It is expected that it will be difficult for China to become the chip king of the world, this is the reason

Beijing –

China he wants to be very involved in the industry skis or semiconductors, even willing to spend a lot of money. However, the problem is not the money factor, where a country does not automatically control chip production just at a high cost.

Manufacturing advanced semiconductors requires advanced lithography scanning devices to print small and complex circuit designs on microchips. ASML in the Netherlands is the only company that can make the machine. However, the Dutch government banned the sale of its most advanced equipment to China at the request of the United States.

That means trying to make the device China’s focus on developing the domestic semiconductor industry with subsidies worth $96.3 billion. Last week, China announced that its latest lithography scanner can support resolutions of 65 nanometers or better, a significant improvement over the 90 nanometer devices previously developed.

But it is still far behind ASML devices with resolutions below 10 nanometers. For the record, a smaller resolution allows more powerful chips to be produced. Leping Huang, a technology analyst at Huatai Securities, said that a major step up from the 65 nm model was needed to ASML’s latest lithography machine.

At the same time, mentioned detikINET from CNBC, ASML is still selling non-banned devices to China. That shows that the business in China still does not feel that they have a viable domestic option.

China has increased spending on semiconductor equipment since the US imposed tighter export restrictions in October 2022. With high investment, China could indeed make some progress in replicating some capabilities ASML system in the next two to three years.

“But any system that a Chinese company can produce probably won’t be an exact copy of what ASML does and it won’t be as sophisticated,” said Paul Triolo, an observer at DGA Group. .

“Reinventing an advanced lithography system that took ASML decades to develop and commercialize is a daunting task for any Chinese company,” he said.

ASML, which has been under various restrictions not to sell its most advanced deep ultraviolet (EUV) equipment to China, is under considerable pressure not to sell even the less advanced equipment to the country.

That adds urgency to the first half of the year in Beijing, which spent $24.73 billion assembling chip-making equipment. “Spending money will help solve this problem only a little,” Lee said, stressing that the development of technology such as lithography and a sufficiently skilled workforce was more important.

China appears to be using a strategy of long-term plans and subsidies to support industries such as electric cars. Such an electric car strategy is indeed successful, but it does not necessarily apply to the chip industry. That’s because the chip industry is much more complex.

(fyk/fyk)