BEIJING : This Dec. 21 story has been corrected to clarify that the ban was on the export of technology to make rare earth magnets and that the ban on technology to extract and separate critical materials was already in place, in paragraphs 1 and 6. It also removes context and the comment on rare earth processi
People were really underestimating how quickly China could make chip progress, too
Whatever people’s estimations, we’ve yet to see this progress that you are talking about. It’s an interesting race for sure.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-poised-to-break-5nm-barrier-huawei-lists-5nm-processor-presumably-built-with-smic-tech-defying-us-sanctions
SMIC makes 5nm chips with DUV tech when Intel can’t break 5nm with EUV and billions in subsidies.
What it implies to stretch the DUV process into ever thinner lithography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4E-0VFaEA
Some background on how it was made: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/how-huawei-made-a-cutting-edge-chip-in-china-and-surprised-the-us/
tl;dr/dw: China managed to produce small batches of semiconductors using stockpiled american and japanese equipment before sanctions kicked-in