Posted on 10/22/2025 10:34:53 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
The Chinese semiconductor industry faces a critical barrier in scaling up chip production, primarily due to the lack of lithography equipment in fabs. This limitation has confined firms like SMIC to a specific production volume and prevented them from scaling up significantly for several years now. Apart from developing in-house alternatives, it seems like Chinese engineers were actually keen to 'reverse engineer' ASML's DUV equipment, according to a report from The National Interest. Now, in the process of opening up the equipment, the individuals broke down the DUV machinery.
This is actually interesting and hilarious at the same time. While the report doesn't pinpoint the specific source of this development, the occasion doesn't seem too far-fetched, considering China's 'hunger' for a breakthrough in the chip industry. Now, once the machines broke down, Chinese engineers actually called out ASML to fix the machines, but the Dutch firm discovered the intentions of the engineers involved. The report has yet to be verified by ASML for now.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at wccftech.com ...
The current lowest resolution for transistor size is 2 nanometers. Commercial chips run about 3 nanometers. It seems the lowest resolution the Chinese can do is 7 nanometers.
CC
Although these poor bastards are probably destined to be organ donors, I give them credit for trying. Farting in the same room with them installed would probably put those machines out of commission for three months. Semiconductor manufacturing id that delicate.
So they voided the warranty.
Obviously.
The Dutch need to require that the machine be shipped back to the factory for “repair”.
Actually China is having problems smaller than 14nm.
They can build them but they don’t operate at full speed and yield is very poor.
Without EUV lithography, 7nm and smaller is virtually impossible.
Both Intel and Global Foundry discovered this.
Intel pushed very late into EUV and GF abandoned anything smaller than 14nm.
ASML is the only way to make EUV work and it took them 25 years to make it work.
What???!! Chinese trying to steal technology?? Who would believe that?
I was going off of google. You sound like you’re better informed. Thanks for filling me in.👍
CC
I read recently that terms like “3 nm”, “7 nm” etc. are more *marketing* terms than actual dimensions. State-of-the-art semiconductors for CPUs/GPUs/NPUs are so complicated in structure (FinFET, RibbonFET, GAAFET, MBCFET etc.) that there are many dimensions involved, almost none of which are actually that small.
Excerpt (from “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process“):
“The term “3 nanometer” has no direct relation to any actual physical feature (such as gate length, metal pitch or gate pitch) of the transistors. According to the projections contained in the 2021 update of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems published by IEEE Standards Association Industry Connection, a 3 nm node is expected to have a contacted gate pitch of 48 nanometers, and a tightest metal pitch of 24 nanometers.[12]
“However, in real world commercial practice, 3 nm is used primarily as a marketing term by individual microchip manufacturers (foundries) to refer to a new, improved generation of silicon semiconductor chips in terms of increased transistor density (i.e. a higher degree of miniaturization), increased speed and reduced power consumption.[13][14] There is no industry-wide agreement among different manufacturers about what numbers would define a 3 nm node.[1]
I used to know a senior executive at ASML - they moved all of their operations to Singapore (at a higher cost) a long time ago because they knew China would steal anything they could. I imagine national boundaries are less of a barrier to that effort now than they used to be.
Perhaps:
Each PRC PC mini-data center.
Two hundred million PRC PCs make for happy computing.
WIKI
In 1991, ASML released the PAS 5500, which quickly became the company’s first commercial breakout. In contrast to the more precise contemporary lithography machines from competing firm Nikon, the modular design used by ASML meant that its machines could be fixed quickly on site, reducing downtime and making it possible to extend the machine’s operating life. The serviceability advantage was reportedly the key factor that led to IBM ordering the PAS 5500 over its Japanese counterparts. The first company to operate the PAS 5500 was Micron Technology, one of the world’s largest producers of computer memory and storage; it became ASML’s largest customer for a time. The success of the PAS 5500 line propelled ASML into a period of intense competition with both Canon and Nikon, who were the leaders of the lithography market at the time.
