🔬 A report says Chinese engineers tried to reverse engineer an ASML deep ultraviolet lithography tool, damaged it, then asked ASML to fix it.
Even if the story is unverified, if accurate, shows how export curbs are pushing risky workarounds and how hard these machines are to copy.
The chip restrictions on China have seriously affected its high-tech growth. As the competition for AI leadership grows between the two major powers, these advanced chip bans have made it harder for China to match the U.S. They’ve also pushed China to find creative ways to get those chips.
But ASML deep ultraviolet lithography, the machines used to produce advanced computer chips aren’t as simple to replicate as most other industrial equipment.
China has been cut off from EUV and from the most advanced DUV scanners since Jan-24, so fabs lean on older DUV gear and heavy multipatterning to hit tighter nodes.
DUV uses 193 nm argon fluoride lasers with a thin water film under the lens, while EUV uses 13.5 nm light from a laser-produced tin plasma and ultra-precise mirror optics, so small mis-calibration quickly cascades.
Inside a modern DUV immersion tool, dual wafer stages fly under the lens while optics hold overlay near 2.5 nm and throughput around 330 wafers per hour, so tearing one down without factory metrology risks wrecking alignments that normal field service cannot easily recover.
Policy pressure is real on both sides, with service and parts licensing around China tightening since 2024 and fresh rare-earth export rules from China adding supply friction.
China is trying to build its own lithography machines through companies like SMEE and AMIES, but making them as good as ASML’s will take a long time.
ASML’s machines depend on extremely precise optics, motion stages, and control software, which took Europe decades to perfect. China is trying to copy or recreate all that from scratch, which is very difficult.
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nationalinterest. org/blog/buzz/did-china-break-asml-lithography-machine-while-trying-to-reverse-engineer-bw-102025
Whats stopping China to create their own photolithography machines to create their own chips?
Simply because Its ultra HARD. China has some of the brightest minds in the world working on it, its just really hard.
Refer to the quoted thread, claims some Chinese engineers took apart an ASML DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography tool to study it, then could not re-assamble, and then asked ASML to fix it.
🔧 The 193nm immersion is unforgiving
An immersion DUV scanner runs 193nm light through a thin water layer and scans wafers on dual‑stage mechanics to keep overlay tight across 300mm wafers. That whole stack depends on factory procedures, internal references, and closed‑loop tuning of stages, optics, and sensors. ASML’s public product notes on immersion and TWINSCAN stages show how much precision is baked into the platform, including metrology frames that tie projection optics and sensors to a single reference point.
Pulling a tool apart risks particle hits on ZEISS projection optics, interferometer offsets, and loss of those references, and putting it back requires vendor procedures and software keys that sit behind service licensing.
The closest thing to an ASML rival are the Japanese companies Canon and Nikon, but they have pretty much conceded the cutting edge high end part of the field to ASML.
🏭 China’s plan B, stretch DUV and stand up domestic tools
SMIC, the Chinese foundry company is trialing a domestic immersion DUV from Yuliangsheng that targets 28nm and aims at 7nm via multi-patterning. Reporting pegs broader fab use around 2027, with performance closer to older ASML gear, so tuning and yield lift will take time.
China could catch up eventually. But EUV technology quite literally took billions of dollars of direct financial assistance from the US and Dutch government to complete. You can use Japan as an example. They were competing with the Dutch to make EUV in the 2000s. It ultimately failed as they couldn't commit sufficient consistent funding without the US. And Japan was the world leader in photolithography at the time.
EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet), as far as the actual wavelength of light goes, is pretty damn close to the physical limits of photolithography. We'll get incremental improvements but we're not likely to see anything like the shift from DUV to EUV again. But then again, who knows. When we first investigated EUV for photolithography in the 80's we didn't think it would be possible.
🚫 The export rules that drive this behavior
The Netherlands revoked licenses covering shipments of NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i to China from 1‑Jan‑2024.
In Sep‑2024, The Netherlands tightened things again so NXT:1970i and NXT:1980i shipments need Dutch licenses too, with NXT:2000i and newer already under Dutch control.
Even Servicing is also gated, since spare parts and software updates for certain China tools require a Dutch license