and has already achieved what only ASML had, according to Reuters

Let’s continue with historical analogies. Ptolemy Vking of Egypt from 204 to 181 BC. C. —not to be confused with the astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy—, he was very delighted with the great Library of Alexandria. The legendary site brought together human knowledge of the time in hundreds of thousands of papyrus rolls. However, the king was restless: the Pergamon Library (in modern-day Türkiye) did not stop growing. They wanted to get on his back, so he took drastic measures.

He prohibited the export of papyrus.

The story sounds familiar to you, right? As if he were a modern Trump who wanted to stop innovation by vetoing the export of new technologies, Ptolemy V promised them very happily. “Let’s see how they manage now in Pergamon,” he surely thought. And then Pergamum did what China has also ended up doing: he looked for the chestnuts.

Given the scarcity of papyrus, in Pergamon they were forced to perfect a technique that already existed in a rudimentary form: using animal skins to treat, stretch and polish them with the aim of writing on them. They called that new support charta pergamena (Pergamon paper), but its popular name is another much better known one:

Parchment.

The story, told in the fabulous essay ‘Infinity in a reed‘, by Irene Vallejo, is more than 2,000 years old, but as we see it is a faithful reflection of what is happening now in the United States trade war with China. Specifically, with photolithographic technology, which the US has tried by all means to prevent from reaching China.

So China is inventing its own scroll. Been at it for quite some timebut until now it seemed to be totally stuck. At most, rumors tell us, he had managed to create a photolithographic machine with deep ultraviolet (UVP) technology, less advanced than UVE. And not even for those.

China’s Manhattan Project

The Dutch company ASML has managed to maintain the exclusive of this technology so far. If you wanted to make advanced chips, you needed to buy one of their very complex machines. China had a difficult time facing the US veto, but as has happened in other areas, the Asian giant has not stood by and has tried to find alternatives.

And in this case, it seems to have a profile. This is what they indicate in Reuterswhere they indicate that a group of former ASML engineers have managed to decipher the secrets of the company’s EUV machines through reverse engineering.

The prototype created by these engineers is already capable of generating light in the extreme ultraviolet range, but has not yet produced functional chipssay the sources cited in said medium. It is expected, however, that this machine will be used to build advanced chips starting in 2028, although some analysts are more conservative and believe that chips will not be manufactured in it until 2030.

According to this report, to build said prototype, use was made of parts that were available from ASML machines in alternative markets. Sources consulted by Reuters described this development as the Chinese version of “the Manhattan Project” which led the United States to build the atomic bomb in World War II.

The achievement challenges claims made by ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet in April. He then assured that China would need “many, many years” to develop such technology. However, the discovery of this prototype suggests that this period will be significantly reduced.

There are of course important obstacles to overcome. One of them is access to high-precision optical systems, and here is another Western company with control of these elements: Zeiss.

This project is so crucial to China’s interests that it is being carried out with great secrecy. A Chinese engineer with many years of experience at ASML was signed with a generous bonus, and when he started working He did it with an identification card with a false name. He soon realized that the team members, other former ASML engineers of Chinese nationality, also had fake names.

At least two current ASML employees in the Netherlands with Chinese nationality have been contacted by Huawei recruiters since 2020. European laws limit ASML’s ability to know where its former employees have gone to work, but the company has already had disagreements over this issue.

In fact, in 2019 they won a case in which a Chinese engineer was sentenced to pay 845 million dollars for stealing trade secrets. The defendant declared bankruptcy but continues operating in Beijing with the support of the Chinese government, according to court documents cited in Reuters.

It is now appropriate to return to the lesson taught by the history of Ptolemy V. This king’s boycott had an effect opposite to what he desired. It did not stop Pergamum, it created a superior material – parchment was much more resistant – and it saved literature: many classic works managed to reach us thanks to having been written on parchment and not on papyrus, which would have fallen apart.

Now, of course, it remains to be seen if China is indeed the Pergamon of this story. He has the strengths to achieve it, of course.

In Xataka | Global tension cannot withstand ASML. He is going to build a huge campus equivalent to 50 football fields