[Edd1CC]

Who are their real competitors? They’ve been buying parts of the supply chain recently - they seem to have a real moat unless regulation gets involved

(Serious question: I am just getting into the semiconductor world and haven’t found any competitors yet)

[gravescale]

At the top nodes and volumes, indeed there is no competition. They have a huge headstart handed to them basically by Japan screwing it up in the 90s and no one else being able to step (get it?) up quickly before the gap opened.

However, if they can't keep moving, competition that was trailing behind on larger nodes could get close enough that they become competitors for the high end. At first it would be slightly bigger nodes, but cheaper, which might be an acceptable tradeoff, as not everyone in the world is chasing performace over price. CPUs are so gruesomely overpowered these days that it may not really matter that much in many end applications.

Think AMD coming up behind Intel while Intel was thrashing around.

How long the AI hype continues may be important: if AI capabilities are needed in end-user equipment and that requires the real cutting edge processes, ASML/TSMC keep the advantage.

[throwaway4good]

There are none in the sense that all high volume production of high-end chips uses ASML. With the possible exception of what Huawei is doing.

[Edd1CC]

I’ve been buying shares in ASML and below, such as TSCM and Applied Materials, but it’s a brittle plan if anything revolutionary pops up!

[throwaway4good]

ASML is going to remain a monopoly and whatever Chinese alternative that there may be is going to stay in China for the foreseeable future.

However because the Chinese electronics industry is so big and they rely so much on imports, when they are building alternatives to the US-controlled semiconductor supply chain (ASML, Applied Materials, TSMC etc.), it will matter at one point for ASML even if the Chinese tools and final products are never exported.

[gravescale]

> rely so much on imports

Seriously, try to design anything non-trivial without a TI part anywhere. Even in China, foreign brands are everywhere in electronics, and much of it is imported.

There's a lot of scope left for China to penetrate the "low end" semiconductor (and other electronic parts) market as well.

[schmidtleonard]

5 years ago? Yes. Today? I dunno, the LCSC catalogues have been moving fast.

[phkahler]

>> ASML is going to remain a monopoly and whatever Chinese alternative that there may be is going to stay in China.

Suppose China develops a cheaper way to produce the EUV light and sells the tools for half what ASML does. They might sell to others just to become the leader.

[jpgvm]

Or they skip EUV all together and go straight to xray.

IMO that is the real threat to both ASML and the current Western supply chain. By forcing China out you make it very likely they will choose to leap-frog instead of try play catch-up. They did it with EVs there is a very good chance they do it with semiconductors also.

[impossiblefork]

Surely it would damage the resist?

[seanmcdirmid]

Or they might want to keep it under lock and key for a competitive and national security advantage.

[Dalewyn]

There are two schools of philosophy to consider here:

* You keep your secret sauce secret and take over the world with subsequent products.

* You sell your secret sauce to everyone and take over the world becoming the sole source of secret sauce.

So far, China has had resounding success with the latter.

[mschuster91]

They might want to sell... but who might (want to) buy, outside of Russia and maybe India? The Western world is already decoupling from China and I think it's completely infeasible that anyone wants to create new ties to China.

[gravescale]

Anyone is a stretch, not everyone is so keen to take the US side in the trade war at their own expense. South American and African trade is still pretty brisk and growing as far as I know. Mostly they don't have the possibility of onshoring industries that they didn't have in the first place, as opposed to the West where it's more like attempting to re-shore previously-discarded capability. So they don't really have a horse in the race, they're going to be importing anyway.

"Anyone planning a major semiconductor fab in the 2020s", then quite probably, yes.

[Dalewyn]

Everyone wants to do business with China, because China has money (which we gave them) and everyone wants that money (which will ultimately go back to them with change and interest).

Lest we forget, Japan and South Korea are mulling a free trade agreement[1] with China.

Anyone following US-led sanctions against China are doing so dragging their feet and groaning in annoyance.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Japan%E2%80%93So...

[throwaway4good]

Yeah. It will be interesting the day that Intel starts buying SSMB EUVL from Huawei. :-D

[Iulioh]

Go to watch as many Asionometry videos as you can :)

[lencastre]

Nikon

[cpldcpu]

that was 20 years ago

[Tade0]

Canon has an interesting proposition:

https://global.canon/en/technology/nil-2023.html

Much larger feature size, but promises lower costs.