8 ms·
ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a
by ren_engineer 5y ago
ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from-the-dutch-the-u-s-said-no-11626514513 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from...
the company is probably as important as TSMC in terms of geopolitics now
- erichocean 5y ago> US is already blocking them from exporting to China Which works until China invades Taiwan. Then what?
- philjohn 5y agoSeeing as you need ASML people to run these effectively, maintain them, repair them - I'm guessing we will see a massive global semiconductor shortage if China invades that makes this year look like a cakewalk.
- wrycoder 5y agoThey can probably shut them off remotely. Also, some high end CAM equipment is geofenced. They are only licensed for one location.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoAs if a geolocation cannot be falsified :)
- tomp 5y agoCan geolocation easily be falsified? Sure you can jam GPS, but can you easily falsify it? I'm not an expert, but I was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined. E.g. to get a "normal" (civilian I guess) licence you have to manufacture your chips so that they shut down if the object is moving too quickly (otherwise it could be used for missiles).
- fake-name 5y agoYes, it can be pretty trivially falsified. https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim https://github.com/osqzss/gps-sdr-sim It can be done for probably less then a thousand dollars, even. It's also pretty trivial to detect the simple falsification schemes, but outside of exotic military and research projects, none of the easily available GPS SoCs bother.
- krisoft 5y ago> was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined. On that you are very right. I'm often amazed by GPS, or any of the other GNSS technologies really. A fleck as big as a thumbnail which can communicate with multiple satellites wizzing-by to lock your location within 10s of meters. The fleck contains the antenna, the RF frontend, signal locking and tracking circuit, and a small computer to provide the navigational solution from the observables. And you get all this wonder super cheap. The whole system, the space vehicles, the ground segment is of course very expensive, but somehow the militaries of the world decided that they will you use all of that for free. If you would write this in a sci-fi I would trash your manuscript immediately. Except somehow it is not science fiction. It is reality.
- ethbr0 5y agoIt makes sense when you think about its evolution. GPS capability delivers incredible military advantage. (See: Gulf War) Consequently, US government funds constellation. Because money is no object vs the military advantage. Because of the nature of GPS, receivers (devices) can more or less be iterated independently of transmitters (satellites). US government allows civilian use (with reduced accuracy) for economic and geopolitical reasons. Commercial market rapidly iterates on the device technology (smaller, faster, cheaper). Transmitters are upgraded and enhanced, as expanding commercial market now justifies expense. Eventually accuracy limitations dropped. We end up at today.
- ren_engineer 5y agoAmerica pays the price for its short sighted hubris chasing profits and thinking we could turn China into a liberal democracy if we threw enough money at them
- thephyber 5y agoThis just comes off as a “I can see the problems with that approach from 40 years ago because my hindsight is 20/20” kind of statement. It’s also worth considering that the cost of living in the US has been lowered because China has been the factory for our WalMart / Target / IKEA goods. If we didn’t open up China to the US / WTO markets, the world would be a very different place and that counterfactual is pretty difficult to calculate.
- mindslight 5y agoThe cost of living hasn't been lowered, because one of the chief mandates of the Federal Reserve is making sure the cost of living never decreases. Instead, the savings went to a combination of asset holders and make-work jobs. This is one of the major causes of the growing class divide - our manufacturing economy was destroyed, but the people who were put out of work were still expected to get the same income somehow.
- thephyber 5y agoThe cost of living in our timeline is cheaper than the timeline where China was never opened for trading with the West. I never stated it suggested that it caused a negative interest rate in an absolute sense.
- mindslight 5y agoTo some extent, as with any imperfect feedback loop. But not nearly to the degree that is implied by the statement, as most of the savings were eaten up by our own policies. Also cost of living for who? The now-unemployed swaths of the country certainly didn't see their cost of living go down in terms of hours worked.
- secondcoming 5y agoTomahawk time for the fabs
- mixedCase 5y agoAren't fabs already rigged with explosives in case of invasion?
- wonnage 5y agoblowing up the fabs definitely won't help with the supply situation
- qorrect 5y agoIs this a real thing ?
- Throwawayaerlei 5y agoNormal SOP is to keep the explosives, which do have shelf-lives, in a magazine a short distance from where they need to be emplaced. Perhaps look up how they Swiss routinely included niches in bridges and the like to place them in case of invasion.
- cbozeman 5y ago"rigged with explosives" is likely a bit of an exaggeration. It would not be difficult to conduct a campus-wide evacuation then have the Taiwanese Air Force destroy the facility with targeted weapons. It might also be the case that the facility's precise coordinates are well-known to Taiwanese military's artillery units and the entire place could be reduced to rubble in minutes.
