I think it depends on just how much of the IP and institutional knowledge that we can extract from the place.  If we were able to get plans and the people with the knowledge then I do believe we could have something up and running sooner.  It might well be a few generations back, but it wouldn’t be stone aged.

The company I’m at has some backend software we need to deploy soon and I was relieved when the powers that be wanted to avoid cloud. On-prem will still be gtg after the party starts, but I have my doubts about cloud.  I’ve been trying to get my hands on inexpensive spares for hardware when the opportunity arises.

We could do far better if we didn’t have all the problems we’re having - many of which are self imposed but I’m looking at how things are rather than I wished them to be

Actually he is a spring chicken at 70.  I think his parents lived until their 90s.  Mother still alive..

Been there.  Impressive amount of work going on.

I figure China already has spies working inside who can thwart any move to disable or destroy the equipment.

What makes you think the control is in country?

Sometimes I think one of the reasons the US stayed in Afghanistan for twenty years was to prevent a pipeline being built through there to connect Iran and China.  Yes, the US is not toothless, the war would be horrible, I don't think the CCP would survive, but if we dodged a nuclear exchange whatever polity emerged in China would have a good industrial stance to build up from, and it will still be just antagonistic to us as the CCP is or the ROC would have been if it had won their Civil War.

China definitely wishes it could get there

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/27/tech/china-semiconductor-investment-fund-intl-hnk

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There is more to Taiwan than computer chips or China's goal of reunification, and it is a similar issue to what is driving the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not the sole reason, but a strong contributing factor: maintaining access to the sea for trade.

Look at a map of Asia, and notice that China has various other nations on all the islands that surround their coast. Taiwan is key because if China possessed it, it would give them a buffer of access, it is right in the center of sea access bounded by Japan to the north, and the Philippines to the south. China is a nation dependent on sea trade, both in and out of the country.

Similarly, Russia is even more heavily constrained. Though it is the largest country on earth, it has surprisingly few seaports in the west. And these very few ports are within waters with multiple potentially contested seas between them and the open ocean. It is a potential choke point to their economy that the US cannot relate to. We have thousands of miles of uncontested coastline. When the Key Bridge was destroyed, we considered it a national imperative to restore it, but realistically, the nation has literally dozens of other port cities. Russia has a mere handful of port cities, so they are going to react very differently to even a perceived loss of access.

I'm not saying that both Russia and China could not still be secure by simply being peaceful and more cooperative with their neighbors, or that I agree with their actions. Both are also authoritarian states, and most authoritarian states do not want to rely on trust and cooperation, they have to have control.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/05/29/asia/chinese-ships-japan-senkaku-islands-intl-hnk-ml

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Current Pacific theater commander - PACOM

Japanese newspaper

https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/China-s-drills-appear-to-be-rehearsal-for-Taiwan-invasion-U.S.-admiral

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EUV’s are extremely sensitive.  You don’t need fancy software to brick them, and you don’t need to blow them up.  They require a clean room to operate in.  Very little damage to them or their buildings would make them inoperable.

Read a article a few years back that all the machine operators would have to do is,walk away and disappear.
Supposedly they are pretty complex and running them preety much takes a expert trained in each proprietary machine.

So just evact the operators state side and the machines would lay dormant or ruined if not run correctly.
Was something they were gaming out about a invasion.
If the operators were held at gunpoint everything could run as normal but removing the operators was the equivelant of grenading each machine.

Seems these chip making machines only exist there well most of them from what the article said.

Correctly placed thermite grenades.

You don't need grenades or to sabotage the tools. You don't need a single thing. Those tools require maintenance all the time. Precision parts that China will immediately be sanctioned from being able to get. Two weeks, maybe a month, and those tools start dropping like flies. An EUV scanner is an entirely different beast than everything else before it.

I’m still ok with us expending the munitions so as to guarantee there is zero chance of reverse engineering anything from the equipment.

It would have been better to leave Taiwan with Japan after the World War.

@jimmybcool


https://www.foxnews.com/politics/how-chinese-attack-taiwan-could-lead-direct-war-us-beijing.amp


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It takes almost a decade to setup fab up and running for the latest chips.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/02/taiwan-separatists-will-be-crushed-to-pieces-warns-china/
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https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/chinas-defense-minister-hammers-away-on-taiwan-says-peaceful-unification-chances-eroded/?amp=1


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https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jun/26/former-navy-captain-tells-congress-of-decades-long/

Remote shutdown only works if the tools are plugged into the network.

Guaranteed the CCP already has individuals working in those companies and fabs, so the moment the CCP decides to invade, all of those network cables will be unplugged or cut.  

US companies have been hiring Chinese nationals straight out of our universities here for some time, so take some time to think about that

It's embarrassing that we're in this position. US and it's western allies has had (and continues to have) the worst leadership in the history of human civilization. This problem didn't sneak up on us.

Correct, and since the mods don’t jump on this obvious baiting, I just added a new one to my ignore list labeled as “agitator”. My only question is, is this guy getting paid or has AI gotten good enough to mimic these sorts of argument and we’re all arguing, blocking, and sometimes banning artificial entities?

Huge if China does invade.  The first step will be cyber attack and I bet they already have a plan to block the kill codes as the very first step...if not a hour or so before they start the war.

China has entire divisions in their Army that is their only mission to to hack and cyber attack.  In fact there is a 10 year old report talking about the Chinese site that house them in Shanghai.  The funny thing is I walked right past it while in Shanghai and did not know it was that site at that time.  I did point out to my co-worker the very thick electric fences that could kill a elephant....I talking easy 1/2 inch thick electric wire.    

There needs to be a local kill switch both software and mechanical.

Honestly, and this is just from reading Twitter these days, I think some of it might be bots amplifying a given set of talking points.  Whether hooked to a LLM or something much simpler.  Too many posts on that platform from ostensibly completely different people (pinky-swear), yet have pretty much the same syntax and vocabulary.  

No reason to think other social media would be immune.  

As noted, it's gonna get a whole lot worse should hostilities really start getting threatened.  The Ukraine invasion has been eye-opening for me with respect to a lot of posters here who I read more uncritically before the invasion.

Anyway, on the topic; yes, machinery to lay down the layers of materials that make up a modern integrated circuit, and metrology tools to determine if those layers are the right size and where you want them, are indeed very complicated pieces of machinery.  (Had a family member in that line of work a bunch of years ago.  Determining process windows and maintaining them was challenging, but lucrative.)  Chinese attempts to reverse engineer and domestically service those tools might be successful, but I think their attempts to build adequate domestic SOTA turbofans is probably a better comp for their likelihood of success.  I.e., not good.

That’s about right, when you consider the building of the actual fab, tool installations, quals, ‘recipe’ matching, pre-production ramp up….

There is a LOT to it. It ain’t like making pizza.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna159203

Taiwan government warning against travel to China after  Beijing recently announced death penalty for any Taiwanese not supporting reunification and China’s Taiwan talking points such as no contact with USA, no AR15s from USA for civilians not accepting Taiwan’s President as legitimate etc

https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3268465/chinas-envoy-france-labels-taiwanese-government-rebel-regime-be-expelled-any-time

https://thediplomat.com/2024/06/why-is-china-stockpiling-key-resources/

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/semiconductor-analyst-theorizes-that-china-wants-to-destroy-tsmc-instead-of-capturing-it-a-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan-would-also-roil-supply-chains-removing-south-korean-chipmakers-from-contention

I was under the impression that it was an open secret that the US would bomb those fabs before they could fall into Chinese hands.