Saturday, March 8th 2025
China Develops Domestic EUV Tool, ASML Monopoly in Trouble
China's domestic extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography development is far from a distant dream. The newest system, now undergoing testing at Huawei's Dongguan facility, leverages laser-induced discharge plasma (LDP) technology, representing a potentially disruptive approach to EUV light generation. The system is scheduled for trial production in Q3 2025, with mass manufacturing targeted for 2026, potentially positioning China to break ASML's technical monopoly in advanced lithography. The LDP approach employed in the Chinese system generates 13.5 nm EUV radiation by vaporizing tin between electrodes and converting it to plasma via high-voltage discharge, where electron-ion collisions produce the required wavelength. This methodology offers several technical advantages over ASML's laser-produced plasma (LPP) technique, including simplified architecture, reduced footprint, improved energy efficiency, and potentially lower production costs.
The LPP method relies on high-energy lasers and complex FPGA-based real-time control electronics to achieve the same result. While ASML has refined its LPP-based systems over decades, the inherent efficiency advantages of the LDP approach could accelerate China's catch-up timeline in this critical semiconductor manufacturing technology. When the US imposed sanctions on EUV shipments to Chinese companies, the Chinese semiconductor development was basically limited as standard deep ultraviolet (DUV) wave lithography systems utilize 248 nm (KrF) and 193 nm (ArF) wavelengths for semiconductor patterning, with 193 nm immersion technology representing the most advanced pre-EUV production technique. These longer wavelengths contrast with EUV's 13.5 nm radiation, requiring multiple patterning techniques to achieve advanced nodes.
However, this Huawei system must still answer questions about resolution capabilities, throughput stability, and integration with existing semiconductor manufacturing flows. However, commercializing an alternative EUV lithography tool will challenge ASML's position. ASML's latest High-NA EUV tool costs around 380 million US Dollars. No matter the cost for Chinese R&D centers, the Huawei EUV machine will deliver the much-needed upgrade path for the older DUV scanners, which previously limited domestic chip production. Despite China's development of solid IP, its manufacturing progress was limited, but it could experience a "DeepSeek" moment very soon. Leading fabs like SMIC are working with Huawei to integrate the EUV scanners into existing workflows. A solid semiconductor manufacturing workflow takes years to build, so we have to see what the final result will be.
Source:
Yin Sun
The LPP method relies on high-energy lasers and complex FPGA-based real-time control electronics to achieve the same result. While ASML has refined its LPP-based systems over decades, the inherent efficiency advantages of the LDP approach could accelerate China's catch-up timeline in this critical semiconductor manufacturing technology. When the US imposed sanctions on EUV shipments to Chinese companies, the Chinese semiconductor development was basically limited as standard deep ultraviolet (DUV) wave lithography systems utilize 248 nm (KrF) and 193 nm (ArF) wavelengths for semiconductor patterning, with 193 nm immersion technology representing the most advanced pre-EUV production technique. These longer wavelengths contrast with EUV's 13.5 nm radiation, requiring multiple patterning techniques to achieve advanced nodes.
56 Comments on China Develops Domestic EUV Tool, ASML Monopoly in Trouble
On a positive news, is better to finally have some more competition. There are also Japanese ones too, but they are 15-20 years behind of anything ASML is currently offering.
Is IP theft good no, but patent trolls/hoarders aren't either.
Mobile phones were more affordable and inovations came faster back when huawei was still allowed access to tsmc and android.
Do I approve of the CCP? No. We can't argue that they get stuff done, though. Not sure a democratic China would be able to pull this off.
Do I approve of *certain* Western "democracies"? Also no. Just to point to an obvious and OT example: ASML is Dutch, yet the US more or less tells it what it can and cannot do with its products.
Finally, yes, I believe China is exaggerating about their progress on EUV lithography, but probably not as much as some here believe. Only time will tell, though.
It's not only China fault, they offered cheap manufacturing and the West bought it, so they are also to blame.USSR also was seen as being able "to get stuff done" with Stalin 5 year plans. It is not sustainable and leads to corruption, stagnation and whole lot of other bad things. China only survived thanks to the fact that they didn't close their economy, instead offered to produce for western countries for cheap.
People, just stop, please...
www.euvlitho.com/2021/S34.pdf
When chip wars started suddenly China was making their own DUV powered 7nm. And after that announcement.... radio silence. Meanwhile any china domestic chips we do see are nowhere near as good as what they tried to copy.
