The Netherlands To Block Export of Advanced Chips Printers To China (politico.eu) 50
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The Dutch government confirmed for the first time Wednesday it will impose new export controls on microchips manufacturing equipment, bowing to U.S. pressure to block the sale of some of its prized chips printing machines to China. The U.S. and the Netherlands reached an agreement to introduce new export restrictions on advanced chip technology to China at the end of January, but until now, the Dutch government hadn't commented publicly on it. The deal, which also included Japan, involves the only three countries that are home to manufacturers of advanced machines to print microchips. It is a U.S.-led initiative to choke off the supply of cutting-edge chips to China.
"Given the technological developments and geopolitical context, the government has concluded that it is necessary for the (inter)national security to expand the existing export controls on specific manufacturing equipment for semiconductors," Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher wrote in a letter to Dutch lawmakers published Wednesday evening. The Dutch government wants to prevent Dutch technology from being used in military systems or weapons of mass destruction, Schreinemacher wrote — echoing the U.S. reasoning when it imposed its own export controls in October. The Netherlands also wants to avoid losing its pole position in producing cutting-edge chip manufacturing tools: Schreinemacher said the government wants to uphold "Dutch technological leadership." While China is not explicitly named in Schreinemacher's letter, the new policy is targeted at Chinese efforts to overtake the U.S. and others like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and leading European countries in the global microchips supply chain.
The new export restrictions deal a blow to ASML, the global leader in producing advanced microchips printing machines based in Veldhoven, in southern Netherlands. In the letter, Schreinemacher said the new export control measures include the most advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV) machines, which are part of ASML's advanced chips printers portfolio. The Dutch firm, which is the highest-valued tech company in Europe, already did not receive export licenses for selling its most advanced machines using extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) technology to China since 2019. ASML in a statement confirmed it will now "need to apply for export licenses for shipment of the most advanced immersion DUV systems," but it noted it has not yet received more details about what "most advanced" means.
"Given the technological developments and geopolitical context, the government has concluded that it is necessary for the (inter)national security to expand the existing export controls on specific manufacturing equipment for semiconductors," Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher wrote in a letter to Dutch lawmakers published Wednesday evening. The Dutch government wants to prevent Dutch technology from being used in military systems or weapons of mass destruction, Schreinemacher wrote — echoing the U.S. reasoning when it imposed its own export controls in October. The Netherlands also wants to avoid losing its pole position in producing cutting-edge chip manufacturing tools: Schreinemacher said the government wants to uphold "Dutch technological leadership." While China is not explicitly named in Schreinemacher's letter, the new policy is targeted at Chinese efforts to overtake the U.S. and others like Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and leading European countries in the global microchips supply chain.
The new export restrictions deal a blow to ASML, the global leader in producing advanced microchips printing machines based in Veldhoven, in southern Netherlands. In the letter, Schreinemacher said the new export control measures include the most advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV) machines, which are part of ASML's advanced chips printers portfolio. The Dutch firm, which is the highest-valued tech company in Europe, already did not receive export licenses for selling its most advanced machines using extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) technology to China since 2019. ASML in a statement confirmed it will now "need to apply for export licenses for shipment of the most advanced immersion DUV systems," but it noted it has not yet received more details about what "most advanced" means.
China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:1)
It's like the old nuclear game all over again. Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.
And with their govt pouring money into this effort, it just makes it a matter of time.
Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like the old nuclear game all over again. Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.
And with their govt pouring money into this effort, it just makes it a matter of time.
Ideally by the time they spend enough money to replicate the current state-of-the-art the rest of us will have already moved on to the next better thing.
The point is not to freeze them in time, just to stay perpetually ahead, to both their economic and military detriment.
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Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only possible if they don't develop their own equipment and rely on import only. But it is not the case, the ban was imposed more than 5 years ago and they've reached 7 nm tech process last year themselves. Read something outside your rainbow unicorn news box. The military equipment does not need 7nm at all, it should be 150-300 nm at least to be reliable in radiation and in space. The military applications need a light weight trivial real time OS fitting into 2 megs of ram.
That is nice. Intel recently announced their 2nm process which was noted on a /. thread just yesterday. Hopefully by the time they get to two the civilized world will be working with sub-nanometer.
Also, military operations are not just guided missiles and smart bombs, and those mostly use ASICs which we don't share either. C&C and global situational awareness, especially leveraging the latest buzzword AI, won't run in 2 megs in any case.
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training wheels.
is china saying it still needs economic assistance.
or are we observing dependency issues
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I suggest China will match USA in two years time, despite sanctions
I'll take that bet. How much you willing to wager?
7nm is DUV, and the limit of DUV node size, and China has no access to EUV. Meanwhile, TSMC said [bloomberg.com] they will be producing 4nm EUV in the US next year.
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"""2nm""" isn't really 2nm at all. The names are pretty meaningless now.
China is throwing a lot of money at this, and it doesn't even have to win. Maybe the West will be able to stay a generation ahead, but that only matters for the very high end. We all like having cheap, smart devices, right?
AMD is actually using older processes for some components to save money. Their chiplet designs mean they can fabricate different parts of a CPU or GPU on difference processes. They found that some parts don't benefit
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That's why when you look at the EU and Japan investing in fabs, they typically are not the very cutting edge nodes, they are the nodes that are a little older but which comprise the majority of manufacturing output.
