• FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    A lot of companies make lithography machines, ASML just makes the best ones.

    As of 2023, China has domestic companies who have made 28nm process nodes: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chinas-first-28nm-capable-scanner-to-be-delivered-by-end-of-2023

    This was top of the line around 2010. So in consumer tech terms: Apple’s A7 SoC (iPhone 5S, iPad Air), Intel Sandy Bridge/AMD Bristol Ridge and DDR3 RAM .

    They have better machines in production, they just cannot manufacturer them domestically. Using those machines they’re producing:

    • 14nm (2014-2019 era, Intel Broadwell-Coffee Lake, Ryzen 1000/2000, DDR4), Mass produced by SMIC
    • 7nm (2018-2021, Apple A12/A13, AMD Ryzen 3000/5000, faster DDR4), Limited production at SMIC
    • 5nm (2020-2023 iPhone 12-15, AMD Zen4, DDR5-4800), currently in development/low yields ~20%

    They do not have any EUV (sub-5nm) capacity domestically.

    China isn’t that far behind current generation chips and most people are probably using devices with 14/7nm chips in them due to the AI bubble eating up all of the newest process chips and driving prices out of reach of consumers.