The article also proposes several steps that the US government and its allies could take to halt the progress of China's semiconductor industry, including limiting ArFi immersion lithography tools, servicing of existing equipment, ArFi photoresist, masks, mask blanks, writers, and other associated infrastructure, metrology equipment, CMP equipment, epitaxy equipment, dry etch equipment, CVD and ALD equipment, advanced packaging equipment, ion implantation equipment, semiconductor manufacturing equipment subsystems and subassemblies, etchant gas, deposition precursors, chips that have >25.6Tbps of IO even if they have no compute, chips that have >1000TOPS of performance, the licensing of 200G SerDes, EDA tools, joint ventures, and inbound investments.
Key takeaways:
- The US's export controls aimed at limiting China's ability to manufacture high-end chips are failing, as evidenced by the release of Huawei’s new flagship chip and the continued importation of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
- China's domestic semiconductor manufacturing and AI capabilities are advancing rapidly, with Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip demonstrating significant competitiveness with foreign chips.
- Current restrictions on AI are not limiting China's AI capabilities, with the country expected to have multiple firms capable of training better than GPT-4 next year.
- The US government and its allies could stop the Chinese semiconductor industry by limiting various equipment, tools, and technologies, but half measures will not work and a full-scale assault would be required.