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Comment by xadhominemx | Hacker News Reader

China will not have a domestically sourced EUV scanner with commercially viable throughput within 20 years, if not longer. They are lacking precursor technologies to the precursor technologies, supply chains, talent, etc for both light source and optics, and unlike the rear of the semiconductor industry, those ecosystems are today found within the US and Europe, not Asia.

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Things move pretty fast in China, so even though they are slow to innovate they can quickly copy designs where enough detailed information exists in public.

EUV took decades and billions of dollars in trial and error before the current techniques were figured out. Due to the West's tendency to publish successful techniques, China won't have to repeat these steps.

There is not a single major advanced hard tech application where China has the leading technology (except for maybe sub-6 5G, which isn’t that difficult), and EUV is the most challenging hard tech application ever. So I am not that optimistic about their prospects.

Things moved fast in China (rather Shrnzhen) due to a period of ultra-liberal economics that Xi is now dismantling.

Xi has been cracking down a lot on "soft tech". Hardware tech has never been anywhere close to liberal even in Shenzhen, where all levels of government always had massive levels of investment and involvement in the industry.

Could you define soft tech in this context?

Software, digital services, as opposed to technology pertaining to hardware.

YMMV, depending on the technology.

As an example where this hasn't worked so well, COMAC's aircraft production has not been doing too hot.

Yeah, I mostly agree, but do you consider Taiwan part of China? They do.

Japan and Korea also have pretty big talent in related areas. I believe that Intellectual Property often wears shoes, but a lot of SW, methods, specs, etc can be appropriated more quickly.

Isn't Tiawan an EUV equipment customer, not supplier?

In practice, for where the money goes and what the CCP can block Taiwan right now isn't part of China. That seems like a situation that could change in the near future and the West should plan for.

Taiwan has an even smaller chance of developing an EUV stepper than China. They don’t even really have a precision equipment industry.

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