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
This episode of Odd Lots goes into great detail as to why, if you’re interested in the answer then I highly recommend you give it a listen.
[https://pca.st/episode/607465cc-af91-446c-9944-891a51ec7e06](https://pca.st/episode/607465cc-af91-446c-9944-891a51ec7e06)
Yes the cutting edge machines they make are of incomprehensible complexity. However:
It’s not even that China don’t know or can’t figure out how the machine works. It’s that there are hundreds of thousands of parts in it, coming from literally thousands of suppliers, the supply chain is about as complex as the machine itself, and some of the parts are only made by one single manufacturer often in the US who are tightly controlled in terms of who they can export to. Every single part in the machines are bleeding edge. (I’m making this example up but:) Imagine the mirrors in it need to be flat down to the nanometer level. There are only a tiny number of companies and processes that can achieve that. Now imagine there’s some similar restriction across thousands of parts coming from thousands of suppliers. If any of the parts are imperfect then it isn’t going to do what you want it to.
This is why it would take a decade or more for China to catch up. It has taken ASML decades to get to the place they are now. Making another one of their advanced machines, even if you have one that you could strip down to the nuts and bolts, is an absolutely monumental task.
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