Lack of experience. Most of the West has bailed out of the electronics race so long ago, that the experience gap in between practice, and what is told in unive

Lack of experience. Most of the West has bailed out of the electronics race so long ago, that the experience gap in between practice, and what is told in universities is like 20-30 years now. No university in the world will teach you how to make a modern stepper. Most of research in this space been going behind closed doors from the beginning of the semiconductor industry, and nearly completely closed since around 2010. Only places like IMEC and few others are semi-public windows to what happens behind closed doors. In principle, physics behind the operation of a stepper is nothing secret, components not secret, manufacturing techniques not secret, but the experience of how to arrange all of above in a way it is known to work is only available to, I would say, less than 100 people worldwide.