- sudosysgen 5y agoIn the case of an invasion there wouldn't be a taiwanese air force left to speak out. Artillery could definitely do it though.
- Gys 5y agoThe US (supposedly?) blocked ASML from exporting its machines to China. ASML is a Dutch company.
- lokimedes 5y agoASML may rely on ITAR / dual use parts they enables export control by the US. Or, the US is simply applying a diplomatic squeeze on the Netherlands.
- Throwawayaerlei 5y agoLast time I checked the lasers come from California, from a company that ASML ended up buying.
- PabloRobles 5y agoCymer (acquired by ASML) is the company providing the 13 nm light sources for the EUV machines of ASML.
- khuey 5y agoThe original EUV research was done in US government labs.
- ijidak 5y agoHa. Tell that to all of Europe. Because so much trade is done in dollars. And because companies globally want access to U.S. financial markets, money transfer systems, companies and markets, the U.S. has the ability to tell even foreign companies what to do. That's why Europe was frustrated when Trump reinstated sanctions on Iran. And had to try to figure out ways of bypassing them. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/middle-east/voa-news-iran/more-european-nations-join-effort-bypass-us-sanctions-iran%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/middle-east/voa...) The U.S. has incredible, unexpected power over global companies and trade.
- ric2b 5y ago
- mcv 5y agoOr it works until China develops their own.
- another_story 5y agoThen what? Probably a fight that will result in one of the greatest blows to the global economy ever, as well as the collapse of China as we know it today. The Taiwanese will destroy all the fabs before China can take them. We already have a chip shortage, can you imagine what it will be like to cut current supplies by another 40-50%? The resulting sanctions alone would cripple China. Hence, status quo will remain, and Taiwan will continue to be a prop for nationalist speeches in China and the US defense industry will continue to make a mint off selling them old gear.
- dan-robertson 5y agoIf China invaded Taiwan then US companies would have a hard time moving manufacturing outside of China so maybe demand for semiconductors would go down. The problem would just be the supply of everything downstream falling off a cliff.
- vimy 5y agoI’m not sure the status quo will remain. The Chinese respond very emotional whenever Taiwan gets mentioned. Don’t bank too much on China acting rational.
- ethbr0 5y agoChinese aggression toward Taiwan is inversely correlated with China's domestic economy and political stability.
- dirtyid 5y agoDestroying TSMC fabs is in neither US nor PRC or Taiwan's interest, it's the only point of consensus and mexican standoff leverage between all parties that prevents a TW war from escalating too far. IMO US and PRC would rather bargain some sort of sharing agreement over TSMC even in event of military actions in exchange for not glassing TW than have everyone lose access to the fabs. > imagine what it will be like to cut current supplies by another 40-50% And despite everyone's aforementioned desire to preserve TSMC, ultimately this is still a trivial amount if you consider that the East Asian semi supply chain accounts for 75% of global IC share and is completely within PRC missile range if there was ever an expansive east Asian theatre over Taiwan. Losing TSMC in war over TW will set the world back 1-2 nodes and 10 years, losing regional fabs and supply chains (in SK or JP) in a broader war over TW will knock out decades worth of capex. Global semiconductor industry is a 500B market, trillions in terms of industries affected, most of which benefits the west. PRC has massively more leverage in semi mutually assured destruction, so much so that TSMC is ultimately expendable if PRC is ever forced to act upon TW, because losing TSMC doesn't even scratch the surface of semi disruption PRC can cause US/West, who again are disproportionate beneficiaries of current IC status quo.
- cbozeman 5y agoThen what? That isn't hard to figure out. If China invades Taiwan before enough TSMC plants are built in America to meet American, and by extension - Western - demand for electronics, then it's war. Period, end of story. There is no fucking way in any timeline in any alternate universe that Western electronics companies can allow China to put their businesses on hold, because it isn't just a bunch of AMD and Qualcomm CPUs... it's every automotive company in the Western world. It's every appliance manufacturer in the Western world PLUS South Korea. China will go right back to 1820. Damn near dead fucking last on the world stage. The Communist party leadership would probably kill Xi Jinping before allowing him to make such a monumental mistake. And nuclear war isn't an option either, because all of China will end up completely uninhabitable if even a single major American city gets targeted. And it won't just be "America vs. China" either, it'll be "Every Western nation vs. China". And China will lose. Badly.
- lubos 5y agoHold your horses. TSMC is cutting edge. They got ahead only in the past 3-4 years. Car/appliance manufacturers do not use their cutting edge chips. The biggest use-case for these chips are new iPhones and iPads. Nothing critical.
