Huawei builds up 2-year reserve of 'most important' US chips
The US is trying to block China's access to EUV lithography devices as well, which are required to fabricate chips at the 7nm scale and below. The lithography machines that Chinese companies (in particular, SMIC) want to buy are produced by a Dutch company, ASML. The US government recently pressured the Dutch government into blocking a sale of such machines by ASML to SMIC.[1]The US government has identified EUV lithography as a bottleneck in the semiconductor industry, and is trying to keep that bottleneck in place, as a pressure point that can be used against China in the future. The Brookings Institution has laid out the strategy.[2]Of course, that means that the Chinese government will now probably invest heavily in domestic lithography companies. The Brookings Institution thinks that the US can shut China out of high-end semiconductor production indefinitely. That seems like a pretty foolish conception to me.1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asml-holding-usa-china-in...2. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FP_2020...