5 ms·

It is just a delaying tactic. ASML is 5-10 years ahead in their technology so it will take a while for China to catch up. Which will grant the USA some extra ti

It is just a delaying tactic. ASML is 5-10 years ahead in their technology so it will take a while for China to catch up. Which will grant the USA some extra time to build its own chip industry and not be dependent on two or three other countries.

gizmo 3y ago
China doesn’t need to replicate EUV in order to make competitive chips. China can already produce very advanced chips today and is maybe 2 years behind in the ways that actually matter.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
FooBarWidget 3y ago
It's not -just- a delaying tactic. It's a trade. Without these sanctions, China will likely soon develop chip design talent that's at the cutting edge, but they'll fab with TSMC (and thus use the entire Western-dependant supply chain). This means that China's chip manufacturing ecosystem will remain poor, unpopular and underdeveloped. With these sanctions, China's chip design talent can't fab cutting edge chips. But China's manufacturing ecosystem suddenly gets the market incentive to develop. I don't think they will reach EUV any time soon, and that hurts. But dominating the mature chip manufacturing sector in the mid term is an achievable goal, and mature chips are still absolutely essential even if they're not "sexy". Whereas before sanctions, there was no way they could dominate in chip manufacturing (nobody wanted to fab with Chinese manufacturers or wanted to buy Chinese chip manufacturing equipment), only in chip design. What these sanctions did was trading one thing (cutting-edge chip design) for the other (mature chip manufacturing). The short-term blow to China sounds sexy, but they've created a long-term problem. Is this trade worth it? I wonder whether policymakers even realize they're making this trade.
- biotopia 3y ago
  [flagged]
SkyMarshal 3y ago
Yes, though it's not only about delaying China so the US can catch up in semiconductors, but also about trying to delay China so that they miss their window of opportunity to invade Taiwan. Xi's aim is to reunify Taiwan with the mainland sometime in the 2020s. The US is trying to deter that using a comprehensive deterrence strategy - military, diplomatic, economic. Hence new US bases in northern Philippines, US supporting Japan in changing its constitution to enable more military buildup, US increasing arms sales to Taiwan, US SSBN publicly docking in Korea, AUKUS, Quad, improved diplomatic relations with India, general derisking/decoupling and relocating of supply chains to Vietnam, Mexico, India, etc. The ASML and Nvidia bans are just a part of an overall comprehensive delay and deterrence strategy, primarily aimed at thwarting Chinese ability to deploy advanced AI in the near term that could be useful in an attack on Taiwan and potential war vs the US & allies in the next few years. Yes it does incentivize the Chinese to more quickly develop indigenous advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, but that was happening anyway and everyone including the US knows it can't be stopped at this point. But it's about throwing as many wrenches into Xi's invasion plans and 2020s timeline as possible, and this is just one of many.
- sofixa 3y ago
  > Xi's aim is to reunify Taiwan with the mainland sometime in the 2020s Do you have a source on that? > AUKUS The one that is supposed to result in submarines getting delivered sometime in the 2030s at the earliest? Hardly relevant for the 20s.
  - hug 3y ago
    AUKUS is about more than submarines -- that just happened to be the bit that hit the news. There are specific provisions in AUKUS for AI & other technology partnerships.
  - toss1 3y ago
    >> Do you have a source on that? Xi himself, as recently as just last week, centering reunification in his New Year's speech [0] Delaying China is absolutely critical for democracies to remain globally viable. The fundamental principle is that any person or country who wants to remain self-determining must be better armed, prepared, and able to fight than the local bully or global authoritarian; if not, they'll take your lunch and democracy every time. With Russia, supported by China [1], we are already far past a new Cold War and into a Hot War with the autocracies. The better defense capabilities of the democracies rely on the concept of "Defense Offset", which is basically maintaining a technological advantage so that a numerically much smaller military can prevail against a numerically superior military (e.g., US mil 2019 total size 1.388MM [2], vs China 2.535MM [3]). This military advantage, since at least the late 1960s, has relied on advantage in microchip technology. When the first Cold War ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Grand Experiment was tried. The idea was that free flow of economic benefits and information would inevitably lead to open and democratic societies. Sadly the generous experiment failed miserably — all it did was further empower the dictators. Now, Russia is attempting to regain all it's territory back to 1917, and China is continuing it's expansionist ways. This is because they now have significantly closed the technology gap to the point where even Iran is contributing significantly to Russia's war on Europe with the Shaheed drones, using a lot of off-the-shelf technology, and Ukraine is significantly bolstering it's defense with FPV drones. So, even if China does eventually manage to catch up (which is unlikely considering how many insanely complex and globally-non-China-sourced technologies go into one $450MM ASML chip lithography machine), the key is to delay CCP sufficiently that we can extricate them from the democracies' supply chains and maintain a sufficient military offset to defend democracy around the world. We are starting very late, so this is truly critical, unless we are OK with us and our descendants living under a regime like CCP or Putin. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67855477 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67855477 [1] https://www.voiceofeurope.com/chinas-advanced-machine-tool-exports-to-russia-surge/ https://www.voiceofeurope.com/chinas-advanced-machine-tool-e... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-army-size https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili... [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/military-army-size https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/military-arm...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

gizmo 3y ago

China doesn’t need to replicate EUV in order to make competitive chips. China can already produce very advanced chips today and is maybe 2 years behind in the ways that actually matter.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

