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Dutch Align with US Export Controls on Some ASML Chip Tools
- sylware 2y agoUntil china is not able to produce state-of-the-art EUV photolitographers, they will be "grounded" to produce old silicon process chips.
- belter 2y agoOr until the US invades Greenland, and will be barred by the EU of ever using ASML machines again ;-)
- aurareturn 2y agoPretty sure the reason ASML has to comply is because they rely on American suppliers. Without those American suppliers, they wouldn't be able to build their machines.
- microtonal 2y agoOr, I don't know? The Netherlands considers the US an ally and if the US asks it, we (sometimes begrudgingly) do it? Which circles back to the current problem in the White House. Allies don't work on transactionalism and threats. They work using a lot of silent diplomacy and the understanding that you sometimes sacrifice a bit for an ally. Everybody gets some wins.
- aurareturn 2y agoIt’s all about leverage. What leverage does the US have on ASML?
- usrnm 2y agoThe US already threatened to invade the Netherlands not so long ago, worked like a charm. I'm pretty sure your scenario would be resolved just as easily
- postepowanieadm 2y agoNetherlands(ASML) or Denmark(Greenland/Ozempic)?
- peterpost2 2y agoI think he might be thinking about the following repulsive law: https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_...
- belter 2y agoYour forgot about the ASML Machines remote disable. The SEAL Team 6 better deploy already to a location around Amsterdam.... "ASML can remotely disable chip machines if China invades Taiwan" - https://nltimes.nl/2024/05/21/asml-can-remotely-disable-chip-machines-china-invades-taiwan-report https://nltimes.nl/2024/05/21/asml-can-remotely-disable-chip...
- sylware 2y agoI heard about total destruction, but not from ASML, from taiwan authorities.
- corimaith 2y agoThe US isn't even willing to send troops to deal with the Houthis and now you're treating an invasion of the Netherlands as credible? Maybe you should cool it with the propaganda here.
- krisoft 2y ago> and now you're treating an invasion of the Netherlands as credible? It is as credible as it gets. The explicit threat is in the American Service-Members' Protection Act and it was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 2, 2002. Which part of this do you feel is propaganda?
- dragonelite 2y agoThe lithographic light source is US ip being created on US shores. If they do that it will be the last EUV machine ASML will make in the EU. Hell i would bet ASML will move to US than stay in EU, if the US says move to the US and we will allow you to do business with China again. Also it looks like China has multiple EUV tracks on going from SSMB to that tin based EUV that ASML works with.
- belter 2y agoThe lithographic light source used in ASML EUV lithography systems is based on intellectual property developed by Cymer, a company that....drum roll...ASML acquired in 2013.
- kube-system 2y agoIf we're talking about the above hypothetical trade embargo, it wouldn't really matter. Ownership doesn't override trade restrictions.
- dragonelite 2y agoYou think Cymer will stay ASML property when the US can just do a National security ruling... Queue in the "First time" meme with China and Netherlands.
- impossiblefork 2y agoIt's not like AMSL couldn't build other light sources. There's a lot of particle accelerator research in Europe, for example. But presumably there is a partnership, so that the Netherlands accomodates the US and the US accommodates the Netherlands, so that nobody is unhappy, with this working well enough that no one has felt the need to do switch.
- amelius 2y agoIs EUV the only way? Isn't there a much slower technique with laser engraving, but which they may scale in some other way? https://www.asianometry.com/p/euv-lithography-but-with-a-free-electron https://www.asianometry.com/p/euv-lithography-but-with-a-fre...
- nomercy400 2y agoEUV is all about the laser. To create the small transistors of 4nm for example, either lithography or some other laser tech, you need to be able to shine a pure light on them of small enough wavelength. EUV is the smallest we can create thus far.
- CamperBob2 2y agoI suppose that the real issue is that EUV is the smallest we can focus thus far. Otherwise we'd be using harder X-rays from things like synchrotron light sources, no?
- andyferris 2y agoYou want to impact the surface, not deep into the material like X-rays would penetrate, so you can't actually go too low in wavelength either.
- sylware 2y agoIsn't that a significant research field? New semi-conducting crystals and materials which would be friendly to x-rays?
- jecel 2y agohttps://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoimprint-lithography https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoimprint-lithography
- xbmcuser 2y agoIt would be really interesting if in order to compete and not being able to get anywhere with photolithography if they come up with some other material to make processors or something else. Silicon is the thing that has been worked on and billions have been spent on it over decades. Now with chinese government as well private companies spending billions on a break through we might get something out of left field where private companies would not have been willing to invest in. As they say competition/war speeds up innovation.
- sylware 2y agoif if if would would would. Dude, they found a way, until they did.
- Keyframe 2y agothey'd still need know-how what to produce, and that seems to also be the hard part if not way harder.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoUSA the parent of the world, grounding unruly teenagers like the PRC.
