和(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ @Asakawatoru - Twitter Profile

about 2 months ago

So... here's my take on US / China tensions: You have European monopolies like: - $ASML (EUV) - $SOI (Photonics-SOI) - Zeiss SMT (ASML EUV supplier), Trumpf (ASML EUV laser supplier) Japan has many near/complete monoplies like: - TOK, JSR, ShinEstu, Fujifilm for EUV photoresist - 90-100% share - coat/develop equiment with Tokyo Electron -90%+ - actinic EUV patterned mask inspection (Lasertec) -100% share - EUV mask blanks (HOYA, AGC) ~93% share - arf photoresist - Nittobo T-Glass - ABF film (Ajinomoto) - lot of misc from specialty glassAGC, wafer thinning/grinding/dicing with Disco and others. Then there's US allied countries like Taiwan eg. $TSM, Korean memory with $SKHY / Samsung. US has EDA with Synopsys/Cadence, $LCRX / $KLA, $NVDA, and many downstream giants. China has many chokepoints such as gallium, graphite, refined lithium, and others + benefits from cost mass production over many future supply chains (eg. robotics). If I had to give my opinion on US / China supply chain wars: - US is trying to achieve Western independence from China/Russia rare earths + materials supply, but took too long (should have been a priority last decade). - China is trying to eliminate strategic chokepoint dependence and forcing US reliance on Chinese supply chains (as seen with Wf6) It's a race on who achieves supply chain independence first to gain leverage over the other. And fun thing is, AI acceleration kinda throws an unknown variable in terms of speeding up independence. As well as open source efforts (eg. RISC-V), which China is heavily focusing on. So it's a weird paradox where US should theoretically support open source hardware development + open source AI, but it's also being exploited against them. From a Chinese perspective, they're pressuring US supply chains by targeting Japan, which increases Western supply chain reliance on China. And going down the list to eliminate competitor chokepoints internally by throwing subsidized spend into R&D. Or by acqusition as seen with China's acquisition of EU leaders like Ficontec. America... they had all the cards initially, but I think they got too comfortable, and took too long to focus heavily on rare earths (recent funding is a good thing). The earlier tariffs went the wrong way (socks, furniture, other exports), and pissed off allies in EU/Canada too. Which could have been used for leverage for major chokepoints. But maybe they'll realize soon enough why allies are important. Anyway, we'll see what happens, just my two cents about ongoing dynamics. In an ideal world, everyone works together... TLDR: Just some shower thoughts on how there's an unspoken race on who achieves supply chain independence first to gain leverage over the other.

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和(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

@Asakawatoru

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