China’s EUV “breakthrough”? Move along people, nothing to see here

In breathless tones, Reuters claims China has achieved what Washington desperately sought to prevent: a homegrown extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine. The report draws parallels with the Manhattan Project and frames the prototype as a geopolitical earthquake. What it doesn’t offer, however, is much actual substance.

The moniker “prototype” EUV scanner is rather generous for a factory-sized machine that “successfully generated EUV light.” Hundreds of labs around the world can do that if they put their minds to it. Surpassing a certain power output would be a minor milestone, although without proper EUV optics and photomasks, the light would still be useless. The Reuters report offers no details on those aspects. Neither does it mention other crucial components for any litho scanner, such as wafer stages, process control and metrology.