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Comment by AndyMcConachie | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that Huawei was able to make a 7nm chip because they had ASML DUV machines.

From ASML's perspective they didn't have any choice. The US State Dept made the Dutch government do it. Rutte made a show of putting up a fight against the USA, but caved in about a week. Worst yet, the final deal was secret. We'll never know what deal was worked out for the Dutch politicians in the USA's pocket.

As a Dutch citizen it's scary to watch our government and the rest of the EU go against it's own best interests. We are vassals of the USA and it would appear our elites are completely captured.

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As an American, I would love the EU to have superpower status as well, just so they would stop complaining about the US every time we fight authoritarian, undemocratic wannabe hegemons.

Please, enable Chinese military and technological superiority. The Chinese government is famously honorable and decent to western European political and social values.

To clarify, do you think it is in EU or Dutch best interests long term to have China on the leading edge of AI and computing?

That would also enable the EU to stop being in tow of the US in every effing disaster like Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and so on.

You can stick your wars up where the sun doesn't shine.

> As a Dutch citizen it's scary to watch our government and the rest of the EU go against it's own best interests. We are vassals of the USA and it would appear our elites are completely captured.

I'm in the EU too. I don't like US hegemony either, but what's the alternative? We are not strong enough alone to avoid being under the influence of either the USA, Russia, or China. We could tell the US to withdraw from Europe with all their military bases, but I don't know if you would prefer Russians in Holland or their influence over the US. This is the untold price we pay for security. If we want to change that, we would need to divert a lot of money from social security nets in the EU and allocate it to the military. Then we could achieve independence, but I don't see the political will for that in any country besides Poland at the moment (which will have the strongest military in the EU in a few years but is still under heavy US influence).

I actually think that not too long ago the EU would have been strong enough to be a third/now fourth strong power, but decades of lacking a cohesive long term strategy have led to this point unfortunately.

Much of ASML's underlying DUV/EUV technology is developed by its Cymer division (which they acquired) which is based in California.

Why would it surprise you that the US wants to enact some export restrictions on technology that is developed in the US?

Wasn't that mostly for DUV ? I thought EUV was actually based on TSMC R&D.

Nope EUV is Cymer. TSMC, Apple and Huawei pooled talent and R&D on 7, 5, 3nm development so they could build their mobile chips. Probably because huawei had all that experience in 7 and 5nm they can guide SMIC in getting the yield up. Also dont forgot SMIC got a lot of top talent from TSMC.

Curiously enough the Dutch government (or what is left of it) extended the deadline for DUV equipment sold to China until year end. An apparent snub to the US.

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2023-09-01/asml-says-it-can-shi...

ASML Says It Can Ship Restricted Chipmaking Gear to China Until Year End

(Bloomberg) — ASML Holding NV said it has licenses to ship restricted chipmaking machines to China until the end of the year, even as export curbs kick in from September.

I think the problem is that the Chinese alternatives to ASML DUV are close to being good enough. And a ban just would cause ASML to loose the market for good without actually hurting the Chinese industrial capacity.

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