[pierrem15]

No other country in the world can compete with China's mercantilist state-directed and funded industrial enterprises. It may very well improve ASMC's tech, but probably half or more is stolen and we simply cannot tolerate this kind of unfair competition unless we all want to be slaves of the Great Khan in Beijing.

The only solution is to unwind trade with China. Make China support its own enterprises with its domestic market.

[central_va]

mercantilist state-directed and funded industrial enterprises

I. E. Fascism

[dennisw]

At low nanometers it is extremely difficult to get low rejection rates. ASML machines get installed. Then fine tuning their production can take 2-3 years.

The Chinese have zillions of engineers but will still spend ages figuring out/fine tuning elite chip production. I figure they can churn out 14nm chips these days.
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Yes. China can manufacture 14 nm at very high volume today, and it has become one of the country’s manufacturing sweet spots.

Roughly speaking:

28 nm – Massive production. This is the workhorse node for automotive, industrial, power management, IoT, microcontrollers, and many consumer chips. Chinese fabs produce huge quantities.

14 nm – Also a mature, high-volume process, especially at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). This node is used for smartphone SoCs, networking chips, AI accelerators, SSD controllers, and many other products.

7 nm – China has demonstrated production, with SMIC manufacturing chips such as the processor used in Huawei phones. However, production is more limited, more expensive, and has lower yields because it relies on multiple-patterning techniques rather than the latest EUV lithography.

5 nm and below – China is still behind the leading edge. These nodes are dominated by foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics, which use EUV lithography extensively.

If you think in terms of manufacturing efficiency: