One would expect that reverse engineering technologies wouldn’t be impossible.
The importance of these technologies for China is huge.
Moreover, they have a massive budget and probably also own a couple of ASML’s euv lithography machines.
Why is it that they cant remake these machines?
I heard some sources say that it might take them a decade.
In: 338
in short: lack of the right equipment, smaller high precision manufacturing sector in China, lack of knowledge on the manufacture of these machines, company secrets.
A couple of my colleagues work at ASML, one told me a story of the Chinese trying to find out how to make one. They disassembled the entire machine very carefully and then reassembled it, and it didn’t work. So even if they have the exact components, it is still extremely hard to assemble.
Now add that to the calibration equipment needed to start calibrating those machines, and it could take well over a decade to match what ASML has today, as designing a new model of these machines can take over 3 years in itself. Add to that the revisions and research that needs to be done, then even a decade would be generous.
in short: lack of the right equipment, smaller high precision manufacturing sector in China, lack of knowledge on the manufacture of these machines, company secrets.
A couple of my colleagues work at ASML, one told me a story of the Chinese trying to find out how to make one. They disassembled the entire machine very carefully and then reassembled it, and it didn’t work. So even if they have the exact components, it is still extremely hard to assemble.
Now add that to the calibration equipment needed to start calibrating those machines, and it could take well over a decade to match what ASML has today, as designing a new model of these machines can take over 3 years in itself. Add to that the revisions and research that needs to be done, then even a decade would be generous.
This won’t be ELI5, and I’m no expert here so please correct me if I’m wrong.
ASML’s technology is possible due to various extremely difficult materials provided by other companies, many of those companies in several different countries.
For example, there are mirrors that are required to be extremely flat. As an analogy, if the mirror was the size of Germany, the tallest mountains would be 1 mm tall. As you might imagine, this is an extremely difficult to produce, highly specialized piece of equipment that ASML developed in collaboration with another company.
Now imagine if you have hundreds, if not thousands, of these sorts of extremely specialized parts, produced in collaboration with companies from all over the globe, and even then, it took billions of dollars and decades of multi-national cooperative R&D to finally produce a single working device.
China has a head start because, now, at least there’s a proven example of how to build such a device. But even if China somehow had the exact same blueprints of the EUV machines, it still would need to replicate the entirety of the specialized infrastructure that enables the production of ASML’s EUV machines.
ASML’s EUV lithography might be the current pinnacle of high-technology in our current world, it’s harder than rocket science, the complexity behind EUV lithography is outright insane.
Edit: [Asianometry](https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry/videos) has made some excellent videos on ASML, EUV lithograhy, and has been fantastically informative on the sheer insane amounts of complexity involved in the EUV process. I’d highly recommend the channel for anyone that wants to delve into more details around ASML and EUV lithography.
Followup question by not OP: What the hell is ASML EUV lithography?
in short: lack of the right equipment, smaller high precision manufacturing sector in China, lack of knowledge on the manufacture of these machines, company secrets.
A couple of my colleagues work at ASML, one told me a story of the Chinese trying to find out how to make one. They disassembled the entire machine very carefully and then reassembled it, and it didn’t work. So even if they have the exact components, it is still extremely hard to assemble.
Now add that to the calibration equipment needed to start calibrating those machines, and it could take well over a decade to match what ASML has today, as designing a new model of these machines can take over 3 years in itself. Add to that the revisions and research that needs to be done, then even a decade would be generous.
This won’t be ELI5, and I’m no expert here so please correct me if I’m wrong.
ASML’s technology is possible due to various extremely difficult materials provided by other companies, many of those companies in several different countries.
For example, there are mirrors that are required to be extremely flat. As an analogy, if the mirror was the size of Germany, the tallest mountains would be 1 mm tall. As you might imagine, this is an extremely difficult to produce, highly specialized piece of equipment that ASML developed in collaboration with another company.
Now imagine if you have hundreds, if not thousands, of these sorts of extremely specialized parts, produced in collaboration with companies from all over the globe, and even then, it took billions of dollars and decades of multi-national cooperative R&D to finally produce a single working device.
China has a head start because, now, at least there’s a proven example of how to build such a device. But even if China somehow had the exact same blueprints of the EUV machines, it still would need to replicate the entirety of the specialized infrastructure that enables the production of ASML’s EUV machines.
ASML’s EUV lithography might be the current pinnacle of high-technology in our current world, it’s harder than rocket science, the complexity behind EUV lithography is outright insane.
Edit: [Asianometry](https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry/videos) has made some excellent videos on ASML, EUV lithograhy, and has been fantastically informative on the sheer insane amounts of complexity involved in the EUV process. I’d highly recommend the channel for anyone that wants to delve into more details around ASML and EUV lithography.
To give a real world example of “just because you know how it works doesn’t mean you can replicate it”:
Take a ball of yarn, completely unwind it. Then rewind it perfectly, so it looks like a brand new one.
It’s literally just yarn, but it’s really difficult to do without the right equipment and knowhow.
In manufacturing anything, there’s a lot of proprietary knowledge that makes the difference. A lot of companies produce plastic bricks, but none come close to the quality of LEGO, because they have perfected the exact blends of plastic, analysed their behaviour for decades, have the high quality equipment ro actually make them. Even if you infiltrated the company and stole all their secrets, you would need to find professionals with the knowledge and experience to apply it, then the money to get or build the machinery to use that knowledge. By that time, LEGO already moved on.
It’s even more so for ASML. They’re on the very bleeding edge of the technology. By the time you get around to just reverse engineering their current tech and actually replicate it (which is no small task), they have IMPROVED. Hell, trying to find the experts to reverse engineer the tech could be difficult for the sole reason that they likely already work at ASML. So you’re still massively behind.
There’s also the fact that ASML doesn’t exist in a vacuum. They don’t produce all of their own components. They have equally advanced industrial partners. So now you need to replicate not just their tech, but their supply chain.
It’s essentially easier to just do it from scratch, to build up your own institutional knowledge, the professional workforce who can not just copy, but innovate. But that in itself takes years to decades.
Followup question by not OP: What the hell is ASML EUV lithography?
ASML doesn’t make the entire EUV machine all on their lonesome, they are a mother of all system integrators really. Different parts and subsystems come from different industry leading suppliers and they put it all together. Its not just one company, it’s an entire industrial ecosystem and ASML spent decades building it to begin with. Eventually competitors will replicate it, but it’s going to be years or even more than a decade behind ASML.
This won’t be ELI5, and I’m no expert here so please correct me if I’m wrong.
ASML’s technology is possible due to various extremely difficult materials provided by other companies, many of those companies in several different countries.
For example, there are mirrors that are required to be extremely flat. As an analogy, if the mirror was the size of Germany, the tallest mountains would be 1 mm tall. As you might imagine, this is an extremely difficult to produce, highly specialized piece of equipment that ASML developed in collaboration with another company.
Now imagine if you have hundreds, if not thousands, of these sorts of extremely specialized parts, produced in collaboration with companies from all over the globe, and even then, it took billions of dollars and decades of multi-national cooperative R&D to finally produce a single working device.
China has a head start because, now, at least there’s a proven example of how to build such a device. But even if China somehow had the exact same blueprints of the EUV machines, it still would need to replicate the entirety of the specialized infrastructure that enables the production of ASML’s EUV machines.
ASML’s EUV lithography might be the current pinnacle of high-technology in our current world, it’s harder than rocket science, the complexity behind EUV lithography is outright insane.
Edit: [Asianometry](https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry/videos) has made some excellent videos on ASML, EUV lithograhy, and has been fantastically informative on the sheer insane amounts of complexity involved in the EUV process. I’d highly recommend the channel for anyone that wants to delve into more details around ASML and EUV lithography.
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