China bans export of rare earths processing tech over national security
China bans export of rare earths processing tech over national security
BEIJING :China, the world's top processor of rare earths, banned the export of technology to extract and separate the critical materials on Thursday, the country's latest step to protect its dominance over several strategic metals.Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn p...
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No better way to boost diversion, and probably a net win for the planet considering how dirty and environmentally harmful the rare earth supply chain is today.
2nd best thing, since TSMC cut off ties with the PRC, considering they incentivized China to build their own shit...
Yup, though you are comparing 19th century tech to cutting edge tech: the PRC isn't going to crack EUV lithography on its own any time soon
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China can't make modern electronics
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Okay they can make modern electronics but they'll never design their own domestic brands
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Okay they made their domestic brands but they'll never achieve market dominance
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Okay their domestic brands dominate their own market but they'll never see export success
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Okay they're seeing export success in the EU, India, SEA, and the Middle East, but they'll never make their own RAM or set teleco standards
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Okay they made their own RAM and helped define the standard for 5G, but they'll never make their own processors.
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Okay they made their own processors but they'll never make anything smaller than 10nm
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Okay they made a 10mn chip but they'll never make a 7nm chip
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Okay they made a 7nm chip but they'll never make a 5nm chip
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Okay they made a 5nm chip but they'll never crack DUV
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Okay they cracked DUV but they'll never crack EUV <------ YOU ARE COPING HERE
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Okay they cracked EUV but they'll never make a 4nm chip
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Okay they made a 4nm chip but they'll never build a chip factory around a large scale particle accelerator
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Okay they built a large scale chip factory around a particle accelerator but...
You obviously fall into the trap of believing that hard science cares about politics, and that money thrown at problems as part of national strategic planning magically solves them. But for anyone else legitimately interested in understanding the topic better and having a glimpse at its complexity, those are great resources:
If the above is too advanced, this can serve as a good primer and answers "how the heck did we get there": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt9NEnWmyMo
Also, I never wrote that China will never get to EUV (or eventually something beyond that), just that it will take a very long time, because the complexity is spread across several very distinct scientific disciplines, integrating them is a challenge of its own (again, watch the videos), and packaging this into a system that meets the scale and reliability requirements to make it commercially viable hasn't been reproduced to date.
EUV is complex, unlike nuclear weapons and energy, 5G, space stations, probes to the dark side of the moon and hypersonic missiles. Those things are simple.
EUV is complex. And more so than the accomplishments you mentioned: nuclear weapons were cracked in the 1940's, probe moon landings in the 50's and space stations in the 70's. All have since been reproduced by several nations in isolation. That is not the case of state of the art lithography. No single nation "owns" it because it truly is a multinational endeavor.
(And actual hypersonic missiles haven't made it to the battlefield, and 5G is about commoditization and standardization, by the ITU, an organ of the united nations, so I'm not sure exactly how that adds to your rhetoric)
smuglord
Way to put your ignorance on display.
actual hypersonic missiles haven’t made it to the battlefield
Really? Then how come Russia has had them in service since 2017 and China deployed theirs in 2019? This is just cope from western "military experts" online that can't deal with the fact that Russia and China have better missiles than America.
Again, not a military expert, but have you been living under a rock for several years and missed this whole Ukrainian "special military operation"?
Russia's hyped Kinzhal missiles, which promised to defeat air defence systems and be manoeverable at supersonic speeds are being shot down by 80's era surface to air missiles. And I don't think anyone has been in a position to assess China's capabilities in the matter and I have no interest in discussing your beliefs.
Edit: forgot to say this really has nothing to do with advanced lithography, anyways…
Russia’s hyped Kinzhal missiles, which promised to defeat air defence systems and be manoeverable at supersonic speeds are being shot down by 80’s era surface to air missiles.
There's no proof of this ever happening, Ukraine hasn't been able to provide evidence of shooting down even ONE kinzhal.
Also, this has nothing to do with China's hypersonic missiles.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/05/16/world/russia-ukraine-news make what you want of it, as I said, this is off-topic.
No khinzals have been shot down, not a single one
Way to put your ignorance on display.
Lecturing me about ignorance while deliberately misrepresenting bleeding edge next generation nuclear reactors and probes to the dark side of the moon as old tech.
American hypersonics can't even make it out of testing and Chinese ones are being deployed on warships already.
