It's kind of funny. Not the ha ha, more like the face palm.
China has been guilty of stealing IP. There's no doubt there. That said, they're capable of doing that largely because companies setup shop there. It's difficult to have IP that cannot be dissected in the country that is responsible for actually fabricating it. It is immensely depressing that this is where we are, but no party is free of responsibility here.
Now, the tech side. Lithographic machines are stupid expensive, and there are some pretty awesome patents pertaining as to how they actually work. As such, there's only one real supplier of the lithographic machines because the barrier to entry is just nutty. This means that most machines for lithography never die they leave one plant, and get bought out by a cheaper low end manufacturer to run for years thereafter. Assuming the EUV machines are sent primarily to the EU and USA, there'll be a break in the manufacturing process forever. The current best chips are not capable of being fabricated, then the affordable stuff can't be, and finally the dirt cheap stuff disappears. This cripples manufacturing far beyond a single generation of chips.
It's my belief that the politics here are an attempt to deal a single blow, that forces a different way of thinking going forward. It'll be interesting. Imagine a China that can't source Intel and AMD processors...but they can scale up RISC to be a viable desktop. Maybe some of those cheap Chinesium desktops will actually be pretty good? I say this, because like most copies they're often garbage until they can actually have something unique to compete on. Read: AMD and Bulldozer. Itanium and Intel. Xerox and literal photocopy machines. Everything is bad, until it isn't. I'm also looking at you M2 from Apple...a company that demonstrates in a walled garden RISC has many benefits to offer.
While I think that this move by the US is about sourcing their own machines, I also think this is an opportunity for China. If they are actually capable of doing their own work, instead of simply stealing IP as they're regularly accused of, then we might just see some innovation. That said, the short term squabbling between politicians is pretty much all about optics. I'm getting tired of the outrage from both sides...and just hope that our largest concern is going to be affordable chips in the next decade.