- usrnm 2y agoAnd what are ASML and the Netherlands in general getting out of it?
- openrisk 2y agoLots of trips to Silicon Valley to learn the "secrets" of being masters of the digital universe. Somehow it never leads to anything :-)
- rtkalnb 2y ago[flagged]
- tristanj 2y agoThey don't have a choice. ASML licenses the intellectual property for EUV lithography from the US government. Therefore they follow US export control laws on EUV machines.
- belter 2y ago> The US government owns the intellectual property for ASML's EUV lithography. This is false.
- tristanj 2y agoFrom the wikipedia page on EUV: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithogra... > To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government, but licensed and distributed under approval by DOE and Congress.[3] The CRADA consisted of a consortium of private companies and the Labs, manifested as an entity called the Extreme Ultraviolet Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC).[4] > In 2001 SVG was acquired by ASML, leaving ASML as the sole benefactor of the critical technology. Unless the situation has changed, the IP is still owned by the US government, and is licensed to ASML through their acquisition of Silicon Valley Group.
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- dbspin 2y agoThese export controls seem particularly misguided in light of the role Taiwan's TSMC play in chip design and manufacture. Long term, clearly China is capable of catching up with ASML's tooling - it's an economic necessity that they do so, even if (big assumption) they'll always be X years behind the current process node. Espionage and desperation are a powerful combination. Short term, doesn't this make Taiwan an even more glittering jewel to the CCP?
- threeseed 2y ago> they'll always be X years behind the current process node Which will render the country a technological back-water and affect their ability to build the advanced systems needed to compete in a war for Taiwan. And given that China would be fighting against a war against West + Japan + South Korea with support from at least a few ASEAN countries they would need to be at the top of their game to have a chance of taking Taiwan.
- thefounder 2y agoWhat makes you think they need the latest technology to win a war? Technology may be an advantage but the wars are dicy.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoWhat fraction of servers are even running the latest and greatest? Datacenters are not scrapping their entire fleet the day TSMC releases a new node.
- threeseed 2y agoWe aren't talking about China being behind on one node. It's a ban on anything less than 7nm. So every year the discrepancy accumulates.
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- mg794613 2y agoNo, we don't "allign". We get pressured until we do what America wants us to do.
- fyrn_ 2y agoTo be fair America funded a lot of the research. You could argue they should't have taken so much US investment though. It's like when founders give to much control of their company away for the sweet VC cash, nothing is free.
- int0x29 2y agoThey signed an agreement with the US government when they bought an export controlled light source.
- TheRealPomax 2y agoNo, despite what you might personally feel, ASML and the Dutch government really do align with the US when it comes to the matter of "making sure ASML can keep existing".
- codeulike 2y agoASML is so interesting. Its like sci-fi that one firm in the Netherlands knows how to make the most complicated machine ever made, and no one else can do it. And it is arguably the most complicated machine ever made. 50,000 times a second, the EUV lithography machine hits a 25 micron drop of molten tin that is moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers, the first hit to change the shape of the drop of tin in exactly the right way, the second hit to vaporise it, creating Extreme Ultraviolet Light at the right wavelength to etch chip designs onto silicon at "5nm process" sizes. Some labs can cobble together something similar as a proof of concept, but not well enough to make it feasible for mass production of chips. Video about the light souce - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ge2RcvDlgw No one else in the world is able to make these machines. If you buy one it costs $150m and gets shipped to you in forty containers on specially adapted planes. Very few firms have the resources/know how to even run the machines - which is what makes TSMC so important.
- abdullahkhalids 2y agoWhile EUV lithography machines are surely a contender, the most complicated machine every made is likely the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A 27 km tunnel in which protons (with cross section about 10^-28 square meters) collide head on. Hard to imagine this amount of alignment is possible.
- sciencesama 2y agoIt’s not complex just gigantic, repeated sections. Definitely not downplaying it but definitely euv is damn complex !!
- tonfa 2y agoOne differentiator is that it's factory produced (not just a one off)
- codeulike 2y agoTrue, perhaps if we call EUV Lithography the most complicated fabricator machine that actually makes something. Whereas LHC is a scientific experiment.
- Synaesthesia 2y agoSomeone want to remind me?, why can't China have these technologies again?
- eumenides1 2y agoChina has a history of stealing technologies if it can. Fine, but don't expect the world to LET china steal these technologies. And if China doesn't like it, it can reinvent the wheel. Here is the fun part. I think China can absolutely do so in a technical sense. But I know the people absolutely won't do it, because they don't want it/aren't incentivized to do it.
- int0x29 2y agoI regret to inform the various nationalists here this wasn't really developed by one group. ASML signed contracts for research and technology from multiple different countries. The Netherlands isn't being strong armed here. It is having to comply with a heavily negotiated contract that they signed decades ago when they aquired a US based firm using export controlled US DOE research.
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