Weak shit for someone pretending to argue from a position of knowledge
Lecturing me about ignorance
Fair, how about you enlighten me about the present topic, then, instead of digressing? It does look like deflection and insults doesn't make it prettier.
I'm not digressing at all. Your argument is that EUV tech is somehow exceptionally complex, therefore China cannot create it's own version in a reasonable time frame. The direct response to that claim is to point to examples of complex technologies that China has mastered and advanced.
China leads the world in new patents and has mastered several technologies which even America has not. Given that the current leading purveyors of EUV are the frickin Dutch, not the Americans, there's no basis to claim that EUV is exceptionally complex such that the world's leading scientific and econmic power cannot reproduce it.
Same response as https://programming.dev/comment/5908167 ; I never wrote that China cannot create it's own version, but that it will likely take some time. Reasons for this complexity are also mentioned in that post.
I get where your impression comes from, but I highly recommend watching the video about EUV's history (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmgkV83OhHA) to better weight the contribution of every (international) party.
Russia has used dozens of hypersonic missiles in Ukraine and destroyed American Patriot Missile Defense systems with them
and packaging this into a system that meets the scale and reliability requirements to make it commercially viable hasn't been reproduced to date
Your overall point about EUV being difficult isn't wrong, but this line is really where the typical liberal forecasting of China's capabilities fall apart: they don't give a shit about it being commercially viable, they give a shit about having the industrial capacity.
The reason why EUV is more or less a cartel monopoly in the West is that it's a cobbled together collection of scientific principles that work well enough that the first few companies that figured it out could make insane profits off of it, and then proceeded to patent the shit out of it to prevent anyone else from doing so. The engineering behind EUV is... not great from a reliability standpoint, most notably the fact that EUV has an average downtime of something like 10% (meaning your fabs are offline 10% of the year for maintenance), in large part because you're shooting little droplets of liquid metals with a high intensity laser which tends to splatter and require cleanup. There are potential alternatives to this process for creating the kind of UV light you need for lithography, such as particle accelerators, that are theoretically superior but the R&D into those alternatives costs tens of billions of dollars with no guarantees that any of it will ever become profitable, so Western capital doesn't bother trying.
China doesn't have that profit restriction. It needs the ability to produce bleeding edge chips to remove its reliance on an increasingly hostile West, and it has not only the engineering and scientific power to brute force that kind of R&D but the ability to devote a sizeable portion of its national resources to doing so. It doesn't matter if its profitable, it matters if they're able to decouple a critical industry from the West and ignore sanctions accordingly, and that has infinitely more value than a shareholder dividend, so they will put the resources into doing so and, inevitably, they will figure it out. And from what we've seen over the past 2 years since the trade wars have started, they're not only succeeding but doing so ahead of expectations, in large part because increasing tensions have made life a living hell for Chinese scientists and engineers abroad working in these industries due to racism and suspicions of spying which push them to emigrate back to China and lend their expertise there instead.
In 20 years, chips made in mainland China will be competitive or even superior to their Western counterparts unless the West undoes 50 years of neoliberal rot overnight and replicates what the CPC is doing for silicon manufacturing or the CPC collapses and China experiences the same shock doctrine that the former Soviet states did in the 90s, and neither of those outcomes look likely right now.
Making the light is a relativity easy step, it's mirrors that are hard af.
But China will develop euv tech and beyond, and I hope they will do it in a new way and advance human knowledge.
And I hope this nationalistic freakshow will just melt away, as it's a ball and chain on humanity.
Hey, thanks for the constructive comment :)
[China] don’t give a shit about it being commercially viable, they give a shit about having the industrial capacity.
True, but I don't think the end-goal is to "just" achieve technical sovereignty. Answering local demand requires production at a large scale
The reason why EUV is more or less a cartel monopoly in the West is that it’s a cobbled together collection of scientific principles that work well enough that the first few companies that figured it out could make insane profits off of it
I really wouldn't put it that way, if you check my 3rd link out, you'd see that there were a few competing technologies on the table, and the topic was researched by national labs and a lot of public funding as well. Japan was also a leader and significant contributor but ultimately failed. It's not nearly as clearly cut as "bad imperialistic USA locks it down for rest of us": there is real international competition, and real international cooperation.
