News US Govt Says Banned Chipmaking Equipment Still Ends Up in China

[Admin]

Chinese companies go above and beyond to get wafer fab tools from American companies.

US Govt Says Banned Chipmaking Equipment Still Ends Up in China : Read more

 

[RedBear87]

This is completely unexpected and I'm truly amazed! At this point the solution is obvious, the US needs to sanction the whole World. If sanctions don't work it's because you're not sanctioning enough people, consequences be damned. /s

 

[bit_user]

This is completely unexpected and I'm truly amazed! At this point the solution is obvious, the US needs to sanction the whole World. If sanctions don't work it's because you're not sanctioning enough people, consequences be damned. /s

I think that's too simplistic. In any complicated human endeavor, you don't expect to get it 100% right the first time. If the sanctions are leaky, then iterate until the leaks are plugged.

In terms of what the article cites, that does not mean increasing the geographical scope of the sanctions, but rather placing controls or restrictions which either eliminate exportation of tools that can be repurposed or ensuring they're degraded in a way that can't easily be overcome by the end user.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

I think that's too simplistic. In any complicated human endeavor, you don't expect to get it 100% right the first time. If the sanctions are leaky, then iterate until the leaks are plugged.

In terms of what the article cites, that does not mean increasing the geographical scope of the sanctions, but rather placing controls or restrictions which either eliminate exportation of tools that can be repurposed or ensuring they're degraded in a way that can't easily be overcome by the end user.

I suppose the main question is whether the leaks can be plugged. It all depends on how China obtained the equipment. If it can happen with this equipment then it begs the question whether China can procure more advanced tech, including machines dedicated for EUV lithography.

Turning this back to the tech side of things, I certainly hope this doesn't result in the tech industry becoming more fragmented. We have enough trouble getting standards adopted as is.

 

[Li Ken-un]

Can we draw an analogy to cryptography here? “Outlaw encryption and only the outlaws will have encryption.”

The idea is that only those who comply will not have it. Did anyone honestly believe that the incentive to possess the advanced fabrication technology would be outweighed by policy nay-saying?

“No, sir. You may not have it. Please refrain from trying to have it.”
“Why, by golly! I shall comply.”

 

[bit_user]

I suppose the main question is whether the leaks can be plugged. It all depends on how China obtained the equipment.

This was covered in the article.

If it can happen with this equipment then it begs the question whether China can procure more advanced tech, including machines dedicated for EUV lithography.

Depends if they're dual-use, like the ones they obtained so far.

Turning this back to the tech side of things, I certainly hope this doesn't result in the tech industry becoming more fragmented.

That could certainly happen, but I don't think the lithography thing plays into it so much as when the former US administration banned any cooperation or support with Huawei, which prompted them to pour more resources into efforts like their Harmony OS project.

HarmonyOS - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We have enough trouble getting standards adopted as is.

Such as?

 

[bit_user]

Can we draw an analogy to cryptography here? “Outlaw encryption and only the outlaws will have encryption.”

The idea is that only those who comply will not have it. Did anyone honestly believe that the incentive to possess the advanced fabrication technology would be outweighed by policy nay-saying?

“No, sir. You may not have it. Please refrain from trying to have it.”
“Why, by golly! I shall comply.”

No, I don't see how such an analogy would apply. The point of sanctions is to convince your allies to enforce them - not to convince the sanctioned party they should embrace the sanctions.

 

[Evildead_666]

The horse has bolted, locking the door with more locks now is pointless.
It will only harm the US, as it has done until now.

 

[edzieba]

Can we draw an analogy to cryptography here? “Outlaw encryption and only the outlaws will have encryption.”

The idea is that only those who comply will not have it. Did anyone honestly believe that the incentive to possess the advanced fabrication technology would be outweighed by policy nay-saying?

“No, sir. You may not have it. Please refrain from trying to have it.”
“Why, by golly! I shall comply.”

It's even worse than that: it's like placing sanctions on hammers used to build houses more than 3 stories tall, but freely allowing sales of hammers for building houses one or two stories tall. And both hammers are the same hammer.

 

[bit_user]

It's even worse than that: it's like placing sanctions on hammers used to build houses more than 3 stories tall, but freely allowing sales of hammers for building houses one or two stories tall. And both hammers are the same hammer.

Not the best analogy, with a hammer being such a simple device.

I'd suggest your analogy would be more apt if you'd have used cranes. A crane could have restrictions installed (or you just sell a shorter one) to prevent it being used to build buildings above a certain height.

 

[edzieba]

Not the best analogy, with a hammer being such a simple device.

I'd suggest your analogy would be more apt if you'd have used cranes. A crane could have restrictions installed (or you just sell a shorter one) to prevent it being used to build buildings above a certain height.

Also not a good analogy: the mask is what determines the minimum feature pitch, not the wafer scanner (outside of illuminant wavelength restrictions, and even then multi-patterning allows reduced feature scale with geometry dependency). The wafer scanner does not know the pitch of the mask installed, and there's not really a practical way to insert such a restriction without quixotic DRM pointlessness.

 

[RedBear87]

I think that's too simplistic. In any complicated human endeavor, you don't expect to get it 100% right the first time. If the sanctions are leaky, then iterate until the leaks are plugged.

In terms of what the article cites, that does not mean increasing the geographical scope of the sanctions, but rather placing controls or restrictions which either eliminate exportation of tools that can be repurposed or ensuring they're degraded in a way that can't easily be overcome by the end user.

In terms of chipmaking, the article does mention that "Chinese companies have managed to continue producing advanced chips is by procuring tools from countries other than the U.S., before sales were restricted. Chinese companies were able to purchase advanced tools from Dutch and Japanese companies for about a year after the U.S. first imposed restrictions", so in purely hypothetical terms restricting these technologies to just the US would have closed this loophole immediately. Going beyond chipmaking it's even easier to imagine that sanctions on advanced GPUs will get bypassed using 3rd countries, which means that more and more countries will eventually have to get sanctioned (currently Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and UAE have already been hit by sanctions, apparently because they re-sell or give access to the Chinese). This will eventually lead to a scenario where every country, except perhaps a handful of very close US "allies", will not get access to some technologies and products.

 

[bit_user]

Going beyond chipmaking ...

Let's not. That would be appropriate for the comments of a different article.