Dutch Chip Equipment Maker ASML's CEO Pushes Back Against US Export Rules On China (reuters.com) 66
Slashdot reader hackingbear writes: Peter Wennink, the chief executive of ASML Holding NV, the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker, on Tuesday questioned whether a U.S. push to get the Netherlands to adopt new rules restricting exports to China make sense. "He said that following U.S. pressure, the Dutch government has already restricted ASML from exporting its most advanced lithography machines to China since 2019, something he said has benefited U.S. companies selling alternative technology," reports Reuters. "He said that while 15% of ASML's sales are in China, at U.S. chip equipment suppliers 'it is 25 or sometimes more than 30%.'"
In response to U.S. claims that advanced chips owned by China pose a threat to national security due to military applications and the rise of artificial intelligence, Wennink said: "What constitutes national security is for Americans to determine. But it is common knowledge that chip technology for purely military applications is usually ten, fifteen years old. The technology used to make such chips can still be sold to China. Artificial intelligence requires the most advanced chips. They are made with EUV and are therefore not produced in China. But those chips are simply sold, also to the Chinese. American chip manufacturers have no problem with China as a customer."
In response to U.S. claims that advanced chips owned by China pose a threat to national security due to military applications and the rise of artificial intelligence, Wennink said: "What constitutes national security is for Americans to determine. But it is common knowledge that chip technology for purely military applications is usually ten, fifteen years old. The technology used to make such chips can still be sold to China. Artificial intelligence requires the most advanced chips. They are made with EUV and are therefore not produced in China. But those chips are simply sold, also to the Chinese. American chip manufacturers have no problem with China as a customer."
Re:US hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't make it wrong. States have sovereign privilege to do what is best for them, rather than care about interests of others. And they have a duty to their citizens to do what is best for them at the expense of others.
This is simply US killing two birds with one stone from their perspective. And there are methods for interstate trade dispute resolution that can and likely will be utilized here by those that are hit by the US policy.
Re:US hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't make it wrong. States have sovereign privilege to do what is best for them, rather than care about interests of others. And they have a duty to their citizens to do what is best for them at the expense of others.
Yes and no - there are treaties that states (including the US) sign that limit their ability to act in that way, but such treaties usually exclude "national security" interests - which is why the US relies on national security excuses to implement what boils down to protectionism (and is pushing that protectionism on allies).
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Yes and no - there are treaties that states (including the US) sign that limit their ability to act in that way, but such treaties usually exclude "national security" interests
WTO agreements prohibit a lot of this stuff, but a) there have been lots of times they weren't followed, and b) China followed them the least. They really have nobody to complain to about other nations doing what they did as SOP.
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China follows WTO regulations just fine. The thing is they are still considered to be a middle income country, so the rules they are expected to follow are simply not the same as for developed economies.
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China follows WTO regulations just fine.
Totally false. Prohibition of land ownership, required partnership, and total lack of IP protection are all against the rules.
Re: US hypocrisy (Score:2)
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Total lack of IP protection? That's simply not true, China also goes after companies that steal IP
China goes after companies that steal their IP, sure. The companies in China stealing other people's IP are shut down and started back up under another name as soon as they are accused, and China does nothing to the principals.
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And when you stop with the mindless dogma and look at the real world, you quickly realize that the main reason for complaints isn't some kind of special arrangement being used here. EU for example has countless such arrangements specifically aimed at US that aren't reciprocated by US which keeps itself open in the other direction.
This is a leftover from the Cold War era, where the deal effectively was "you stand in front of US against the Soviets, and we function as consumer market of last resort so your ec
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Russia is no longer communist.
Yep. The govt pretty much disintegrated & left the KGB to fill the power vacuum.
Its economic system is as capitalist as Europe and its a lot closer than USA.
Nope. It's a kleptocracy. It possibly the largest criminal organisation in the world. A mafia state. The Russian people are being f**ked.
Really no reason left for Europe to choose US over Russia.
Give me minimal corruption & reasonably effective rule of law over kleptocracy any day. Putin's regime is currently swingin' its dick around with a war of aggression against Ukraine because... who knows why. There literally is no excuse for a war of aggression. They should be tried at t
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This assumes Russia can provide global overwatch comparable to US.
