China's President Believes Nation's Technological Development Unhindered, Despite Equipment Restrictions

[T0@st]

Earlier today, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte met with China's President Xi Jinping—fresh reportage has focused on their discussion of technological trade restrictions. Holland's premier had to carefully navigate the conversation around recent global tensions, most notably the prevention of fancy ASML chipmaking equipment reaching the Chinese mainland. CCTV (China's state broadcaster) selected a couple of choice quotes for inclusion in an online report—Xi remarked that: "the Chinese people also have the right to legitimate development, and no force can stop the pace of China's scientific and technological development and progress." Specific manufacturers and types of machinery were not mentioned during the meeting between state leaders, but media interpretations point to recent ASML debacles being entirely relevant, given the context of international relationships.

ASML is keen to keep Chinese firms on its order books—according to AP News: "China became ASML's second-largest market, accounting for 29% of its revenue as firms bought up equipment before the licensing requirement took effect." Revised licensing agreements have stymied the supply of ASML most advanced chipmaking tools—Chinese foundries have resorted to upgrading existing/older equipment (backed by government funding) in efforts to stay competitive with international producers. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is reportedly racing to get natively designed EUV machines patented (in co-operation with Huawei). Post-meeting, Rutte commented (to press) on the ongoing technology restrictions: "what I can tell you is that... when we have to take measures, that they are never aimed at one country specifically, that we always try to make sure that the impact is limited, is not impacting the supply chain, and therefore is not impacting the overall economic relationship."



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[Ferrum Master]

okay... let's get ready.

 

[Vayra86]

Leave it to the Dutch to navigate themselves into a favorable position... I hope we still have that touch, I really do. Favorable being a substantial delay as desired for China, while keeping the business.

In the end its best to keep enemies close, and even though it didn't work with Russia, if you're trading, you're not shooting. Mostly, at least.

 

[phanbuey]

China's president believes that, because all the advisors tell him that.

 

[mechtech]

I wonder how long before some country starts making man-made islands in the Mediterranean and the North Sea??

Edit - gave it more thought
I think Canada should build an island in the middle of the North Sea, and at the centre we can build an international pub and share drinks, food and maple syrup n stuff.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-denmark-reach-hans-island-deal-after-50-year-dispute-1.6487325

 

[Dr. Dro]

And unhindered it shall stay. The Chinese are ingenious, hard-working people, determined to overcome issues that they may run into, and their government intends to keep it that way through funding and other means. Despite our ideological differences, it'd be pretty foolish to ignore and/or overlook that fact. What sanctions did to Huawei would destroy most Western corporations in no time flat, instead they're adapting, evolving in their own way. HiSilicon has been able to manufacture a high-performance 5 nm SoC, and both SMIC and YMTC have been able to keep up with the industry - not on the latest nodes, sure, but still enough to make performant processors.

If China is able to develop its own extreme ultraviolet technology apart from ASML, this may very well cause the Chinese semiconductor industry to leapfrog the West's in a long term scenario.

 

[stimpy88]

Because the crooked western tech companies are still selling this stuff to Chine, via proxies and miss-labelling.

 

[Haku]

I think that the Netherlands will find a solution to circumvent the sanctions imposed by the US, it can offer machines that are a little less efficient but which can get the job done in the same way as Nvidia with its cut down GPUs for China

 

[Dr. Dro]

Because the crooked western tech companies are still selling this stuff to Chine, via proxies and miss-labelling.

Chinese fabs don't have extreme ultraviolet machines, and since ASML is the only manufacturer and supplier of such tooling, it'd be easy to retrace it back to them. They're using deep ultraviolet tooling to manufacture their 5 nm chips, but DUV has very low yield (30% is an optimistic) and high cost at 5 nm, and won't go further, really. To develop 3 nm and beyond, EUV machines are required.

SMIC to sell Huawei costly, inefficient 5nm chips - Asia Times

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) will reportedly mass produce 5 nanometer chips for Huawei Technologies later this year

asiatimes.com

In the event China manages to manufacture EUV machines of their own, whether due to developing their own technology, IP theft or corporate espionage, they could very well be on their way to leapfrog us. And what in history is there to suggest they won't?

 

[Haku]

ASML wants to relocate to other places in the world for many reasons, and it does not surprise me if ASML is opening a subsidiary in China, in fact the Dutch government has just approved an aid of 2.5 Billions Euros for the Eindhoven region where ASML is located in order to convince it to stay there

 

[stimpy88]

Chinese fabs don't have extreme ultraviolet machines, and since ASML is the only manufacturer and supplier of such tooling, it'd be easy to retrace it back to them. They're using deep ultraviolet tooling to manufacture their 5 nm chips, but DUV has very low yield (30% is an optimistic) and high cost at 5 nm, and won't go further, really. To develop 3 nm and beyond, EUV machines are required.

SMIC to sell Huawei costly, inefficient 5nm chips - Asia Times

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) will reportedly mass produce 5 nanometer chips for Huawei Technologies later this year

asiatimes.com

In the event China manages to manufacture EUV machines of their own, whether due to developing their own technology, IP theft or corporate espionage, they could very well be on their way to leapfrog us. And what in history is there to suggest they won't?

Do they even need to manufacture when the likes of nGreedia are selling illegal GPU's by the ship container?

 

[Dr. Dro]

Do they even need to manufacture when the likes of nGreedia are selling illegal GPU's by the ship container?

Yes? Not to mention Nvidia is not circumventing export restrictions. They've complied with the Biden administration's demands to lower the performance targets of products intended for the Chinese market.

Besides, a lithography machine isn't something you just send through a shipping container.

 

[stimpy88]

Yes? Not to mention Nvidia is not circumventing export restrictions. They've complied with the Biden administration's demands to lower the performance targets of products intended for the Chinese market.

Besides, a lithography machine isn't something you just send through a shipping container.

You're living in dreamland, I'm telling you from a position of first-hand knowledge.

 

[Dr. Dro]

You're living in dreamland, I'm telling you from a position of first-hand knowledge.

...Such as? The 4090 D complies with the US export restrictions, since the regular gaming 4090's way too powerful for that.. AMD's consumer-grade hardware isn't fast enough in general, but they also comply with export restrictions for their Instinct lineup. And again, a lithography machine isn't something you just put on a container, so... how am I living in dreamland exactly?