[tooltalk]

>> 70% of the profits are generated by older processes, not sub-14nm, ...<<

Not sure which chip segment you are talking about. The legacy chip manufacturing in general operate at much lower margin and much of revenue and profit comes from the cutting edge nodes: for instance, 2/3 of TSMC revenue and profit come from sub-10nm; likewise for SMIC in China, their biggest money maker is 14nm, their most cutting edge nodes.

>> There is no mature ecosystem to copy, ...<<

In the EV battery market, the established competitors/leaders in the market were LG Chem and Panasonic. But as explained earlier, they were excluded from participating/competing in China EV market which would have given them opportunity to further improve their process/yield and accelerated commodification of their tech.

>> Chinese semiconductor companies wanted the best suppliers, so they chose international suppliers rather than domestic suppliers. <<

There is little/no such "domestic" supplier in China's chip manufacturing -- over 90% of chip manufacturing equipment/suppliers are in the US, or Japan, or the EU. Even Taiwan and South Korea import 90+% of their equipments from those named countries and have very small domestic supply-chain of their own. And let's not forget that China has very little chip manufacturing talents of their own -- it's not surprising that former TSMC engineers were behind SMIC's 14nm/7nm. SMEE's first 28nm lithos, which is apparently still not ready for mass-production after having made release announcement two years ago -- likewise heavily depends on Japanese parts/engineering expertise. You can't just shortcut to 50-60 years of accumulative knowledge in making precision equipments by copying.

[FooBarWidget]

Okay. Sub-10nm don't make much money, and China can't produce sub-10nm (or any node invented in the past 20 years) anyway without western help, and they won't catch up because all they're good at is copying. You guys have won. So why is the US still throwing more semiconductor sanctions at China, including sanctions designed at hindering China to manufacture at older process nodes, going as far as coercing allies? Don't these guys have better things to worry about now that they've won and China have lost, like domestic issues such as violence and income inequality?

[tooltalk]

>> Sub-10nm don't make much money <<

sigh the cutting edge nodes get the vast majority of chip making revenue/profit.

>> China can't produce sub-10nm (or any node invented in the past 20 years) anyway without western help <<

China's SMIC already has 7nm, though efficiency, cost-effectiveness and yield are still unknown. As late as 2022, the US dept of commerce granted over $100B worth of licenses to China! so they got all tooling and lithos they need to make 7nm, or even 5nm, though they would be very expensive and poor yield.

>> and they won't catch up because all they're good at is copying <<

China could catch up organically, just probably not this decade, or next. The Japanese equipment makers such as TEL and the Dutch DUV/EUV maker, ASML, can still sell their equipments to China no problem; just not the most cutting edge stuff.