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.
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EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography) technology is difficult to develop because it requires knowledge of cutting edge technology in a number of different scientific fields that are all highly controlled: optics, electronics, materials science, and lithography. Not just knowledge of how they work, but the more sophisticated knowledge of how to *manufacture the components at a meaningful scale.*
The reason it is so difficult to develop is because Ultraviolet radiation at such extremely small wavelengths is extremely energetic. So energetic that it does not like to refract like normal light, and requires a complicated system of gradually focusing mirrors to focus the beam. The technology for these optical refractors is only understood by a handful of the most advanced optics companies, Zeiss being the most prominent one. The construction of these focusing lenses requires knowledge of specialized lensing materials, angles and manufacturing technologies that none else has access to.
To complicate matters further, the source of the extreme ultraviolet radiation is a highly complex laser driven plasma element that is poorly understood outside of ASML.
To put the icing on this omega complicated cake is the masking process that becomes extremely complicated at such small sizes. The purpose of EUV is to help etch nano scale circuits in silicon. But at such small sizes you encounter significant quantum interference. This requires sophisticated understanding of how to design the ‘mask’ that contains the circuitry you want to etch (think of this like a very fancy stencil). Without extensive research and testing into the properties of EUV light you would not be able to make proper use of the mask, and develop new masks for your chips.
So, in the spirit of the sub, I’ll give a simpler explanation. EUV lithography is such a significant departure from previous lithography methods that it poses a nearly insurmountable obstacle to reverse engineering or copying. Without understanding all of the science that went into testing and producing all of these individually cutting edge technologies you cannot even begin to build the machinery to produce the EUV light. And even if you did, the process of developing the mask at these small scales is so complicated that it requires years of testing and development without insider knowledge.
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