As the recent chip shortages in the automotive sector demonstrated there is still a huge need for legacy chip designs, but that is not where the profit is, so that is not where the spending will occur without government help.
China will keep throwing money at the problem.
We would expect nothing less. Better to make them work for it than giving it away.
We should be competing with investment ourselves.
Pretty sure we are. That is why China are not global leaders, and we plan to keep it that way.
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Sure. None of this has much to do with China's military. It's the US trying to cripple a competitor economy. In the 80s it was Japan that looked like its economy might get too big. Japan was an important ally so sanctions wouldn't do, but high tariffs would.
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Japan had much more tariffs on US goods in the 80's.
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Threatening big countries' access to strategic resources is great for peace. Look how well it worked out in the middle east.
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Threatening big countries' access to strategic resources is great for peace.
Handing big countries with a stated intent to run the world access to strategic resources is great for peace?
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Well, if you don't give them to the Americans they either have the CIA overthrow your government and install a dictator, or invade and kill lots of people, so yeah, it does seem to have mostly worked out on the peace side.
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Remember the problems Intel has to even keep up?
Re:China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:5, Informative)
Once you know it can be done, it's easiert to replicate.
Perhaps. But other companies have been trying to compete with ASML for many years, and none have succeeded.
China may build 5nm EUV steppers in a decade, but by then, the leading edge will have moved on.
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That's why China is also investing in other tech alternatives, such as graphene based semiconductors, in hopes of leap frogging.
That's not going to change what you need to do photo-litho with these feature sizes. It'll change chemistries, but not the need for the UV equipment. So no.
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Except that in this case, it's not. We always knew that it "could be done". What we didn't know was "how it could be done". And specifics weren't "how do we generate this laser", theory was mostly solid by 1970s.
It's the "how do you manufacture a mirror of this size with this little surface distortions" and "how do you get lasers to be this accurate" and so on. It's practical, engineering problems of QC.
This is why even if Dutch were to sell ASML to China tomorrow, it wouldn't help it to any significant ext
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China can make their own DUV machines. It just that they aren't any good and are still stuck at 90nm.
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Do you have any company name or product name to toss my way so I could search for it and correct my potential misconseptions?
Re: China will simply develop their own equipment (Score:2)
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No, there's a much simpler workaround.
Some other EU country will buy from the Dutch and then ship to the Chinese. There are no export controls within the EU so there's nothing the US can do about it under the terms of this agreement.
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I heard each of those ASML machines are followed with a bunch of ASML engineers who help the customers use those machines.
Wonder how useful it will be to have the machines without the people to show you how to best make use of it.
After all it's not like a simple motherboard where you can look at the manual and get an understanding of what the motherboard capabilities are and the number of devices you can plug into it's USB / PCIE / SATA / etc slots.
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No, there's a much simpler workaround.
Some other EU country will buy from the Dutch and then ship to the Chinese. There are no export controls within the EU so there's nothing the US can do about it under the terms of this agreement.
You do not understand how tight the tolerances are on this equipment, nor how integral it is to chip production.
I worked at *a_chip_manufacturer_in_Santa_Clara,_CA*. When we got one of these mask making setups for our new fab, it was delivered in several containers, and assembled on the bare concrete slab -and then the three story facility was built around it.
This is large, high precision equipment. You do not just unbox it, turn it on, and go. Entire facilities are designed around it, and ASML sends in
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Unfortunately, yes. And that will make CHina more powerful and the rest of the world less powerful. Forcing an opponent to upgrade its capabilities is about the most stupid thing that can be done.
Crippling it's economy to be buddies with the US (Score:2, Insightful)
We're bored about the Ukrainian conflict right now so let's focus on a new challenge.
More weapons sales can be made in many other parts of the world.
Chip Printers? (Score:1)
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Your printer has run out of UV light blinker fluid.
So the thinking here...Taiwan? (Score:5, Interesting)
And if China doesn't have their own at-home equivalent to TSMC, they would be shooting themselves in the foot, along with everyone else's feet.
ASML has been (Score:2)
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Probably right. And the global demand for the chips which require this technology will continue. Someone will have to build the fabs somewhere. And ASML will supply the equipment.
Re: ASML has been (Score:2)
Predicted 10 years ago (Score:2)
Intel makes new 1.8nm chips in China!!!! (Score:1)
What good is an export restriction when Intel, a USA corp., is apparently leapfrogging the current chip fabrication technology - and doing it in China?
https://www.tomshardware.com/n... [tomshardware.com]
Before teh USA starts strong-arming allies to restrict exports to China, the USA should get its own house in order. How many Intel executives will go to jail for violating export restrictions? The number rhymes with nero.
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Intel knows they are on a leash. Sorry bout the paywall.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/i... [wsj.com]
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Intel uses ASML machines. The export ban is on ASML, a Dutch company, selling the lithography equipment to Chinese companies. Intel is an American company so they can buy whatever they want, see?
It's not at all hypocritical. Nope nope nope.
Dollar Tree is now the Buck 25 Tree (Score:2)
We need to Stop buying Everything from China.
Their stated goal is to Rule the World.
That used to Scare people.
Now it's all about the Benjamins for the Corps.
Selling US out and the Dutch.
Good for them for blocking this.
Everybody else wake up.
.
Poor Europe (Score:2)
Their only world-class tech firm has just been knee-capped by US regulations. Payback for GDPR?