TMSC and its Dutch chip machine supplier ASML have made joint plans to remotely disable the machines in the event of an invasion of Taiwan by China.
Diederik Baazil, Cagan Koc, and Jordan Robertson for Bloomberg News:
Officials from the US government have privately expressed concerns to both their Dutch and Taiwanese counterparts about what happens if Chinese aggression escalates into an attack on the island responsible for producing the vast majority of the world’s advanced semiconductors, two of the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
ASML reassured officials about its ability to remotely disable the machines when the Dutch government met with the company on the threat, two others said. The Netherlands has run simulations on a possible invasion in order to better assess the risks, they added.
The remote shut-off applies to Netherlands-based ASML’s line of extreme ultraviolet machines, known within the industry as EUVs, for which TSMC is its single biggest client. EUVs harness high-frequency light waves to print the smallest microchip transistors in existence — creating chips that have artificial-intelligence uses as well as more sensitive military applications.
China has long claimed that the island of Taiwan is its territory, with President Xi Jinping both advocating for unification and refusing to rule out a military intervention. The superpower has been building its military and nuclear arsenal on a scale not seen since World War II and a top US admiral testified in March that it’s readying to be able to invade Taiwan by 2027.
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MacDailyNews Note: Around 90% of the world’s most advanced chips are currently made in Taiwan.
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It would be a global chip disaster! Remember the Wuhan Virus chip shortage? Chips for some higher-end household appliances were unavailable. Certain functions/ options on cars were unavailable (see dealership for more information and availability). Etc. Multiply this by any magnitude of crazy. That is what the world would look like with China taking control of the top global chip supply (TSMC). No more A series for phones. No more M chips for Macs and iPads. Think severe shortage of the high end chips that run behind the scenes in our every day life; infrastructure, banking computers, avionics, military applications, internet, servers, utilities, communications. The list goes on. Thank God Joe will keep Xi under control!
Thank goodness Joe was VP during Covid (Wuhan chip shortage virus) and he went to Detroit to fix things…b/c Barack asked. Leading us through the storms as he lives in his own, he is….
This is so funny. Let’s have a back door into our systems to control them? I bet there is already a back door for their back door. If you build it, they will come… and they will not have control.
This is kind of like the Afghanistan withdrawal, and there is no recession, and the interest rates will fall, and there is no inflation, and I am saving democracy by putting my opponent in jail?