ASML Says Ex-China Employee Stole Chip Data (cnbc.com) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: ASML, one of the world's most critical semiconductor firms, said Wednesday that it recently discovered that a former employee in China had misappropriated data related to its proprietary technology. The Dutch firm said that it does not believe the alleged misappropriation is material to its business. "We have experienced unauthorized misappropriation of data relating to proprietary technology by a (now) former employee in China," ASML said in its annual report. "However, as a result of the security incident, certain export control regulations may have been violated. ASML has therefore reported the incident to relevant authorities." The data that was misappropriated involved documents. ASML did not expand on the details.
The security incident comes at a sensitive time for ASML and the government of the Netherlands which has been caught in the middle of a battle for tech supremacy between the U.S. and China. Semiconductors are very much part of that rivalry. ASML holds a unique position in the chip supply chain. The company makes a tool called an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine that is required to make the most advanced semiconductors, such as those manufactured by TSMC. ASML is the only company in the world that produces this piece of kit. The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications. "With ASML's unique position and the growing geopolitical tensions in the semiconductor industry, we see increasing security risk trends, ranging from ransomware and phishing attacks to attempts to acquire intellectual property or disrupt business continuity," a spokesperson for the company said.
The security incident comes at a sensitive time for ASML and the government of the Netherlands which has been caught in the middle of a battle for tech supremacy between the U.S. and China. Semiconductors are very much part of that rivalry. ASML holds a unique position in the chip supply chain. The company makes a tool called an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine that is required to make the most advanced semiconductors, such as those manufactured by TSMC. ASML is the only company in the world that produces this piece of kit. The U.S. is worried that if ASML ships the machines to China, chipmakers in the country could begin to manufacture the most advanced semiconductors in the world, which have extensive military and advanced artificial intelligence applications. "With ASML's unique position and the growing geopolitical tensions in the semiconductor industry, we see increasing security risk trends, ranging from ransomware and phishing attacks to attempts to acquire intellectual property or disrupt business continuity," a spokesperson for the company said.
I know we have anti-discrimination laws (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would but don't have any mod points, so take a virtual down.
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Yes. Maybe we should get rid of Chinese scientists just like the McCarthy era. Maybe it will be like the case of Qian Xuesen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure China would love for many currently working in the West ethnically Chinese scientists to return back to China.
Re: I know we have anti-discrimination laws (Score:2)
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I wonder what the total contribution vs the total theft bodies of IP look like? Which do you think is more? Chinese American scientists have made more progress for America, or Chinese scientists posing as Americans stole more IP for China? Say in the last decade.
Good question. However, the associated important question is what ratio would be the "break-even" point. If the progress were 10x the stolen IP, would that be enough to compensate for the theft? Since the tradeoff would likely be between non-military progress and stolen military secrets, the ratio would likely be much higher.
Re: I know we have anti-discrimination laws (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Chinese is not "Chinese". It's like saying all Americans are MAGA loving white supremacists who believe in conspiracy theories.
There are plenty of Chinese people who are American and believe in the American way - and probably distribute themselves pretty evenly on both sides of the political spectrum. There are plenty of Chinese people who completely disagree with China and the CCP, and pretty much don't want anything to do with China at all.
Just like there are plenty of Chinese people who love China and the CCP and Beijing can do no wrong. If you attempt to point out any wrongs, it turns into a whataboutism. (And yes, these people are exhausting to deal with, as I suspect anyone from the other side of the political spectrum would be at Thanksgiving).
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Re:I know we have anti-discrimination laws (Score:5, Insightful)
What do anti-discrimination laws have to do with criticizing China? It's well known that China has little respect for international IP laws and they make knock-offs of damn near everything. Some of the stuff is hilariously bad (such as fake flash drives [passmark.com] and snake oil power saving devices [youtube.com]), others can actually be a decent value if you're willing to tinker with them a bit, such as the Eberspächer diesel heater clones [google.com].
China is also pretty low on the totem poll of human rights, so that alone should be reason enough for companies to reconsider sending their manufacturing there.
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I suppose it depends on if one blames "China" or "Chinese."
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ASML is in the Netherlands. They likely have different laws than the US.
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https://business.gov.nl/regula... [business.gov.nl]
Re: I know we have anti-discrimination laws (Score:2)
World would be a better place (Score:2)
If there were more fabs. Why does everybody have to use TSMC? Why can Apple snatch away capacity from other chip makers and keep silicon price in the skies?
Re:World would be a better place (Score:5, Insightful)
Because a fab is an enormous capital investment and for the last several decades, the Wall St. mantra has been "service revenue above all! We don't like capital intensive business. Oh, and we want every dollar we can get today, we don't care about next quarter, let alone next year."
At the start of a chip shortage, Intel announced they were building a bunch of contract fabs and getting into that business in a big way. Their stock got creamed because they spent their cash on facilities instead of paying it out to shareholders.
But, they're staying the course. A couple years from now, this won't be a problem anymore.
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Too bad their fan tech sucks.
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fab tech, ugh. Typo.
Re: World would be a better place (Score:1)
Their stock got creamed because they spent their cash on facilities instead of paying it out to shareholders.
I hadn't realized dividends were even a thing anymore.
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I hadn't realized dividends were even a thing anymore.
They still kind of aren't. Returning company cash to shareholders now mostly takes place in the form of stock buybacks.
Re:World would be a better place (Score:5, Informative)
Why does everybody have to use TSMC?