I can't predict where we will be at in 20 years. No matter what, we will be many generations beyond EUV. Other approaches that were deemed unfeasible before (=today) might turn practical in the future as fundamental research advances, and I suspect China will be strong in those areas, and, as you said, perhaps a leader.
just that it will take a very long time, because the complexity is spread across several very distinct scientific disciplines, integrating them is a challenge of its own (again, watch the videos),
Dutch managed it, why wouldn't the chinese, with a centrally planned economy that can directly integrate the different disciplines, be able to?
packaging this into a system that meets the scale and reliability requirements to make it commercially viable hasn't been reproduced to date.
Communists in shambles - how could anyone fund science for the sake of progress instead of making money?
Dutch managed it, why wouldn’t the chinese, with a centrally planned economy that can directly integrate the different disciplines, be able to?
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Dutch didn't, not alone, far from that. Have a stab at the first link I posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmgkV83OhHA
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This will also show a long list of "honorable mentions" who failed, including the Japanese attempts (which, as you should know, aren't exactly new to the game, way ahead of China and largely self-reliant in the matter, unlike China whose semiconductors industry has been centered around import of foreign tech)
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I didn't write that they "wouldn't be able to", I merely pointed the actual reasons why this is extremely hard (perhaps the hardest current Engineering feat, or why I find this whole thing fascinating), with speculations that this will take a while
for the sake of progress instead of making money?
no need to stretch it: if China wants to meet the ever growing domestic demand (either military or civil), China need fabs churning chips reliably. Simple as that.
Dutch didn't, not alone, far from that.
As opposed to the chinese, who are completely alone, all 1.whatever billion of them.
which are[...]largely self-reliant in the matter
You just fucking said it required cooperation you dumb cum juggler, now you're saying they failed despite not cooperating?
I didn't write that they "wouldn't be able to"
I cannot sufficiently describe how much I hate your stupid reddit tier "um, akshumally I didn't use those exact words therefore you're completely misrepresenting what I said!" You won't shut up about how hard and difficult and borderline impossible it is and you want me to believe you're not trying to say they won't be able to? You're certainly not arguing that they will.
if China wants to meet the ever growing domestic demand (either military or civil), China need fabs churning chips reliably.
That's not what commercially viable mean, buddy.
Dutch didn’t, not alone, far from that.
As opposed to the chinese, who are completely alone, all 1.whatever billion of them.
no need to speculate, China is not at the same level today (or we wouldn't even be having this discussion in the first place), no matter how populous. Would it help catch-up? Probably! You are the one bringing this up, not me, so…
You just fucking said it required cooperation you dumb cum juggler, now you’re saying they failed despite not cooperating?
Was this a difficult sentence to read? Should I break it down for you? Those two things can be true at the same time (which is essentially what I wrote):
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ASML (NL) EUV machines being the culmination of international cooperation (with US/TW/DE/…)
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Japanese having an expansive indigenous lithography industry and history
Today's China has neither.
You won’t shut up about how hard and difficult and borderline impossible it is and you want me to believe you’re not trying to say they won’t be able to? You’re certainly not arguing that they will.
Well, I'm sorry that a well-sourced post with actual engineering and historical facts, meant for the legitimately curious and interested people here makes you so angry. What can I say other than "you probably didn't check-out the links and are arguing in bad faith/for the sake of it" and "you are letting your emotions blur your comprehension, i.e. putting words in my mouth".
That’s not what commercially viable mean, buddy.
Commercial viability is the likelihood that a product or service will be successful in the marketplace.
Unless the CCP starts distributing indigenous chips asking nothing in exchange, which I find unlikely to say the least, those will be traded (against hard money, work, resources, …) on some form of market. I'm not really into arguing about semantics, so you do you.
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You definitely know you’re winning when you’re constantly complaining about your opponent. You hate communists yet allow them to live in your brain rent-free. Interesting.
I have no idea why you try to bring a kindergarten level political twist to what was essentially a factual and informative comment. I don't want to sound insulting but given the context you should perhaps think about your own insecurities and mental health before wondering about that of others.
Love turning mental health discourse into a snide bitchy weapon to imply that someone pursuing a disagreement is simply mEnTaLlY iLl
Who hurt you? Help is available.
Yup, no idea why parent poster engaged in this direction. If you know, let me know.
No one is attacking your "factual and informative" comment.
No one is disputing the difficulties you've highlighted. What is being disputed is your assertion that those difficulties are relevant to your assertion that China won't be able to achieve this.
And the subject of the conversation is a technology that humans have already developed and is in use. So what is it about China/the PRC that would cause you to assert they are incapable of building/employing this technology?
