China Begins Mass Production of Homegrown DUV Chip Tools (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0184725184
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/07/27/1827257/china-begins-mass-production-of-homegrown-duv-chip-tools
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-begins-mass-production-of-domestic-immersion-duv-lithography-machines
> The Information didn't name the manufacturer, but its sources described the operation as having pulled DUV development teams from several Chinese companies, one of them the state-backed startup Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology. SMIC has been testing a Yuliangsheng immersion tool since September 2025. Most components in the new systems are domestic, though some critical parts still come from Japan, and delays at local suppliers have held back output this year.
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> [...] China accounts for around 20% of ASML's net sales this year, down from 33% in 2025, driven mainly by mainstream logic demand... Independent analysis from the AI Futures Project in June put commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV in the mid-2030s, with ASML holding 98.7% of the immersion market. Qualifying the new machines for production lines could take many months, and they trail ASML's tools on performance and build quality. China's domestic EUV effort, which Reuters first reported as a working prototype in December, remains years away.
[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-starts-mass-producing-homegrown-duv-chipmaking-tools-advance-local-chip-industry
[2] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-begins-mass-production-of-domestic-immersion-duv-lithography-machines
Thanks Trump (Score:2)
We can put our entire workforce on the shoe stamping and pants sewing jobs coming back from China, while the Chinese get to do advanced high tech stuff. Another win-win brought to you by tariffs.
Re: Thanks Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is less about tarrifs and more about China's care for technological independence.
Replacing dependence on a Dutch company has little to do with US tarrifs and more to do with independence from the "West".
Re: (Score:2)
This a thousand times.
China used to be happy to buy everything it needed from the West. But then the US spent decades screaming Bloody Murder China Is Teh Enemy and guess what, China listened, and figured they need to be able to cover their needs on their own. And the rest is pretty much history. China is now speedrunning every tech tree like there's no tomorrow, and with how the world and the US is going, they're most certainly right to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
DUV is about 30 years old. Not sure how replicating 30 year old tech is "speed running every tech tree." But the way, the US makes 0 DUV machines. The companies that make the are Nikon (Japan), Canon (Japan), and ASML (Netherlands) so China has had opportunities to buy from the East if they chose to do so.
Re: (Score:3)
One tech event in isolation indeed does not look like speedrunning. But you witness them taking milestone after milestone every year, that perspective becomes challenged. Now you can piss on every achievement and say that they are nowhere near yet, but with every step they are getting closer, and they are taking the steps at speeds no one thought possible even a few years ago.
China has a homegrown AI industry running on a homegrown tech stack, and they are leaving the US in the dust by now, all the while be
Re: (Score:2)
> . But you witness them taking milestone after milestone every year, that perspective becomes challenged.
The problem is you think copying a machine and technology from 30 years ago is a "milestone". Most people do not think that.
> Now you can piss on every achievement and say that they are nowhere near yet, but with every step they are getting closer, and they are taking the steps at speeds no one thought possible even a few years ago.
I am presenting facts. I am not trumpeting every announcement as a major breakthrough when it is not.
> China has a homegrown AI industry running on a homegrown tech stack, and they are leaving the US in the dust by now, all the while being about 100x cheaper.
There are claims by China about their AI. Given how AI claims from US companies are dog shit, I am reluctant to believe China's claims either.
> As to them buying lito from other countries, the US is working hard at putting a stop to it. Whether they succeed or not, China can not afford to get caught by surprise.
Your entire point was about how China doesn't have to buy from "the West." They haven't had to buy from the West all this time. Decades now, Chin
Re: Thanks Trump (Score:2)
UV has a top limit, sure. But homegrowing that tech expands what they can do *now*, builds local knowhow on building fab machines, and primes them to not be as stymied when they move on to building more recent forms of lithography. (You cannot cut off their supply of asics to prevent the manufacture of better fabs)
You kids cant see the forest for the trees, complaining about the saplings china is planting being small, while croaking pridefully about how big your own trees are.
In time, china will dominate c
Re: (Score:2)
> UV has a top limit, sure.
DUV has a bottom limit. It is about 7nm. Beyond that, circuits can be printed however it requires multiple passes. Multiple pass means more defects and less yield. Realistically any fab could have used DUV for features less than 7nm; the problem was that the yields were so low due to defects that they could not make a reasonable profit. EUV has been able to get past the limits of DUV and.
> But homegrowing that tech expands what they can do *now*,
Homegrown only means they are making older technology in China. That does not mean they somehow can advance the technolog
Re: (Score:2)
1) "smaller" = "Bigger" (in terms of sales, and modern utility. This is exactly what I meant, UV Light has a threshold over which the structures are smaller than the wavelengths you are trying to use to make them. this means you have to use some kind of mask technology, and you get strange quantum effects from the photons doing things photons do when they are restricted by tiny masks.