In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet. Two years later, it joined a consortium, which included Intel and two other U.S. chipmakers, in order to exploit fundamental research conducted by the US Department of Energy. Because the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) it operates under is funded by the US government, licensing must be approved by Congress. Furthermore, in return for being permitted to join this consortium, ASML committed to the establishment of a US-based research center and to source 55 percent of components for all machines sold in the US from American suppliers. ASML collaborated with various manufacturers to obtain mirrors, including the Belgian firms IMEC and Sematech as well as Germany’s Carl Zeiss.
In 2002, it became the largest supplier of photolithography systems. Aided by the adoption of the dual-stage TWINSCAN architecture to reduce idle time, ASML machines could produce more chips per hour than any competitor’s products; this competitive edge was so strong that the company could charge higher prices for their machines and still grow its market share. By the end of the decade, it had secured two thirds of the global lithography market and had become the dominant supplier for the growing smartphone market.
During the early 2010s, ASML sharply increased its annual R&D budget, rising from just under $500 million in 2010 to $1 billion in 2015. While this expenditure was necessary in order to complete the development of its next generation EUV machines, financing such amounts was not straightforward. To achieve this, ASML launched a co-investment program in 2012, under which 23 percent of the company was sold to its three largest customers: Intel, TSMC and Samsung. Intel’s investment into $4.1 billion into ASML, made in July 2012, gave it a 15 percent stake in the company; this move was stated to accelerate Intel’s transition from 300 mm to 450 mm wafers as well as support further development of EUV lithography. That same month, ASML offered another 10 percent of its shares to other companies.
Beyond simply generating additional funds, these new stakeholders were incentivised to participate in ASML’s research efforts. TSMC in particular worked closely with ASML to develop and troubleshoot its EUV machines, being keen to use them to manufacture their own products. As part of their EUV strategy, ASML announced the acquisition of DUV and EUV sources manufacturer Cymer in exchange for $2.55 billion in October 2012; this transaction was completed in May 2013. Cymer’s technology was viewed as being useful to developing ASML’s EUV machines.
After reporting earnings in July 2021, the company said they had a near monopoly for machines used by TSMC and Samsung to make the advanced chips.
In December 2025, Reuters reported that China had secretly built a prototype EUV machine in Shenzhen with the assistance of former ASML engineers, with the machine expected to produce working chips between 2028 and 2030.
As of 2025, ASML had 83% percent of the worldwide sales of lithography machines.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is a critical technology used to create the smallest and most complex chip designs. ASML holds a near-monopoly in the EUV market. The company’s machines are capable of etching patterns as small as 8 nanometers, 1/10000 the width of a human hair.
EUV machines produce light in the 13.5 nm wavelength range by focusing a high-energy laser on microscopic droplets of molten tin to produce a plasma, which then emits EUV light. The light is bounced off Zeiss mirrors onto the surface of a silicon wafer to form the designs for the chip.
As of 2022, ASML has shipped around 140 EUV systems. ASML’s best-selling EUV product has been the TWINSCAN NXE:3600D, which costs up to $200 million. The machine weighs 180 tons and needs three Boeing 747s to transport.
ASML is working on the next generation of EUV systems, with the first shipments for R&D shipped to Intel in December 2023, and TSMC in late 2024. The platform is designated High-NA as it increases the numerical aperture (NA) from 0.33 to 0.55. each system costs approximately $370 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML
“Two major customers have confirmed that High NA has shown big improvements over ASML’s previous EUV machines. At a conference in February, Intel said it had used High NA to make about 30,000 wafers so far, and that the machine was about twice as reliable as its predecessors. At that same conference, Samsung said High NA could reduce its cycle time by 60%, meaning its chips can complete more operations per second.”
“To create the EUV light, ASML shoots molten tin out of a nozzle at 50,000 droplets per second, shooting each drop with a powerful laser that creates a plasma that’s hotter than the sun. Those tiny explosions are what emit photons of the EUV light, with a wavelength of just 13.5 nanometers.”
“The higher numerical aperture of High NA means it has a larger lens opening, increasing the angle at which the light is captured by the mirrors. More light coming in from steeper angles allows High NA machines to transfer increasingly small designs onto the wafer in one step. By comparison, lower NA machines require multiple projections of EUV light, through multiple masks.”
“ASML sold 44 EUV machines last year, with a price tag starting at $220 million. DUV machines are far cheaper, ranging from $5 million to $90 million, but ASML sold 374 of the legacy machines in 2024.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.