Your argument is that "Hard science doesn't care about politics," so I assume you don't want to imply that you're critiquing the capabilities of China's political system. So what's left? Is it racism? The removed can't achieve what other humans have already proven is possible because the removed is subhuman?
You are making a political statement whether you intend to or not, you don't just get to whine about how you were only talking about the science and why is everyone being so mean when you only started a discussion about the science to reinforce (or deflect from) your original assertion.
your assertion that China won’t be able to achieve this.
Well, except I did not only NOT write that, I even wrote the exact opposite, see: https://programming.dev/comment/5899890
Also, interpreting my messages with your ideologically colored lenses doesn't imply that this thread invites political discourse. I'm sure you'll find many people here willing to vent their frustrations with you in easily ignorable threads of their own.
“Anyone who questions America’s might is insane! I am a normal person!”
Because every single thing must revolve around America, only one thing can be bad at a time, and if I'm not with you I must be against you.
and if I'm not with you I must be against you.
Neutrality is support of the status quo, there are no parties that neither support nor oppose it.
, only one thing can be bad at a time,
Oh, were we talking about something being bad? I thought we were just having a non-politically tinted discussion about science and technology
You obviously fall into the trap of believing that hard science cares about politics
Look in the fucking mirror champ
You're trying to tell me a rapidly developing, well-resourced country will hit some arbitrary technology threshold because communism. You know, the political system that put the first man in space a generation after most of the USSR wasn't even literate.
You’re trying to tell me a rapidly developing, well-resourced country will hit some arbitrary technology threshold because communism
Don't you think that you are over-reading a little? I never brought up communism nor any socio-economical ideology for that matter. Quick tip for you: try to read some about economics and China if you nurture any expectation that it is a communist state other than in name.
If you don't think China is communist, why do you think it will hit whatever arbitrary threshold you're imagining?
I think we know why
why do you think it will hit whatever arbitrary threshold you’re imagining?
What does that mean? What does this have to do with the above?
try to read some about economics and China if you nurture any expectation that it is a communist state other than in name.
Seems like you missed something if that's your interpretation
If that's the point you want to make, do back it up if you want others (i.e. anyone who cares, i.e. not me) to comment on that?
You're the one who made an assertion without backing it up in the first place. Its clear you don't know what you're talking about
i.e. anyone who cares, i.e. not me
and 
reddit brain
China doesn't need to produce the fast chips because their comparative advantage is in quantity manufacturing.
Sure thing, until you realize that China isn't that big at all as the 5th largest producer of semiconductors behind Taiwan, Korea, Japan and the USA:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/semiconductor-manufacturing-by-country
Top 5 Countries That Produce the Most Semiconductors: Taiwan South Korea Japan United States China
China is listed as the largest and 5th largest in your source
that's cool and all but china has carrier-killer hypersonic missiles and ameriKKKa doesn't
And what does that have to do with advanced lithography? I'm not some military expert and I doubt you are either so why waste your time spreading your unsubstantiated beliefs?
Those beliefs are very well substantiated. Fuck, you could even find this shit on Wikipedia. Look for “DF-21” and then look at the news articles about the American tests blowing up.
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“Okay, China built a jump gate to Alpha Centauri, and I’m currently working as a Bloodbag for Immortan Joe, but seriously, when are these tankies going to admit that communism and fascism are the same?”
Ok, but what the heck does that reply have to do with anything?
People were really underestimating how quickly China could make chip progress, too
Whatever people's estimations, we've yet to see this progress that you are talking about. It's an interesting race for sure.
SMIC makes 5nm chips with DUV tech when Intel can’t break 5nm with EUV and billions in subsidies.
What it implies to stretch the DUV process into ever thinner lithography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4E-0VFaEA
Some background on how it was made: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/how-huawei-made-a-cutting-edge-chip-in-china-and-surprised-the-us/
tl;dr/dw: China managed to produce small batches of semiconductors using stockpiled american and japanese equipment before sanctions kicked-in
If it were a ban on the rare earth minerals themselves, yes, but a ban on the extraction technologies just secures dependence on Chinese sources.
The reason China is a major exporter of these minerals has less to do with their availability in China and more to do with their lax environmental regulations, which allow extraction via means that are prohibited in many other countries.
So preventing their extraction in countries where stricter environmental standards are in place just means more environmental damage.