Yet, it is unclear how any engineers from China could reverse engineer an EUV lithography scanner, as the Dutch company has never supplied one to China and hardly taught personnel from China how to service its EUV systems that are not allowed to be shipped to the People's Republic.
Reverse engineering a machine that contains over 100,000 parts is a hard task that takes hundreds of engineers with knowledge of the matter, which is why the secret entity led by the Government of China hired not only former engineers from ASML China, but also former employees of the Dutch company from elsewhere, presumably from Europe, Taiwan, and the U.S. For example, Lin Nan, formerly responsible for EUV light source technology at ASML, now leads a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Optics that has filed eight EUV-related patents in just 18 months. Yet, this may mean that he uses his experience and knowledge rather than trying to replicate what he did at ASML or reverse engineer what he did at ASML due to the absence of an EUV scanner in his lab.
“It makes sense that companies would want to replicate our technology, but doing so is no small feat,” a statement by ASML published by Reuters reads.
The report says that around 100 recent university graduates are tasked with reverse-engineering parts from EUV and DUV lithography tools, with each workplace monitored by a dedicated camera that records the disassembly and reassembly process, an important part of the whole China's lithography program, according to the report. Employees who successfully put components back together receive bonuses. Yet again, a Twinscan NXE tool is a mechanism consisting of over 100,000 parts working together, not just a sum of all parts.
To sum up, China has reportedly built a secret prototype EUV lithography system and begun testing it, which suggests that the country may be closer to reproducing the most advanced chipmaking technology in existence than previously believed. However, details provided by the report indicate that China is still years — if not a decade — away from making chips using EUV lithography.
The machine can generate 13.5-nm EUV light using the same laser-produced plasma (LPP) method employed by ASML, which may demonstrate extensive reverse engineering of Western technology rather than the use of alternative domestic approaches. However, the tool is significantly larger than commercial systems available today, it cannot produce usable chips, and appears to struggle with other elements of EUV lithography, particularly ultra-precise optics supplied to ASML by Carl Zeiss. In fact, details about the system like light source power, optical subsystem maturity, and the state of critical mechanical components remain unclear.
While China expects first prototype EUV chips to emerge in 2028, Reuters's sources suggest 2030 is more realistic. Yet, the whole effort relies heavily on recruiting former ASML engineers and reverse engineering parts from existing EUV and DUV tools, which are not only hard to develop, but are extremely hard to make. Meanwhile, there is no word whether the current team responsible for disassembling and reassembling components can actually make an ultra-complex machine consisting of over 100,000 parts work flawlessly to produce semiconductors in high volumes.
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Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
Gururu Makes sense, why reinvent the wheel? Flood Amazon with cheaper competitive GPUs and processors! Reply
das_stig So lets just say it, stolen IP, as no way did they do this clean room style, lets see when the first products made by the tech start appearing if ASML ask for an court orders to ban import and resale, if Trump still around, he may do it first ! Reply
acadia11 May have. Of course they have, but considering ASML is the only EUV manufacturer in the world quite confident they developed many many many IP points in the actual manufacturing of an EuV machine that goes beyond its constituent parts. The general principles of building and EUV machine are well known- the actual being able to do it is something entirely do it. I think what’s more promising is the expansion and novel solutions China has started creating in DUV, especially its impacts on price. Reply
kealii123 Can I just say (and usually Im on the other side of this and getting my comments "moderated") that this is excellent writing. Im going to spend the rest of my day watching youtube videos on how lithography works. Reply
kealii123 das_stig said: So lets just say it, stolen IP, as no way did they do this clean room style, lets see when the first products made by the tech start appearing if ASML ask for an court orders to ban import and resale, if Trump still around, he may do it first ! I think the point is for China to be able to create its own AI data centers from unsanctionable suppy chain sources. No Chinese court is going to rule against that Reply
ivan_vy kealii123 said: I think the point is for China to be able to create its own AI data centers from unsanctionable suppy chain sources. No Chinese court is going to rule against that this. Is not about competing but getting free of the american tech dependency. Reply
DavidC1 Don't underestimate anyone, including people from certain countries. The EUV machines from ASML were created by people and it can be figured out by people as well. It's not alien tech that's 150+ years off. Also, alternatives to EUV machines exist. There never is just one way of doing things. Intel was considered the undisputed leader just few years ago, now they are flirting with bankruptcy. Reply
_Shatta_AD_ Who's happy that China is figuring out EUV so they can make leading edge components cheaper for consumers whether by direct substitution or competition driving down prices? Anyone happy to continue spending $2000 on two sticks of RAM, $1000 on 2TB SSDs? Any takers? Reply
das_stig _Shatta_AD_ said: Who's happy that China is figuring out EUV so they can make leading edge components cheaper for consumers whether by direct substitution or competition driving down prices? Anyone happy to continue spending $2000 on two sticks of RAM, $1000 on 2TB SSDs? Any takers? This is just just greed, the secret manufacturing cartels of nand or whatever product just reduce manufacturing capacity, prices just go crazy, they will have run the numbers and I doubt they will be out of pocket. No excuse for all of them cutting supply and raising prices and regulators need to start investigating and handing out double digit billion dollar fines and prison time ! Reply
phead128 das_stig said: So lets just say it, stolen IP, as no way did they do this clean room style, lets see when the first products made by the tech start appearing if ASML ask for an court orders to ban import and resale, if Trump still around, he may do it first ! China's EUV light source is solid state lasers to generate LDP EUV whereas ASML's EUV light source uses CO2 laser light source to generate LPP EUV. These are fundamentally two different technologies and different approaches, so the claims of "stolen IP" sounds lot like sour grapes and hubris. It was always a mistake to assume it's "too complex" for China to develop, it's all hubris by individuals who don't understand semiconductor lithography. The whole US export control regime simply triggered an acceleration of indigenous EUV development in China. Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-may-have-reverse-engineered-euv-lithography-tool-in-covert-lab-report-claims-employees-given-fake-ids-to-avoid-secret-project-being-detected-prototypes-expected-in-2028#main
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