That being said, there is also no doubt in my mind China will eventually catch up. But then thats no different than everyone catching up because performance increases either stall more and more, or the node is just effin rare and expensive to fab on. That situation is already materializing; and there will eventually be benefits in being able to bake similar performance chips on various sized nodes. Its a simple cause and effect situation as the tooling expenses increase.
Progress is finite or at some point simply counterproductive, effectively creating a dead investment. This supposed advantage we have will not last, irrespective of China or whatever sanctions we use. The only thing we can and actually do, is slowing them down by denying stuff.Yeah I guess it fits in the 'I hate my first world of freedoms and luxuries because some other guys have more money in it, too' sentiment prevalent among gen Z'ers that cant seem to get the same world of opportunity that previous generations had.
I cant explain that any other way unless we consider people really are just fucking stupid.
I hope you get paid well. It'd be sad to be doing this for free.
I've always kinda wondered something similar about Intel and Israel. Don't know why you'd build something so important in an area so unstable. Not like Israel was the hotbed for chip engineers or anything before hand.
Let me disperse the nonsense of the great leaps forward. They come from a fantastic ability to reproduce. Whether it's breaking contract law to reproduce proprietary tech people brought to them as a leap forward (with the intent to then resell said developments as their own on the open market), or theft. Before anyone says anything stupid, yes all great powers are working on high level theft. The difference is that it's usually theft of military tech, not consumer goods. Anyone in the west who believes otherwise is mistaken. The difference is volume. 5x as many academic papers from the US versus China, despite the huge abundance of western educated post doctorates there. Anyone ever do the math, and ask why? It's because the CCP system does not have a mechanism to nurture development...and they literally have a boom of white papers the second the west releases one white paper on a fundamental subject...
The "they get stuff done" argument is silly. I could list off a bunch of things that China "just got done." My favorite is the huge amount of EVs that will never sell despite being manufactured. They won't sell because they used CRS (cold rolled steel) instead of galvanized, with almost 20% less thickness, which means that by the time somebody frees them from the graveyards they are rotting in, there won't be a chassis anymore. They did save money on galvanized steel, they were profitable on paper because of insane government grants, and the are seeing 50% value losses or more the second the brand sticker is applied to them. The push for EV dominance was a CCP thing...and it's now an anti-dumping thing for the world, along with a list of dead companies a mile long.
ASML is the manufacturer of the lithography machines. They use tech developed in the US. That is why the US can exert any control. It's amazing that people who believe they know anything about an issue can just wave their arms and claim that the US is the bad guys...when it wouldn't exist if it wasn't researched there.
I do not screw with you when I say CCTV ran a video piece claiming that a man could hand fabricate 5nm chips. Youtube video Let's explore that for a moment. 5nm chips fabricated from a technician, by hand, using top notch grinding technology. He can grind a chip at CASIC, and produce 5 nm chips. I'll let that sink in for a moment. Not lithography and doping, grinding a chip out. I'll also suggest that Elon Musk has a white paper for his special new supercomputer (said sarcastically, as this is from 2021). White Paper - Dojo Note that he's currently on the hunt for OpenAI because his "we'll have self driving cars" promise is vaporware, and he thinks that somehow the next thing will fix his death traps. If it isn't clear, I'm not western or Chinese "shill." That's a stupid thing to say, but people confuse pride in systems with being paid now...so there's that. That said, I'll shill only for people who are competent and don't have years of lies in their corner. Tesla and the CCP, in that regard, are perfect bedfellows. They can whisper lies to each other all night, as their houses built atop quicksand sink into the muck they helped create.You start out by saying "official sources lie." This is what we call a non-good faith actor. You've telegraphed that I can link to a dozen reputable sites, including Boeing themselves, and you won't take that as a fact. This means engaging with you is stupid, because literally nothing will be good enough.
Boeing confirms they got hacked
12 hackers charged in US court...from China
Unsealed indictment of Chinese hacker
More Chinese hackers
That was a 20 second google search. If your claim is then followed with "but of course the US is gonna charge them with hacking, and that's not fair to accept their word" then this whole thing is not a discussion. It's someone ignorant trying to either brute force a point that only exists without paying attention to the facts, or a bad faith actor trying real hard to make the other side look bad...because they have nothing that actually supports their point beyond their own ignorance.
Bonus points, the other side should be considered as accurate. Hacking and data theft do exist...because that's the tit-for-tat of government. As such, the pro CCP article should also be considered...if only for the academic value it has:
South China Morning Post - US hackers
I hope you are at least getting paid. Because if you are so delusional for free then it's just sad.