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While ASMLs machines are a critical element in the production chain of sub 7nm chips at scale however it is far from the only critical component. Reducing all o

While ASMLs machines are a critical element in the production chain of sub 7nm chips at scale however it is far from the only critical component. Reducing all of Taiwan's leadership to be about access to these machines is beyond ignorant. It is TSMC who integrates the ASML machine into a node. A node being made of dozens of machines performing hundreds of discrete steps with right parameters in the right order. It is TSMC who build fabs with enormously short lead times.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
I didn't do that. You put words into my mouth. I said the fabrication problem is easier to catch up on than the bootstrapping problem which is just obviously true. Chips are fabricated all over the world. TSMC obviously is an incredible company and has difficult challenges but the difference between them and other foundries is mostly about scale. Scale is something that typically you can invest in and pretty quickly make measurable progress. Bootstrapping a whole new lithographic process is not. That is something you would have to invest in for years with essentially nothing to show for it. That is a harder problem from a market standpoint and a political standpoint. But we're not talking generally about chip fabrication here. We're talking about what is going on with the investments from the U.S. and Japan in next generation chip production. And the bottom line is the investment here is made relatively unrelated to "competing" with Taiwan as a global chip exporter. The most likely thing is that the technology invested here will be used in Taiwan to fabricate chips.