Bipartisan Bill to Tighten Controls on Sensitive Chipmaking Equipment | Hacker News Reader

Bipartisan Bill to Tighten Controls on Sensitive Chipmaking Equipment

baumgartner.house.gov

27 pointsnum4216 comments

Yeah, as a dutch person I was already already not happy of our soldiers dying in a country that didnt do 9/11 not had weapons of destruction.

I remember Bush's words very clearly; "you are either with us or against us" which was a arm twister and not something an ally would do.

Little over 20 years later we are again forced to comply. Not for freedom, not for righteousness. No again for oil to make a few in the USA even richer.

And this time its bipartisan.

I think the Americans that died for my freedom are rolling in their grave about what their children are doing with it.

You know that you don't have to do whatever Americans say, right? It will come with its own downsides, but it is a choice. Maybe it's the Dutch people who died for your freedom and independence who are rolling in their graves right now?

Preaching against the choir sir, I fully agree!

Normally I would understand our reluctance. But you know, old sentiment takes a long time to be overriden by new information.

The idea they have is "if we cooperate, we might not get hurt". But modern America will use you, empty you and then still turn their back on you.

So yes, I agree, better to cut ties now and start rebuilding without them. Now I just need to convince the people in power with all their investments in the USA.

I'll let you know how that goes ;)

Somerhing is finally happening. A consultant came talking about software choices. We asked for non US possibilities and he gave a few. While talking about ut, he mentioned the question came up a lot now, typically from governements and bigger corporations dealing with entities outside the EU. Discussion was done on management levels, not just on IT levels. It seems everyone is testing the waters.

Children of the people who fought for your freedom? Trump’s family coming from Germany, Rubio is of Cuban origin, … children of the people who fought in the war are in the “they took my job” boat.

How does ASML have any leverage here? They don't have any of the IP related to EUV. It is fully american owned. The actual light source is also physically manufactured in the US. They license the tech and "only" do assembly. They pretty much have no choice but to do what the US asks here.

The laser vaporising tin is manufactured in US, not the UV light itself, neither the UV mirrors for focus.

This bill essentially creates a legal basis for the U.S. to forbid its companies from servicing semiconductor tool makers if those tool makers do not fit themselves with a proper yokel in 150 days[^1].

In practical terms, this bill is the equivalent of the major of a village forbidding the local blacksmith from making hammers for the goldsmith living in the next village, if said goldsmith sells jewelry to the vast enclave of dwarfs living under the mountain range.

On the enforceability front though, I believe that ASML uses enough American parts and services to be forced into compliance at least for half a decade, though I wish they would start unentangling from any American dependencies immediately.

[^1]: Page 12, lines 22-24

It is all about ASML and preventing their business with China.

Incredible what the EU puts up with.

Another demonstration of why depending on any American service is not worth the cost.

Use no U.S. part, and you can sell to the whole world. Use U.S. part, and you might ne restricted to the U.S.

No way this can backfire in any way.

In practice if you use no US part you will get sanctioned as a 'national security risk' or whatever anyway. Even if your product uses no US parts the customers who still want to interact with the US financial system (by e.g. having a USD account) will still be unable to purchase it.

What do you recommend they should be doing?

I suspect the intent (hope) is that by then there will be more fabs running in the US and that we won't have cut our legs off at the knees. It's pretty hard to see a significant chunk of chip manufacturing being onshored by then though, if it ever happens.

ASML licenses EUV technology from the US government, which developed it. It is physically manufactured in the US, possibly as a condition of the license agreement. This is where the leverage of the US government comes from. To disentangle, ASML would have to develop an independent EUV technology that is practically substitutable. They have an existing installed base they need to continue to maintain.

They may be able to do this but it would likely require many, many years before they could sunset their current EUV license. It could make more sense to just work on whatever will eventually replace EUV.

Most saliently - ASML and USA are relatively aligned on incentives here. China is hot on ASML's heels, and when China catches and takes over most of the market share, ASML turns into a legacy "national security" player propped up by tariffs and subsidies rather than a global leader of industry.

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I recognize the following hypothetical is extremely unrealistic and untenable...but it would be fascinating if ASML just called the USA's bluff. USA can keep their patents, ASML can stop all production and hunker down for 10 years to design around the patents.

And for 5-10 years no one gets a new generation of silicon fab until China brings up their own domestic High-NA EUV and takes over the entire market.

It is unfortunate that the people in power are too fucking mentally incapable to comprehend even the most basic of game theory. The US has no leverage over you unless you surrender pre-emptively. The correct move here is to call their bluff - if the US wants to cut off supply to ASML, ASML cuts off supply to the US. The US cannot live without ASML anymore than ASML can live without it, so they would be forced to back down. Yet instead we're in a trivial prisoner's dilemma where you get the second move with full information - you know your opponent has picked to defect - and you still choose cooperate, even though it's strictly incorrect. Led by donkeys.

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