Considering they have a less powerful surface fleet than France and UK, you're going to have to explain how you think this would work. In great detail. Because what you just said sounds utterly insane on merits.
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hence other states have a right to tell the US schoolyard bully to go fsck themselves with their ukaz against whoever they don't like.
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Sure. And "schoolyard bully" can step aside and a bunch of neighborhood gangbangers come and rape and murder a few, and hold the rest to ransom. Not to mention that this particular bully didn't even ask for your lunch money. He just asked that when gangbangers try to get into the school to rape and murder, you stand in front of him to fight them, and he'll be there to pull most of the fighting duty with you.
The actual exceptional part of US security overwatch is that unlike pretty much everyone else, they d
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That doesn't make it wrong. States have sovereign privilege to do what is best for them, rather than care about interests of others. And they have a duty to their citizens to do what is best for them at the expense of others.
Hypocrisy and double standard while in the position of near monopoly amounts to bullying. The bullied will go mad [washingtonpost.com]. And if the bullied is a nuclear-capable country, it will go MAD [wikipedia.org].
And there are methods for interstate trade dispute resolution that can and likely will be utilized here by those that are hit by the US policy.
Such methods are killed by the US [apnews.com], another fine example of bullying.
The fact that you are pitching for American Exceptionalism as an excuse for hypocrisy (and getting so many mod ups) shows that Americans have finally remove their pretense of morality.
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I get the feeling you got bullied a lot in the past, developed a really strong rejection of that and now think that if you use that word, everyone is going to agree with you that whatever you don't like is bad. Because it's bullying.
In real world on the other hand, what you call "bullying" is a norm. For everyone. Which is why it's both culture and time agnostic, and exists even in animal kingdom between packs of pack animals.
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So you're justifying bullying behaviors like the bullies in the school playground. I'm also sure that you are OK with the planet being destroyed along with yourself and your family. That's the eventual consequence of bullying -- the bullied will go MAD.
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Actually I just find it amusing that there are people who are so sheltered from realities of life, that they can afford to have opinions like yours and survive in real world.
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That doesn't make it wrong. States have sovereign privilege to do what is best for them, rather than care about interests of others. And they have a duty to their citizens to do what is best for them at the expense of others.
This is simply US killing two birds with one stone from their perspective. And there are methods for interstate trade dispute resolution that can and likely will be utilized here by those that are hit by the US policy.
Ah, no. What is happening with the sovereign privilege you speak of is that the US wants to ban ASML from selling to China while US firms can sell to China.
Firstly, the US has no right to tell a foreign company or government what they can and can not do, and secondly, if you think this is "what is best for them", then you are promoting trade bans just for the heck of it and thirdly, the US pushing for this is more blackmail than enything else (that is because the US has no right to do so, the only leverage
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I used to mod up comments like this, and that caused me to be banned from ever getting mod points, even though I have positive Karma
Would you like some cheese with your whine?
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How does a company in the US buy Russian oil? You place an order and a container ship shows up with a COD bill?
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I read this ridiculous response and wondered what simpleton can't grasp the idea of a fungible commodity and then I read... ArchieBunker. A many of many words but few thoughts -- useful ones anyways.
"Saudi Arabia more than doubled Russian oil imports in the second quarter, freeing up their own crude for export"
https://www.businessinsider.in... [businessinsider.in]
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Crude isn't actually fungible. Russia exports mostly medium sour crude, SA exports mostly various light crudes.
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His own government disagrees (Score:2, Interesting)
Apparently the Netherlands has already gone along with the US and Japan. It's a done deal. Perhaps ASML would prefer to move to China?
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Opening R&D facilities in China or Taiwan must seem like a good idea right now. China is a huge market for them, and growing rapidly. Getting locked out of it would be very bad for them.
Re: His own government disagrees (Score:2)
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The Chinese government will interest tens maybe hundreds of billions into developing their own tech. They are already committed to developing high end fabs, and throwing huge sums of money at it.
Re: His own government disagrees (Score:2)
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If that was going to happen it would have already. China has their high end tech, it's only the new stuff that they might not be able to export in future.
