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Difficult yes. Enough to stop a highly motivated nation state with massive talent pool and economic resources to dedicate to the task? No. Especially not the D
by jpgvm 3y ago
Difficult yes. Enough to stop a highly motivated nation state with massive talent pool and economic resources to dedicate to the task? No.
Especially not the DUV machines.
EUV is a different matter. The design that ASML uses relies on absolutely crazy optics and masks that aren't just stupidly difficult to manufacture but maintain/repair throughput use.
I don't expect China to copy their EUV design, more likely they would develop something homegrown. Largely this comes down to the light source which is actually designed/built in San Diego, not the Netherlands. It's a very complex and finicky beast that I don't think would appeal to Chinese sensibilities. More likely I expect them to come up with a cyclotron design or similar which can more easily reach higher power output (critical for lithography) but requires more centralized infrastructure (not a problem for China, but a problem for private companies).
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y agoYeah, a cyclotron-fed X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) is a brighter source than what ASML EUV machines use. But XFELs are big (often hundred-meter scale undulators, not to mention the size of the synchrotron) and very expensive. Less of an issue for a highly centralized production system, but not something you can ship to customers around the world.
- jpgvm 3y agoChina might be the only place that could build one due to the central planning required. Would be damn cool if they do, guess we'll just have to wait and find out.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y agoWell, there are a bunch of such XFELs around (not sure if China has any yet), but they're research, not for production applications. That's how we can know they're such bright sources, how big they tend to be, how expensive they are to build, etc.