturbingly long. These persons are heroes and USA lie it's citizens that they are traitors, oh wait US had to skew and modify it's own laws to claim that they are traitors and only because they exposed how US is violating basic human rights. Hope you realize the pinnacle of USA hypocrisy and wrongdoings while violating so many human rights. The rest of the world is already aware of all of this.
Honestly I can see which comments are true even if they are disturbing (truth may be disturbing sometimes) and which are less.

 

[DSirius]

Is it fair? Nope. Is it 'bullying'? Probably. Is it wrong? Well...
In the history of human civilization there is always an entity with more power than others and that power is used to their own benefit. Be it a single tribal leader or a city or a state, the same pattern continues. The USA has set the Western world order ever since WWII and since the fall of the USSR it has largely set the global order. Why? The USA has been vastly more powerful than any other state both economically and militarily. If you don't like that I would suggest one to consider how things might play out if another country, say China or Russia, were calling the shots, controlling trade, enforcing their will. Who's will would you rather have? Because a vacuum will always be filled no matter how many utopian sci-fi stories we write.

For anyone curious about these ideas, I found The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan enlightening. Not saying he's completely correct but it is food for thought. I also want fairness and everybody to play by the rules, but somebody writes the rules - Who will that be?

I already started to read some fragments of the book which u mention (which I could find on internet). Just be careful of the Stockholm syndrome when ask question like "how things might play out if another country, say China or Russia, were calling the shots - instead of USA, controlling trade, enforcing their will".
"If"' imply maybe-maybe not (less useful in speculating) while the present expose the hideous face of USA wrongdoings right now. So let's evaluate them in the proper order. Present first, future next. And the Present under US "rules" - translation - read under corporation enforced rules, is looking not good, rather is starting to look like an Orwellian dystopian world.

 

[Geralt]

Don't know which is more disturbing - the article - or the comments. I'm not from the US but it makes me mad when people compare the US state to China. There really is no comparison. For a start if you were in China you would be 'disappeared' for just making these remarks. You probably wouldn't have been able to read this article at all because it would be firewalled off. If you happen to belong to any ethnic minority you would have been taken away to camps and if you try to protest they would run you over with a tank. Comparing Joe Biden to Ji Xinping is like comparing a Labrador to a Rottweiler.

Yes, but China is not pursuing countries all over the world if they dislike what those countries are doing "by their standards". China for now, except Tibet, is not invading and bombing other countries like USA did. USA should keep their nose off others' businesses.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Probably because that "trade partner" has millions of people in slave-labor genocide camps, is actively engaged in stealing trillions of dollars of intellectual property from western companies, is threatening to invade Taiwan and take over the entire South China Sea, and is growing its military faster than the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia all combined.

Western "trade partners" have never cared about any of this before. See also: disney making mulan with slave camps int he background and star wars released with finn almost removed enitrely from the poster. Western manufacturers preen on about "equal rights" and "race matters" and "womens rights" and "pride month" while exploiting slave labor from china, and have doen so for decades.

The US is sensing their economic control is slipping, and all too late realized that china has become an economic superpower with mroe influence, and is DESPERATELY trying to stop them while also still sucking them off to keep goods cheap.

Hmm?

seems the U.S. is just begging for china to take taiwan it seems. war is their business and since they've snatched womens rights and will have a steady stream of soldier fodder in a few yrs I guess were stoking the fires for the next fight it seems.

LMFAO.

Don't know which is more disturbing - the article - or the comments. I'm not from the US but it makes me mad when people compare the US state to China. There really is no comparison. For a start if you were in China you would be 'disappeared' for just making these remarks. You probably wouldn't have been able to read this article at all because it would be firewalled off. If you happen to belong to any ethnic minority you would have been taken away to camps and if you try to protest they would run you over with a tank. Comparing Joe Biden to Ji Xinping is like comparing a Labrador to a Rottweiler.

Doesnt take a genius to see bad actors salivating over chinese style political control desperately trying to enact those same measures stateside, by trying to use one's physical caracteristics as a weapon, encouraging government overreach, and actively opposing meritocracy at every opportunity.

 

[mcclurken]

I already started to read some fragments of the book which u mention (which I could find on internet). Just be careful of the Stockholm syndrome when ask question like "how things might play out if another country, say China or Russia, were calling the shots - instead of USA, controlling trade, enforcing their will".
"If"' imply maybe-maybe not (less useful in speculating) while the present expose the hideous face of USA wrongdoings right now. So let's evaluate them in the proper order. Present first, future next. And the Present under US "rules" - translation - read under corporation enforced rules, is looking not good, rather is starting to look like an Orwellian dystopian world.

For the record, I'm not defending the actions of the USA. I've been against all or nearly all military engagements in my lifetime, for example. But the idea that the current leader is deeply flawed so let's let anybody else give it a shot seems very dangerous to my mind. I agree with you re: corporatism but we need to be careful that the 'cure' is not worse than the 'disease'. I don't have answers I'm just pointing out a different angle on the way things are today.

 

[DSirius]

For the record, I'm not defending the actions of the USA. I've been against all or nearly all military engagements in my lifetime, for example. But the idea that the current leader is deeply flawed so let's let anybody else give it a shot seems very dangerous to my mind. I agree with you re: corporatism but we need to be careful that the 'cure' is not worse than the 'disease'. I don't have answers I'm just pointing out a different angle on the way things are today.

I totally agree with you dude. Hope that US can heal itself and will be able to reestablish a "free and honest competition and market for all players" instead of corporate "capitalism" in which they are drowning nowadays.