FooBarWidget 3y ago

It's not -just- a delaying tactic. It's a trade. Without these sanctions, China will likely soon develop chip design talent that's at the cutting edge, but they'll fab with TSMC (and thus use the entire Western-dependant supply chain). This means that China's chip manufacturing ecosystem will remain poor, unpopular and underdeveloped. With these sanctions, China's chip design talent can't fab cutting edge chips. But China's manufacturing ecosystem suddenly gets the market incentive to develop. I don't think they will reach EUV any time soon, and that hurts. But dominating the mature chip manufacturing sector in the mid term is an achievable goal, and mature chips are still absolutely essential even if they're not "sexy". Whereas before sanctions, there was no way they could dominate in chip manufacturing (nobody wanted to fab with Chinese manufacturers or wanted to buy Chinese chip manufacturing equipment), only in chip design. What these sanctions did was trading one thing (cutting-edge chip design) for the other (mature chip manufacturing). The short-term blow to China sounds sexy, but they've created a long-term problem. Is this trade worth it? I wonder whether policymakers even realize they're making this trade.

biotopia 3y ago
[flagged]

SkyMarshal 3y ago

Yes, though it's not only about delaying China so the US can catch up in semiconductors, but also about trying to delay China so that they miss their window of opportunity to invade Taiwan. Xi's aim is to reunify Taiwan with the mainland sometime in the 2020s. The US is trying to deter that using a comprehensive deterrence strategy - military, diplomatic, economic. Hence new US bases in northern Philippines, US supporting Japan in changing its constitution to enable more military buildup, US increasing arms sales to Taiwan, US SSBN publicly docking in Korea, AUKUS, Quad, improved diplomatic relations with India, general derisking/decoupling and relocating of supply chains to Vietnam, Mexico, India, etc. The ASML and Nvidia bans are just a part of an overall comprehensive delay and deterrence strategy, primarily aimed at thwarting Chinese ability to deploy advanced AI in the near term that could be useful in an attack on Taiwan and potential war vs the US & allies in the next few years. Yes it does incentivize the Chinese to more quickly develop indigenous advanced chip manufacturing capabilities, but that was happening anyway and everyone including the US knows it can't be stopped at this point. But it's about throwing as many wrenches into Xi's invasion plans and 2020s timeline as possible, and this is just one of many.

sofixa 3y ago
> Xi's aim is to reunify Taiwan with the mainland sometime in the 2020s Do you have a source on that? > AUKUS The one that is supposed to result in submarines getting delivered sometime in the 2030s at the earliest? Hardly relevant for the 20s.
- hug 3y ago
  AUKUS is about more than submarines -- that just happened to be the bit that hit the news. There are specific provisions in AUKUS for AI & other technology partnerships.
- toss1 3y ago
  >> Do you have a source on that? Xi himself, as recently as just last week, centering reunification in his New Year's speech [0] Delaying China is absolutely critical for democracies to remain globally viable. The fundamental principle is that any person or country who wants to remain self-determining must be better armed, prepared, and able to fight than the local bully or global authoritarian; if not, they'll take your lunch and democracy every time. With Russia, supported by China [1], we are already far past a new Cold War and into a Hot War with the autocracies. The better defense capabilities of the democracies rely on the concept of "Defense Offset", which is basically maintaining a technological advantage so that a numerically much smaller military can prevail against a numerically superior military (e.g., US mil 2019 total size 1.388MM [2], vs China 2.535MM [3]). This military advantage, since at least the late 1960s, has relied on advantage in microchip technology. When the first Cold War ended after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Grand Experiment was tried. The idea was that free flow of economic benefits and information would inevitably lead to open and democratic societies. Sadly the generous experiment failed miserably — all it did was further empower the dictators. Now, Russia is attempting to regain all it's territory back to 1917, and China is continuing it's expansionist ways. This is because they now have significantly closed the technology gap to the point where even Iran is contributing significantly to Russia's war on Europe with the Shaheed drones, using a lot of off-the-shelf technology, and Ukraine is significantly bolstering it's defense with FPV drones. So, even if China does eventually manage to catch up (which is unlikely considering how many insanely complex and globally-non-China-sourced technologies go into one $450MM ASML chip lithography machine), the key is to delay CCP sufficiently that we can extricate them from the democracies' supply chains and maintain a sufficient military offset to defend democracy around the world. We are starting very late, so this is truly critical, unless we are OK with us and our descendants living under a regime like CCP or Putin. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67855477 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67855477 [1] https://www.voiceofeurope.com/chinas-advanced-machine-tool-exports-to-russia-surge/ https://www.voiceofeurope.com/chinas-advanced-machine-tool-e... [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-army-size https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/mili... [3] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/military-army-size https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CHN/china/military-arm...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]