ASML's Ex-Employee in China Allegedly Stole Confidential Information

[evernessince]

Consider, it is not that different from the time other nations developed nuclear bombs after US succeed developing the first. And like it happened that time, there is no way to stop, also because we are not talking about bombs here.

The funny thing about nukes is that Russia stole the technology to build them from the United States and then signed an agreement with China in 1951 which exchanged nuclear secrets for uranium ore.

On top of that the Russians had helped North Korea get it's nuclear program off the ground and China endorsed it as it provided a destabilizing force in the region.

To say that it was their developments is incorrect, stolen technology is inherently not theirs.

I'm not discussing this. I'm discussing about the fact now it's somehow "intensified" w.r.t past, at least at media level. And I'm discussing about the fact that sooner or later they will learn how to make chips with the same techniques, cause if there is a common practice (and there is one) on how to make silicon printing production, they will exploit that one for sure. There is no other possibility. Also this is encouraged by sanctions and political positions (and the reason of this is pretty clear). There is no way you can stop their developments, in the end they will possibly diverge one day after some autonomous decisions, but first they have to develop at the same level.

There is no "common practice" on "how to fab 5nm chips" or how to make EUV machines. ASML is the only company in the world that can make these machines. This is not something China can "figure out" is some neanderthal fashion by banging two rocks together. It requires decades of experience in the field, highly trained staff, resources, and supporting logistics and infrastructure. China's recent development of 232 layer flash (the exact same layer count as Micron's next gen flash suspiciously) going from no flash portfolio to having the exact same as the best in a mere 3 years isn't them developing their own products, it's extremely clear that China is doing what China always does, steal IP. Both Samsung and SKHynix next-gen flash all have different layer counts, the Chinese didn't even both to make an attempt to hide that they copied the tech.

This logic is backwards, China can't diverge technologically until they are at the same level as everyone else? It makes zero sense, how can you be doing your own research and the result over and over again is a carbon copy of something someone else has already done? It would make more sense for China's technology to diverge early on because there are many ways to do things in a less efficient manner, especially in the chip world.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

ASML has therefore reported the incident to relevant authorities

And what are the Chinese Police or any other relevant agency in China who are in the pocket of the government going to do? Find the guy and throw him out of a high-rise building like Foxxconn?

They are probably going to pat him on the back, increase his social credit score and allow him to rent a fancy apartment in the big city. "Well done comrade!"

 

[ReallyBigMistake]

remember that western liberal democracies because of their insane capitalistic greed gave their tech to China so they could enrich themselves..... for a limited time.
Motorola went to China in 90s and eventually had a ton of their tech stolen. Motorola then went under yet all the companies in China who stole the tech are doing amazing today.
There was a reason why during the Cold War it was illegal to trade computers and engines to the USSR and other communist nations, it was called "Coordinating Committee for the Multilateral Export Control". In Communist countries IP protection is never enforced and all the tech you create will be stolen and used by them. Modern China of course IS NOT A COMMUNIST country but a single party dictatorship in bed with corporations and using western capitalisms as a tool for their enrichment.

remember the capitalist will sell the rope which will be used to hang them.

 

[trieste15]

Unfortunately the Asian companies, such as ones from China, Japan, or South Korea, only know how to steal proprietary IP in order to technologically progress further. This is just another day in China, nothing special.

Sky Views: 200 years ago, the US stole technology. Now, history is repeating itself

Sky Views: 200 years ago, the US stole technology. Now, history is repeating itself

news.sky.com

In Britain, the centre of this 18th-century Industrial Revolution, the strategic value of the new science was very clear. The British treated industrial knowledge as a state secret, even going so far as to ban mechanics from emigrating in case they took their techniques to rival nations.

For Britain's former colonial subjects in the new US, this was a problem. Without the latest science, how could they hope to compete?

Enter Alexander Hamilton, America's first ever treasury secretary, who proposed a simple solution: break the law and steal the technology.

Putting the full weight of the treasury behind the effort, Hamilton sent spies to observe British industry. He granted passage and patents to immigrating British mechanics. As his biographer Ron Chernow writes, during Hamilton's tenure as treasury secretary "the US government condoned something that, in modern phraseology, could be termed industrial espionage".



What has been will be again,
and what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a case where one can say,
“Look, this is new”?
It has already existed
in the ages before us.
There is no remembrance
of those who came before,
and those yet to come will not be remembered
by those who follow after.

Ecclesiastes 1:9-11

 

[Bomby569]

someone thought China was just going to lay down and take it. How naive.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

This is political, not tech news... What is the point of discussing it here?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

This is political, not tech news... What is the point of discussing it here?

Because ASML make semiconductors.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

Because ASML make semiconductors.

Keep politics away from the tech forum, for everybody sake.

If you scroll through the posts now, it is mostly echo-chamber, but still... That is also not the point of tech forum...

 

[Minus Infinity]

I'm shocked I tell ya, shocked.