Turns out that it's not trivial to clone this stuff.
Besides, plenty of other companies somehow operate in China without having their tech stolen. Apple comes to mind. In fact they are playing catch up to Chinese companies on things like camera quality.
We really need to stop punching ourselves in the dick like this.
Re:His own government disagrees (Score:4, Interesting)
The Netherlands agreed to block the sale of EUV technology to China. The US wants them to block DUV as well. They're pushing back on that.
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ASML has already been blocked from selling EUV equipment, under the Wassenaar Arrangement, since 2018. Specifically the US will be wanting the Dutch government and ASML to block sales of ArFi (Argon-Fluorine immersion) DUV equipment as SMEE (Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment) can already produce their own i-line and KrF DUV equipment capable of manufacturing chips down to 90nm features.
All this press about ASML and bugger all about their Japanese competitors in the DUV market: Canon and Nikon. Bias much?
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Apparently China already has DUV figured out so, not really that big of a deal. All the cutting-edge nodes are using some variant of EUV now anyway.
Re:The issue is US government discriminates. (Score:5, Interesting)
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What do you think ASML is complaining about?
https://www.thurrott.com/cloud... [thurrott.com]
https://www.ft.com/content/7ba... [ft.com]
Turn down $120,000,000 per machine? (Score:3)
There is no hypocrisy, you USA bashers (Score:3, Interesting)
China needs to be hurt. Not hurt the Chinese people, but hurt the CCP. All these people commenting from their free countries have no idea what oppression and fear Chinese people have to live through, and the amount of destruction the CCP is unleashing on the world right now with their carbon emissions, debt diplomacy, and eventual starting of WW3 in the South China Sea in trying to take over the sovereign democratic country of Taiwan. That's China's "Ukraine", in that they wrongly think they own it.
mod me down - CCP trolls
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Both of you sound like slow adults
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China needs to be hurt. Not hurt the Chinese people, but hurt the CCP.
I agree we need to impact the CCP, but there's really no way to do that without affecting the Chinese people. However, it seems like this will actually be good for them, because with less advanced tech they not only need more chips so there will be more jobs in making them (however few) but they also will need to spend more on education to have a hope of developing their own alternatives, and education tends to be democratizing.
No⦠just no (Score:5, Insightful)
Huawei for example now sells as part of their product portfolio multiple forms of energy production. This includes among other things, solar farms. When I sit in sales rooms with us, we we bring up the power cost issue of using Chinese chips, they then tell us that they can deliver the power as well via solar, wind and other.
China can easily produce large scale tensor processors for AI using 100% Chinese technology. They just are not as efficient, but they can still go huge. In fact, they can scale far past the US already because they do produce on older tech and they have grown their production capacity of those old dies to produce massively.
The only thing depriving China from EUV accomplishes is blocking them from higher speed signals. That means that making 60Ghz radio chips for 5G towers can be an issue. They have to depend on TSMC and Samsung to make those chips.
Some people would suggest that portable processors for sensors, phones, watches, etc… could be a problem. The truth is that we have barely scraped the surface of what can be done at 14 or 12nm.
For many years, ARM would advance their cores to reduce power consumption. When working with Nokia, I would be harassed relentlessly about cutting power consumption of my code. Today, we are hogging power at a truly unacceptable scale. The latest Blink web engine is a whore.
If the Chinese invest in optimization to meet performance demands on edge devices, they will be far ahead of all their western competitors who depend on better chips to compensate for poor code quality.
Also, for edge devices, lower power is great, but more power works too. Telephones with better batteries would accomplish the same as telephones with chips that consume less power.
It seems to me that depriving China from ASML tech will achieve a few things
1) Dissolve ASMLs monopoly on fab equipment. Effectively meaning China will build and distribute EUV and future technology at a fraction of the price of ASML
2) Force China to catch up to and possibly advance past western tech
3) Place China in an ideal position to sanction the US and keep the US from having access to Chinese tech which will inevitably pass western tech because China will do anything and everything in its power to never be dependent on the US again
For the sake of national security, the absolute smartest thing the US can do is to make China dependent in ASML tech and lethargic. If China can openly by western chip tech, they will probably slow down their development of competing technology. This would give the west a chance of keeping up or staying ahead for another 10 years or so. By then, everyone who can be blamed for forcing China to basically crush the entire west will be dead or senile.
