After the passage of the US chip bill, Biden was regarded by the Western media as the star of American technology hope, and Xi Jinping, who also cares about the localization of chips independently developed and manufactured, was described as a leader who “runs into walls everywhere”.
Xi Jinping and Biden also attach great importance to the independent development of the chip industry. AP Profile Picture
The latest article in The New York Times said: “A series of corruption investigations into celebrities in China’s semiconductor industry last month suggested that Xi Jinping may not have gotten what he expected, or at least not fast enough.” “In the first 10 months of 2020, there were more than 58,000 (mainland) companies registered as chip-related. Some companies used to be in fashion, construction and other industries, and the registration information was changed just for easy access to capital and cheap land. At least there are Six semiconductor projects with an investment of US$1 billion have gone bankrupt.” In short, the “China Chip” movement has seen some chaos and corruption. In the early years, the state vigorously supported the electric vehicle industry and encountered the same problems, but it did not hinder domestic electric vehicles. Go number one in the world.
Counterpoint Research recently released the global electric vehicle sales report for the second quarter of 2022. Global electric vehicle sales increased by 61% year-on-year to 2.18 million units. “China is still the market leader in electric vehicle sales, followed by Europe and the United States. Electric vehicle sales in China increased by nearly 92% year-on-year in the second quarter, from 640,000 in the same period last year to 1.24 million.” BYD surpassed it for the first time Tesla becomes the best-selling electric car brand.
Don’t be surprised to see the above figures. Western media ignore China’s ability to correct errors. China often quickly jumps over the difficulties and turns to the straight road of normal development. Of course, chips are far more complex than electric vehicle technology, and the authors of The New York Times point out: “The semiconductor industry chain is extremely long, and most of the progress China has made is at the low end of it, with the gap in more advanced market segments. It’s still huge, and it could take years or even decades to shrink.”
Quora, a technology online forum, recently published a comment from a semiconductor engineer who lived and worked in China and the Netherlands “”The United States pressured the Netherlands to prevent the Dutch company ASML from selling EUV equipment to SMIC, which ultimately affects China’s technology dream” . How long can the United States suppress the development of Chinese chips? 〉He pointed out that the lithography machine that produces chips is a technical difficulty faced by China: “The EUV lithography machine of ASML. It takes 41 semi-trucks to transport, a total of 150 million US dollars, and contains 100,000 main components. The mirror needs Months of grinding to achieve the required smoothness requires multiple people with Ph.D.s as machine operators. Very high-tech. No?”
Jumping off the twists and turns of technology, in fact “all these tools are designed and manufactured by humans, and the laws of physics are the same in the Netherlands and China. If the Netherlands can, then there is no reason for other countries to fail the right way. .” Thinking about the problem in this way is in line with the “first principles” advocated by the American technology tycoon Musk.
When Musk developed Tesla electric cars, the expert opinion was that electric cars could not be popularized, “because the battery cost of electric cars can hardly be reduced.” Musk disagreed. He disassembled the substances composed of the battery pack itself and re-understood the battery. What are the “basic facts” of manufacturing, and use this to deduce the links that can be optimized to establish a new supply chain and automated production design.
China is not about to invent semiconductors, which is a plus. The engineer commented: “It is much easier to catch up than to innovate. Knowing that something is possible and having a general understanding of how it works makes things much easier.” The conclusion: “Prevent China from Selling tech equipment will hurt Chinese companies for a while, but it’s trivial in the long run. If the U.S. wants to maintain its dominance in tech, it needs to run faster, not keep trying to stop China. “
Don’t be tempted by the argument that “China is not suitable for making chips”, who is going to hit the wall? It’s those tech tycoons who don’t want to make progress. Who do you say?