But this systems are not easily produced neither fastely so between ordering them and getting them over a year might pass.
More importantly just having them doesn't allow you to actually use them properly. They are in a way quite a "raw" tool and the exact details of how you use them make major differences. And even if you know the best way to use them, that still doesn't mean you know the best way to create chips with them. Because chip layout (in it's details) has to be designed to fit the production process. Not doing so will lead to bad yield and or bad max. perf clock etc. Sometimes just improving how you layout some things while still using the EUV system the same way can make a major difference.
So it's not easy at all to switch.
I'm still positive they will long term manage to do so.
But it will take some time.
Which is why some parts which are not to much of their core business but can largely profit from TSCMs manufacturing process will be produced by them. And maybe as a bonus they will learn a trick or two from TSCM.
IMHO banning sales of ASML's product to China is chest thumping protectionist nonsense - if you're worried about the rise of China's military then you should be tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war rather than driving them to be self sufficient.
A country is free to develop all those technologies locally and not face US export control, but that's such a difficult task that nobody has achieved it.
The US can simply put an offending company on a black list and every financial institution will drop them.
Short term gain always beats strategic defeat.
> This kind of theft
You called what they did “reverse engineering.” But then you next called it theft.
Why?
Reverse Engineering is not theft. It’s a follower route, where you build the same thing that someone else had built. You don’t even need their blueprints. You can just work off of their output, and work backwards.
One famous reverse engineering company was Compaq, which reverse engineered the IBM PC, with the nod from Microsoft to make their own PC compatible clone. Was this also theft? And was this also a crime in your worldview?
Another example is the atomic bomb. Once America proved that a nuclear fission bomb was possible, then it was only a matter of time before another country reproduced it.
China can and should do clean room reverse engineering for whatever technology they want to, and sell the resultant work back to the US (contingent on other IP restrictions of course)
And the US and Netherlands are well within their rights to block equipment equipment to China on grounds that it will be used by a unfriendly military.
The atomic bomb example is not just about "the principle has been proven", it was also a story of Soviet Union spies within the Manhattan Project.
Military power, like all other things, is based on economic might. If you want to slow the rise of China's military while it remains a totalitarian system then allowing further economic integration between the West and China is a silly idea compared to using sanctions to decouple two economies over time.
Though the rise of China's military is definitely not the reason why economic decoupling and sanctions should be deeply considered.
It would take years (even decades) to duplicate ASML machines. At least in the absence of unprecedented tech transfer (most likely through hacking and HumInt work). It's no where near a foregone conclusion that banning ASML exports won't slow down SMIC's attempts to build leading edge nodes that get used to supply China's military.
That's not really how things work. You become powerful first through economic hegemony, and then you can assert military might.
That might have worked in the past but doesn't anymore as China actively counters this.
Selling them such machines will just bring short term production benefits to china and potentially gives them a chance to have it a bit easier to copy the technology.
But long term China will have it's own production methods and for it's military they will only use this sources. Currently they are at 28nm as far as I know. Which might be still quite a bit away from stat or the art but is already fairly useful for many use cases.
> tangling their economy up more with that of the West so that they have more reasons not to go to war
This strategy failed, China wasn't interested in becoming like the West. We're in a new cold war, it's time people wake up to this new reality.
Globalization is fine in some areas but when a generation can live off of pizza and burgers and yet have never tasted an Italian pizza or non-McDonalds style burger the world is a much poorer place. Everyone is turning into Americans. Asian Americans, Scandinavian Americans, etc.
For what it's worth, after chain restaurants become too dominant, the next level seems to be hipster burger joints, microbreweries and fusion cuisine restaurants.
America is far from perfect, so many things are broken it is insane, but to prefer to have a stronger Russia or China is bewildering to me. Everything that is bad about America is equally bad or worse in both of those places plus an undeniable loss of liberty. Cronyism, inequality, racism, imperialist tendencies, environmentalism, etc.
I'm not blind to the problems America has, but I've also lived in China and it boggles my mind that people think this way.
I don't agree at all that the things that are bad in the US are as bad or worse with those countries, first of all because it is a misunderstanding that it is "in the US" because the problem I was referring to with the US is outside the US.
The US is doing everything it can to control and dominate the world and we need a counterweight to stop this ASAP. It does much more harm than good. What happens inside US borders is another matter. The problem is when the US can do as it pleases which is basically what it is like today. I dislike Russia too but if Russia makes the US pause before invading a country or the PRC did the same it is a win in my book. The US is an extreme aggressor and someone need to force its fleets back where they belong and stop its political steamrolling.
Besides the problem of using its military to "make right" we are also seeing a death of culture because of Americanization. If half of huge US businesses were exchanged overnight to other strong nations businesses the world would become a better place. McDonald's and Disney doesn't belong outside the US as the dominant local business. Local burger and movies does. We live in a time where many children think American food and films are the norm, instead of something foreign, new and exotic as it should be. Every culture is becoming one culture. It smells a lot like something PRC does that the US is extremely critical about but is doing much more itself..
Of course I'd rather see the EU as a power that could put the US in its place but I'd also rather see Russia or PRC doing so if the alternative is no-one doing it.
ETA: Saying imperialist tendencies are worse in Russia and PRC than the US is mindboogling. Russia and PRC does a lot of bad things but they are light-years behind the US in imperialism.
Russia, in the last decade, annexed a region of another country. China is in the active process of annexing a region of the South China Sea for resources and using its newfound economic strength to project its power via the Belt and Road initiative.
I think you're focused on avoiding cultural hegemony to the actual detriment of the liberty of mankind. These are not countries that even pretend to have liberty as a core tenet - being an outspoken critic in both places is dangerous, Russia even flexed its power and killed people in the UK!
I'd rather eat McDonalds for the rest of my short, fat life than be at risk for being killed for being an outspoken critic of the government.
Or Robert E Lee: “it is good that war is terrible, otherwise men would grow fond of it.”
Your fondness seems obvious though. I think I will go with a current colloquialism: “Just stop.”
Austria-Hungary even produced steel and guns for their future enemy, the Royal Navy...
I hear the last thing standing in their way is the light source from Cymer (sp?).
It's likely the semiconductor industry will have moved on by then.