I wonder what the environmental impact of this is versus extreme ultraviolet. Although they mention "cost of ownership" and throughput, I wonder if this has any hidden implications.
The United States alone consumes about 25 000 TWh "primary energy" pear year (includes electricy, transport, and heating) [2]. This means that in the extreme case, EUV machines consume 54 TWh / 25 000 TWh = 0.2% of total energy! In comparison, 27% of total U.S. energy consumption was used for transporting people and goods around in the US [3].
And I made the example here before that if you are considering to turn off your phone in order to save battery at the risk of taking an accidental detour, then the decision is simple. Keep the phone. Driving one kilometer extra consumes multiple orders of magnitude more energy than powering a phone for hours. I think this idea holds in many more cases. Video meetings for example can save people from traveling all over the world. This saves energy and time as well.
So I would say please go full power on chip manufacturing. It's way better for the environment (and often saves people time) than deciding to stop innovation and instead keep transporting everything around physically. I'm not saying transport is bad. I'm saying that standing in the way of innovation as an argument for better "environmental impact" is nonsensical.
[1]: https://www.techinsights.com/blog/euv-lithography-power-hung...
[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/united-states
[3]: https://www.eia.gov/kids/using-and-saving-energy/transportat...
The flip side of this is that chips becoming so cheap has caused a huge increase in e-waste. Basically everything has a computer inside it (think smart toothbrushes, fridges, toys...) and it usually leads to shorter product lifetimes. Manufacturers drop support for their apps and shut down cloud services sometimes as quickly as two years after manufacture, so things are thrown away. Smart gadgets are also generally more prone to breaking due to having more, more complex more and sensitive parts (no way that 10c MCU in a smart toaster is survivng 10 years of hot-cold cycles).
If chips were more expensive, we wouldn't waste machine time on dual-core mediatek SOCs for 100 € smartphones with a "life expectantly" of less than two years. Manufacturers would make expensive and quality phones and those that can't afford them (I've been there) would buy older models used or refurbished. Longer product lifespans, more reuse, less waste.
I think it sounds somewhat nice in theory to make lifestyle changes, and sure it helps, but it's not a solution. It's like if you are in financial trouble. Sure you can decide to not spend any money anymore. That definitely helps. But if you sell your car to save money and then cannot make it to job interviews anymore then you saved too much. You need to focus on getting money (and maybe spending it in the process) AND saving money. Focusing only on saving money is a losing strategy. Same with climate. Focusing only on using less energy is a losing strategy. Sometimes you need to spend energy to save energy in the future.
As a bare minimum, many people can choose to take more environmentally friendly vacations. You don't have to go on a cruise, and yet that's a booming industry. You don't have to fly across an ocean. Almost everybody who does these things has the option to go on perfectly fine, perhaps even better, less carbon intensive alternative vacations.
And yes, there are people who consciously make that lifestyle change. Not enough, of course. But only a Sith deals in absolutes.
No, the solution must be technical while people are allowed to maintain most of the comfort they are used to. Anything else and you will simply not be able to convince people to do so even if that means burning the world down.
I totally agree that we need technical solutions. We have no hope without them. But it's also naive to think that endless growth without lifestyle changes is possible.
That said, if you really think about it, the most important lifestyle change of all is happening, and quite dramatically so: People are having fewer children.
It's effectively mass subsidization for bad behavior at the expense of people who are altruistic. I don't see how it can be a winning strategy in the long run.
For just a second, let's set aside our hopes and idealism, because I do realize how distasteful this world view may be.
If the best hope for the environment is that altruistic people suffer a disadvantage so that everyone (including defectors who don't want to help anyone and only help themselves) can win, how is that not a strong long term advantage for anti-social behavior?
"Great, don't take that plane ride, stop burning fossil fuels. More for me until we run out! I can even afford to have more kids because I don't care how impactful they are, while you responsibly go extinct."
Feels like a losing battle, and not a fun way to lose either. I suspect that we all know, despite our hopes, that eight billion people will not decide to collectively give up their own happiness for the betterment of billions of strangers they aren't related to.
It's not enough, but it's necessary to limit CO2 emissions during the transition.