This guy is a gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTgrWmOk4q8
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Why ASML won:
They went against standard philosophy -> Standard philosophy is you always have multiple vendors.
ASML went entirely against this, instead they found the best supplier in the world for each one of their critical components, and they signed an exclusivity deal with each one.
So ASML couldn't buy from anyone else, and the company couldn't sell to anyone else.
So China is still trying to catch up, because they are not able to buy ANY of the parts of the stepper.
They went against standard philosophy -> Standard philosophy is you always have multiple vendors.
ASML went entirely against this, instead they found the best supplier in the world for each one of their critical components, and they signed an exclusivity deal with each one.
So ASML couldn't buy from anyone else, and the company couldn't sell to anyone else.
So China is still trying to catch up, because they are not able to buy ANY of the parts of the stepper.
@cjd not selling to china is a great way to make your company obsolete in 10 years. selling to china and you will be obsolete in 5
Well, the ASML photolithography stuff doesn't seem to be going obsolete any time soon.
@cjd asml got to this point mostly because japs are a bunch of idiots, now they are basically broke and china is gonna buy them up
> japs are a bunch of idiots
Heh no.
t. Toyota
> basically broke and china is gonna buy them up
Loolll
They have technology that nobody else is able to reproduce and everyone (in the world) somehow uses. Not only is it "impossible" that they can go broke, but it's also impossible that the US and EU will ever allow that technology to be sent to China.
Heh no.
t. Toyota
> basically broke and china is gonna buy them up
Loolll
They have technology that nobody else is able to reproduce and everyone (in the world) somehow uses. Not only is it "impossible" that they can go broke, but it's also impossible that the US and EU will ever allow that technology to be sent to China.
@cjd Japan used to be the leader in lithography, then they bet wrong on both EUV and DUV wet vs dry method and just crashed. Then they where like wouldn't it be nice if we both sanction China and the EU? so they can't sell to anyone anymore.
@cjd if you look at both EUV and immersion lithography patents it's a bunch of japanese, but nikon was like our DUV machines are selling fine and don't want to do all the R&D
Japanese are impressively good at engineering, but lithography is one of the hardest problems that humans are actively trying to solve, so ASML's idea of tying up the makers of all the best components in the world, is very hard to get ahead of...
And ASML will never go to China, it'll be treated like a nuclear secret.
And ASML will never go to China, it'll be treated like a nuclear secret.
@cjd EUV is a solved problem though, you know what the solution looks like, are you willing to spend the time and resource to figure out the steps only to be the second player and compete with ASML on price.
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3Solved problem in theory, you just need to make a mirror that is smooth to within 1 atom. So China can probably make one, but while they're making it, ASML is going to be working on the next order of magnitude of scale... Especially if they have to build everything themselves while ASML has tied up all of the US and European component providers...
@cjd I think we are talking about the same thing. The whole reason China wants lithography machine is to develop the supply chain locally, so it doesn't make that much difference if they can't source parts aboard.
Yeah but that's like China vs. The World, which is a really miserable competition for China...