- gggmaster 5y agoYou mean the Korean War?
- ric2b 5y agoPeople forget that nuclear MAD works both ways when they write these power tripping comments. If China takes control of chip supply the US will have to play along and try to apply soft power, never war, because China is a nuclear nation with 4 people to every 1 in the US. It hasn't even been a month since Afghanistan proved (again) that even when you have overwhelming force you might not have a favorable outcome.
- baybal2 5y ago> And nuclear war isn't an option either, because all of China will end up completely uninhabitable if even a single major American city gets targeted. No, by far, China is the only nation which may ever consider taking the first strike. There is Mao's famous saying, but also the fact China is super crazy about nuclear war preparedness. Every major city has regular NBC drills, stockpiles of everything, and huge shelters.
- adventured 5y agoThen TSMC's intellectual property becomes public property. An effort immediately begins to clone anything relevant. Apple, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Nvidia, ASML, IBM, and so on. All are now welcome to take TSMC's intellectual property and use it in any way they see fit. It'll be a spectacular race, and those companies have the resources to pursue it properly. The same goes for all intellectual property in Taiwan. It all immediately becomes public property, free for anyone to utilize. Who says? The US Government does, and the Europeans will likely agree. It'll usher in an epic confrontation politically and economically with China. The world will - practically overnight - split into two major factions, as with the Cold War. Any people inside TSMC that are able to escape, or that are already in the US/Europe/etc, go to work helping the US and its allies to clone TSMC's technology. That includes spending the required sums to build fabs to accomodate that outcome. It'll be relatively easy for TSMC insiders to dump all relevant company trade secrets over to the US and its allies, which would be guaranteed to occur.
- stevofolife 5y agoNot “any” one inside TSMC know the company trade secrets. One of the reasons to why TSMC is ahead is due to the fact that many years of accumulated knowledge and experience is distilled into a few minds.
- Kye 5y agoAll it takes is someone figuring out how to do the same thing without all the specialized parts or bulk. That's the main cost. This is the way of tech: it starts expensive, full of specialized parts that only a few suppliers produce, then someone figures out how to do it cheaper. At $1B a pop + 50% for lifetime maintenance, the incentive is there.
- lumost 5y agoThe problem with semi is that they will move to a machine that costs 2 billion a pop within 2 years. The output of this 2 billion dollar machine will be greater than the cost increase. Semi is heading to a winner take all market based on capital expenditure. Even TSMC can’t afford to in house the work ASML does and keep pace with new developments.
- analyst74 5y ago> US is already blocking them from exporting to China This might actually be a good thing for China. In a "necessity is the root of invention" kinda way. Ultimately this might be good to the world too, competition is generally a good thing.
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y agoThis is true in general. In this case, however, there are no efforts I am aware of in the industry that can catch them. Their technological lead is so great, in so many subsystem and science areas, it's likely they will be defacto monopoly in this space for 20 years.
- ren_engineer 5y agoChina flat out bribing, kidnapping or blackmailing ASML employees seems perfectly viable. Or sneaking operatives into ASML to steal trade secrets. China is the best in the world at this and they now have huge incentive to try even harder
- 11thEarlOfMar 5y agoThey will not be able to steal enough technology, nor will they be able to manage the organization that reproduces it.
- MichaelZuo 5y agoWhy steal if money is no object? If there truly was enough motivation in whatever circles these decisions get made in, they could just offer all the top folks at ASML an eight figure or nine figure salary package. The fact that this hasn't happened yet suggests that it's not as critical as it's made to sound like, or at least those key decision makers don't believe so.
- ethbr0 5y agoIronically, the very thing that everyone assumes will allow China to dominate appears to be hamstringing them: politics. China can say they have a priority on domestic semiconductor production, and they can throw obscene amounts of money at the problem. But ultimately, something that takes 10+ years to develop isn't appetizing for China's current political climate. It needs to be the best, yesterday. Consequently, they'll continue throwing money at whoever promises results next year, and starving whoever says it can't be done but offers a realistic plan to eventual dominance. Capitalism sucks in many ways, but decentralized command economies (national government commands, local supplies) are about the worst of all possible worlds for high knowledge, long lead time, heavy research industries. Which is why you saw the Soviets do pretty well at heavy industry, but not so well at computers.
- rasz 5y agounsuccessfully https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/billion-dollar-heist-how-scammers https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/billion-dollar-heist-how-sc... https://interconnected.blog/chinas-semiconductor-theranos-hsmc/ https://interconnected.blog/chinas-semiconductor-theranos-hs...