2) You are forgetting something here, to make a tortured inference that doesnt really fit anyway. Most of the technology
Re: (Score:2)
Nikon and Canon still make DUV machines so it is not about East vs West either.
Re: Thanks Trump (Score:2)
That's why I put west in quotes.
Re: (Score:2)
So you prefer a bare-azzwhole while a CCP computer does your thinking ... must be some kind of Trotsky-slut gig. Please, stay in your cesspit city. Contra-wise, I prefer USA-made hemp cargo-trow and an artists sketch-pad ( USA cotton ) for my math-physics hobby calculations . To each his own ...
Re: (Score:3)
DUV is not the most advanced tech when it comes to photolithography. EUV is in production with High NA being installed and tested in different fabs for production soon. DUV was first available in the mid 1990s. What this means is China can make lithography machines for 14nm and above processes. China was able to make 7nm chips using DUV but there was no information about yields or cost. There is still a need for DUV for microcontrollers. It does not mean China is making leading edge chips.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right it's not the most advanced technology, it's a mature legacy technology that accounts for 80% - 85% of the total world wide wafer capacity. So sure they can't make chips with the leading edge nodes but they sure as hell can make the majority of chips in production today.
As expected (Score:2)
Chinese engineers and scientists are smart and numerous, and really good at finding workarounds
Attempting to prevent China from acquiring tech is futile and counterproductive
We should abandon the old cold war attitudes and move toward cooperation
Re: (Score:2)
"move toward cooperation", China is relentlessly predatory and routinely attempts to globally dominate multiple industries. I don't think the rest of us need to cooperate with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. The correct response is to massively build out the west's capabilities, and drive down china's market cornering potential.
the problem is that the western countries seem hell bent on doing this the most grift-heavy ways possible, sabotaging every effort, and then wondering why none of those efforts actually produced useful chipfabs--- (at least on one side of the coin)
While simultaneously nodding cheekily to the above, siphoning off every last dollar of grift, purposefully refusing to create local
DUV is a dead end (Score:3)
China is learning that there's a long road ahead just to replicate the equipment that's been available for a decade. Obviously they need to get started on it, especially since there's "a bill now moving through Congress would cut off from ASML sales and servicing by statute", but they won't reach the state of the art for many years even if they steal it as usual.
Re: (Score:1)
DUV does stuff, maybe it's not doing the most recent / powerful nodes, but it does stuff... and the 3D stuff we've seen from the chinese sidesteps most of the issues
Re: (Score:2)
> and the 3D stuff we've seen from the chinese sidesteps most of the issues
What 3D stuff are you talking about and what issues are you talking about? When it comes to "3D stuff", the first [1]FinFET transistors [wikipedia.org] were demonstrated in the late 1990s with TSMC making the first ones in 2002. For the most part, anything below 22nm uses FinFET.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_field-effect_transistor
Re: (Score:2)
You don't get to the top of the stairs without taking, well, the stairs. Much more useful than to fixate on the current step, is to take note of direction and momentum. And when you keep an eye on the developments in the Chinese semiconductor industry, they momentum they have should have everyone in the West shit their pants.
Re: (Score:2)
"momentum they have should have everyone in the West shit their pants", let's see some cites. They are far, far behind.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]https://itif.org/publications/... [itif.org]
[2]https://www.aspistrategist.org... [aspistrategist.org.au]
[1] https://itif.org/publications/2025/09/23/how-china-is-outperforming-the-united-states-in-critical-technologies/
[2] https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/aspis-critical-technology-tracker-2025-updates-and-10-new-technologies/
Re: (Score:3)
> China is learning that there's a long road ahead just to replicate the equipment that's been available for a decade.
More like 3 decades if you count the earliest DUV machines.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, are they making the earliest DUV machines or something on par with the most advanced ones?
Re: (Score:2)
There are no details in the article about how advanced these machines will be. The only numbers thrown around are 5 this year with 20 next year. Also we don't know if they are really "homegrown" and not copies of existing machines by other manufacturers. By comparison, ASML is expected to ship 130 DUV machines this year just like they did last year.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're curious, research into EUV started in the 70s and began in earnest in the 80s. ASML's tin drop EUV source was initially considered in the 80s but stopped because it was felt there were more practical sources. It only resumed in the late 90s.
ASML demonstrated a prototype source in the early 2000s, with Nikon and Canon expecting to show one in 2008 or so at the time. But bigger world changing events meant R&D into EUV sources was abandoned by both Japanese companies. Japan pivoted to providing E
one piece at a time (Score:2)
Sing to the tune of Johnny Cash:
> They got it one piece at a time
> And it cost them a pretty dime
> But you'll know you're fucked when they come through your town
> They're gonna earn the tech in style
> They're gonna drive the prices down
> And soon they'll be the only game in town