Because they are the leading edge and they have demonstrated they can make chips in sufficient numbers? Samsung is a close second; Intel was the leading edge for years but they have been stuck at 10nm for 5 years with low yields.
Why can Apple snatch away capacity from other chip makers and keep silicon price in the skies?
1) Apple funded TSMC's plant expansions with loans in exchange for the right to be first in line.
2) Apple has little say in what TSMC charges for silicon prices. That is well beyond Apple.
not unexpected (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is correct. Ideas want to be free and unfettered. Or at least that's how old slashdot thinkers used to think. But now everyone is becoming nationalistic, more fascist and now have it's US versus THEM type mentality.
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Nah, China's boned. They have 4-5 years. By 2030 half their population will be over 65.
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Re:always confused me this idiocy (Score:5, Informative)
Reality check: Chinese aren't just behind. They're hopelessly behind and they're losing existing capacity they already had working as we speak.
ASML only makes the machines. Lenses are from Zeiss. And tech for actual manufacturing is Taiwanese, South Korean, Japanese and US's.
PRC "could" do DUV, but only when it got relevant machines, lenses and people for critical roles from abroad. It can't make those and it can't train the talent either. You can't just steal plans and clone a factory to make a lens when it comes to things that fail if you have a picometer level surface anomaly on the lens. Those are as much engineering as art. And you can't generate a large cadre of people who are very good at creative work from school system that prioritizes rote memorization over everything, and literally beats creativity out of you. And by literally, I mean actual physical beatings of students who step out of line. Both by teachers and by parents.
So their "same tech" aka 7nm was made using best DUV hardware they could import, and then massively constraining what it is they make with it so it could be make with massive amount of multipatterning on DUV. Tiny chips with extreme design constraints. Because they don't have any access to EUV. And now that US made that legislation where US experts doing the actual work in PRC had to effectively choose between keeping their work in PRC and keeping their US citizenship, they're all gone. Or to be specific, those that stayed over the pandemic have now left. Most left during early days of the pandemic, when state sanctioned xenophobia started hitting even tier 1 city expats hard.
And with it, PRC's plans to catch up died. Not in process of dying. They already died. The people who were working to make it happen have overwhelmingly left. Right now, the question isn't if PRC can catch up. The question is "can they even continue making DUV designs for much longer". This is what PRC is desperately trying to do right now. Just keep what they already developed with so many critical people having left.
On the bright side, they remain the sole major producers of neon. So while everyone else may have the tech, lack of gas needed for the mix needed to make the lasers function may bring everyone else down and require a massive slowdown in production in upcoming year or two until new gas separators and refineries are built. We live in interesting times.
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And you can't generate a large cadre of people who are very good at creative work from school system that prioritizes rote memorization over everything, and literally beats creativity out of you. And by literally, I mean actual physical beatings of students who step out of line. Both by teachers and by parents.
What makes you think you need a large amount? It only takes a limited number of motivated and creative people. China has lots of people who go to the exact same universities colleges highs-schools junior-schools etc as Americans(and lots of other countries).
And plenty more creative people who stayed home too.
You cold say similar things about America and be equally wrong.
And you can't generate a large cadre of people who are very good at creative work from school system that prioritizes sports over ever
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The point about education that I made is very specific in that people who are creative get hammered down in PRC education system. Same is not true for Western model of education. We have our problems, but we don't have the East Asian "nail that sticks get hammered down" coupled with Communist "creative people are probably a threat to our Party apparatus, deal with them before they become a threat" that is the lethal combination that makes PRC schools into what they are.
Don't need to take my word for it. Tak
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So their "same tech" aka 7nm was made using best DUV hardware they could import, and then massively constraining what it is they make with it so it could be make with massive amount of multipatterning on DUV.
My understanding is that Huawei claims they can make 7nm using DUV due the patents they filed. I have yet to see actual chips made with the process. It is one thing to file patents; another to make products.
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If I recall correctly (I'm too sleepy to spend 10 minutes researching, apologies), there were already chips made in DUV 7nm in PRC.
Those were small designs pushing the absolute edge of what multipatterning could do. As such they were extremely limited in functionality, and acted more as proof of concept than a really functional production run.
And people who made that work have now overwhelmingly left PRC in the wake of pandemic era "foreigners brought this in!" as well as the recent US legislative change.
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Yes, those are the chips I was talking about. Those are extremely tiny chips based on what you can do with extreme DUV multipatterning and have something that remotely resembles a functional yield.
EUV scanners are utterly irrelevant for this topic.
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Tell me more about "made in China 2025" five year plan.
The same people that cry about the free market (Score:1)
supply and demand and all that are trying to prevent demand from being supplied using all sorts of bullshit fear tactics.
China’s playing it very differently than (Score:3)
Whereas China is weaponizing its expat community. In the long run, this is a BAD idea. I was alive during the end of the Cold War. It was largely understood that a Russian in the United State was almost certainly NOT a spy, and that they probably felt the same about communism as most Americans. There’s something really compelling about seeing a grocery store that doesn’t have entirely empty shelves most of the time.
If China keeps this up, their expat community will find themselves under serious suspicion. That’ll hurt their job prospects. Not just for government jobs, but any company that might have info that China might want (ie. All of them)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A sleeper agent needs to be very intelligent, linguistically gifted, highly trained, ideologically blinkered and willing to live in what they consider to be a hostile country for years/decades at a time. Not many people meet that criteria.
Ex-China Employee: spoiler (Score:3)
She used to be the teapot in Beauty and the Beast.