Chinese researchers map a route to 3-nanometre chips using older lithography machines

Chinese researchers have set out a path to manufacturing 3-nanometre chips using older lithography equipment, according to work summarised by the South China Morning Post. The relevance is the constraint being worked around. American and Dutch export controls deny China the most advanced lithography tools, and a process that reaches leading-edge geometries with the machines already installed would reduce the effect of those controls without removing them.

Chinese scientists separately built and operated a perovskite photovoltaic system at a depth of 10 metres in the open sea, which they describe as the first practical submarine solar installation. The application is power for underwater operations, a field with both commercial and military uses.

In storage, the Financial Times reports that Western companies trail Chinese manufacturers in sodium-ion cells, a chemistry built on abundant inputs that could reduce the dependence of electric vehicles and grid storage on scarce materials.

The three items describe one strategy. Restrictions on inputs raise the return on substitution, and a state directing capital towards substitution accepts lower efficiency now in exchange for independence later. None of the three results is a finished product, and laboratory demonstrations often fail to scale. What they show is where Chinese research money is going and which Western chokepoints it is aimed at.