That said, I really hope China does compete with ASML because this single supplier thing is a disaster.
What would happen if ASML went bankrupt or a building full of their scientists and engineers burned down with them in it tomorrow. That sounds like a much bigger national security problem to me.
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EUV has been around for decades - since the late 90s as the way to get to the next generation of semiconductors.
In the early 2000s, the big problem was making an EUV source brighter than the handful of watts it could currently produce. By comparison, the UV sources used for photolithography could produce a couple hundred watts of light power. By the 2010s they g
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there is absolutely no reason AI needs 3nm tech. All that does is shrink the foot print of the machines in terms of size, heat and power.
Oh, all it does is make it affordable to operate? Why didn't you say so?
I really hope China does compete with ASML because this single supplier thing is a disaster.
If they could have, they would have.
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Oh, all it does is make it affordable to operate? Why didn't you say so?
Because affordability has nothing to do with national security which is the core topic is (China chip ban) is about.
If they could have, they would have.
Past performance is no example of the future. The USA used to be the kings of this stuff. Instead they are now lagging behind several other countries with foreign companies having the tech crown in semiconductor manufacturing.
Your post reminded me of a family conversation we had a decade ago, grandpa mocking Japanese cars for the unreliable pieces of shit they were. He said something similar t
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Your post reminded me of a family conversation we had a decade ago, grandpa mocking Japanese cars for the unreliable pieces of shit they were. He said something similar to "if the japs could be a reliable car they would have". He was a bit bemused when my father (and all of his siblings) agreed in unison that Toyotas were far more reliable than Volkswagons at this point.
There's literally no point at which Toyotas sold into the US were less reliable than the VWs sold into the US, so I'm really not clear on what you or your grandfather have been smoking, but keep it away from me.
China wouldn't be mad about not being able to buy advanced process technology if they could make it themselves on a useful timescale. QED, they can't do it.
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Lack of efficiency makes for a major cost disadvantage to the user, which will be an impediment in selling your stuff. And energy is a fungible good. Especially Europe has an international energy exchange and a common energy market. Huawei would in effect throw away money on that front if they deliver energy to extra cheap prices to their chip customers.
But perhaps that is the true goal of US sanctions:
Hamper Chinese competition in international markets. That would have nothing immediate to do with national
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Finally someone has a sense. I hope the US congress people can hear arguments along yours.
No way. It's against their political marketing mandate. The US political system is a "democratic" system. Therefore, the foremost thing for any politician to do in order to win the votes are to demonstrate their determination [merriam-webster.com] and "capability" prominently. There is nothing better than fabricating and hyping up a big enemy and take aggressive actions.
When in history others could not (Score:2)
Could not barbarians copy and improve Roman Empire tactics? Could not other countries repeat Manhattan project? Or human flight in space?
What makes computer chips so special to hope that Chinese fail to figure out how to make them? Chinese among all. We live in a civilization defined by Chinese inventions: paper, powder, printing press, silk, rockets, etc. Isn't it a bit naive?
In my opinion, a better approach to solve international tensions and mistrust is to be develop
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What makes computer chips so special to hope that Chinese fail to figure out how to make them?
You seem to be under the impression they haven't been trying. Why do you imagine this?
What makes computer chips so special to hope that Chinese fail to figure out how to make them? Chinese among all. We live in a civilization defined by Chinese inventions: paper, powder, printing press, silk, rockets, etc. Isn't it a bit naive?
How many years has it been since those examples? Now name a newer one that wasn't in collaboration with another nation. GLWT
Trade conflict (Score:3)
The threat to the US is not China having access to these chips, but China manufacturing these chips.
Their conflict is largely measured by how much the rest of the world is trade-dependent on Chinese products.
Re:Trade conflict (Score:5, Interesting)
The threat to the US is not China having access to these chips, but China manufacturing these chips.
They're both threats. We don't want China making advanced chips and then selling them to other regimes on our restricted list for use in weapons systems.