From Asia Times, October 25:
Story is that they had the chutzpah to call ASML technicians to fix a machine they broke while taking it apart and reassembling it
A Chinese firm reportedly has sought technical support from ASML, the world’s largest chipmaking equipment supplier, after it failed to reassemble a deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machine following an internal teardown for alleged reverse engineering.
“An ASML DUV machine that China has used to make their chips recently broke down. They called the Dutch company for help repairing it,” Brandon Weichert, a senior national security editor at The National Interest, says in a X post. “ASML sent some techs. They discovered that the Chinese broke the machine when they disassembled it and tried to put it back together.”
“The reason Chinese technicians took apart their older ASML DUV system is simple. They are trying to find a way around US sanctions on the newest machines,” Weichert says. “By taking apart the older model and attempting to rebuild it, they hope to learn how to produce their own advanced versions. But it seems they still can’t figure it out.”
Weichert says he was unsure whether ASML had repaired the system. He adds that, in his view, although China maintains service agreements with the Dutch company, ASML would be unlikely to honor them given what he characterized as apparent foul play by the customer.
Weichert’s post, released on October 19, came at a sensitive moment in US-China relations. Political tensions between Washington and Beijing had heightened as the US refused to ease its export restrictions on advanced chipmaking technology, while China responded by tightening export controls on rare earth elements.
US President Donald Trump, who threatened to impose an extra 100% tariff on Chinese goods, will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the APEC Summit in South Korea on October 30, where discussions are likely to cover bilateral trade, fentanyl flows, semiconductor policy, rare earth exports, and other pressing geopolitical issues.
As of now, there is no other source that can verify Weichert’s claims. However, many Chinese columnists have admitted that reverse engineering is the only realistic path for China to replicate ASML’s lithography machines.
“Western nations, led by the US, have long sought to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology by preventing the purchase of leading lithography systems,” says a Jiangxi-based columnist writing under the pseudonym “Spacewave Receiver.”
“The challenges of independently producing lithography machines are immense, but China has already achieved some technological breakthroughs with its vast market, strong capital resources and growing research capability,” he says. “Through reverse engineering, Chinese researchers are gradually mastering key components and laying the groundwork for the domestic chip industry’s rise.”
He cites the example of Zhao Yongpeng, a professor at the Harbin Institute of Technology’s School of Astronautics, who successfully developed a discharge plasma extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light source in 2024. He stresses that China is now on the verge of breaking the foreign technology blockade and that its chip manufacturing sector will continue to expand....
....MUCH MORE
As noted while exiting September's ""Two Leading European Tech Firms Strike an A.I. Partnership" (ASML; Mistral)":
NYT on ASML, June 5:
How the Maker of the ‘Most Complex Machine Humans Ever Created’ Is Navigating Trade Fights
Most complex machine ever created.
