The US has its own TSMC supply (insert comments about it not being cutting edge). And the US will stand-down and let China take Taiwan with no serious conflict in exchange for supply agreements. Not more than 5-10 years out at this point.

The US can't even remotely come close to stopping China in its own backyard today, in another 5-10 years they'll just have that much larger of a Navy. The US knows that's the situation. The US can supply a large one week bombing campaign against China and that's it, based on inventory levels. The US will exhaust its cruise missile supply instantly and the US has almost no meaningful drone-bomb supply. China can build cheap missiles by the tens of thousands perpetually, train them to the coast, and flatten Taiwan and any opponents as necessary. China is the only country that can sustain a multi-year WW2 style bombing campaign today, thanks to its manufacturing capabilities. Imagine them on a full war footing.

▲

alex43578 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah, I just don’t know that there’s the will to blow up the world economy for which flag flies over Taiwan.

China absorbing Taiwan (especially to Americans) just doesn’t seem like a radical, terrifying concept.

A Hong Kong style negotiated transfer might be best for the world - Taiwanese that want to leave can, the US can build up a parallel source of semiconductors, China gets Taiwan without firing a shot.

▲

FuriouslyAdrift 8 hours ago | parent [-]

That didn't work out so well for Hong Kong.

	▲	alex43578 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Is it better than the alternative? Do you think TSMC wants to see a Dongfeng or ATACMS headed for their fab, if the alternative is a negotiated handover?
	▲	tonyedgecombe 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Better than it has for Ukraine.

▲

petcat 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The US has its own TSMC supply (insert comments about it not being cutting edge)

USA has been strategically re-homing TSMC to the US mainland for a long time now. 30% of all 2nm and better technologies are slated to be produced in Arizona by 2030.

The real loser in all of this will be the EU which will be completely without the ability to produce or acquire chips. They'll just end up buying from China and USA, which will only further deepen their dependence on those countries.

▲

rob74 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean that the EU isn't doing anything: https://overclock3d.net/news/software/bringing_advanced_semi...

	▲	kyboren 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's announcing 40k WSPMs of eventual capacity spread across 28nm and 16nm nodes. I mean, it's a start, and I'm sure automakers are totally stoked given the Nexperia debacle, but the EU will remain completely dependent on foreign advanced node semiconductors. Compare to TSMC's Arizona project, which will supply 30% of TSMC's 2nm and smaller process output. Already just one of the six planned TSMC fabs in Arizona is pumping out ~30k WSPMs at 5nm or smaller. And that doesn't even get into CoWoS packaging, which is essential for all the highest-performance and highest-margin parts. The fact is: In semiconductors, Europe is getting left in the dust. Sure they can fab some mature node chips for industrial uses--and that's not nothing--but Smartphone SoCs, "AI" accelerators, DRAM, even boring CPUs simply cannot be made any more in Europe, and to the limited extent that they can, they will be horrendously uncompetitive on the market and outclassed in every performance metric by Chinese and American chips. EU is on a big sovereignty kick right now, which makes sense given that their foreign dependencies keep blowing up in their faces. So it's strange that EU is so complacent about their foreign dependency on advanced node semiconductors.

▲

alex43578 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Has the Ukraine situation not shown that the EU has relegated itself to second fiddle?

It’s too old, too complacent, and too broke. Even compared to the US and our level of discord, there’s no unity across divisions.

The US absurdly threatens Greenland, but Denmark/EU’s response is “Sanction US tech or kick out US military bases on Europe”, rather than be able to rattle a saber back and show some credible backbone.

	▲	swiftcoder 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> rather than be able to rattle a saber back and show some credible backbone. They sent warships to Greenland. What level of saber rattling do you expect?

▲

NonHyloMorph 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

ASML...

▲

nebula8804 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Without San Diego based Cymer they can't move forward on their latest and greatest. As far as I know they still do R&D in San Diego even after purchase.

▲

FuriouslyAdrift 8 hours ago | parent [-]

xLight is coming up quickly... https://www.xlight.com/

▲

NonHyloMorph 5 hours ago | parent [-]

"Our system produces 4X more power that enables better lithographic patterning, which is necessary to manufacture chips with smaller and more efficient feature sizes. In addition to being more powerful, our FEL system has programmable light characteristics that improve current capabilities and enable next-generation lithography (e.g., shorter wavelengths) - uniquely enabling the extension of Moore’s Law for decades. Connecting existing ASML scanners to an xLight FEL significantly improves the tool’s capabilities, delivering next-version scanner performance without the cost and complexities."

Is it supposed to work independently of other technology at some point?

Then anyways: multilateral cooperation is at the heart of scientific progress anyways. It's fitting that ASML is in a country that is culturally strongly influenced by its history of seafaring and trade. Will see how the braindrain caused by people not wanting to live their lifes in a society taht doesn't share values like these will influence that whole technological armsrace thing.

Some people in Japan are coming up with a successor to EUV as far as I remember, what was their name again?

▲

FuriouslyAdrift 5 hours ago | parent [-]

There's Canon with nanoimprint [1] and Rapidus [2] may be working on something

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoimprint-lithography [2] https://www.rapidus.inc/en/

	▲	NonHyloMorph 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Thank you, Rapidus is what I was looking for!

▲

petcat 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

ASML is a critical component, but they don't actually build the chips. And a significant part of their technology is developed in California anyway.