SSMB [steady-state microbunching] technology requires infrastructure of this magnitude [Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility], transforming the concept of lithography from a machine installed in a factory to a factory that is, in itself, the machine.
Juan Embid Sánchez, 2026, The Black Swan of Semiconductors: Strategic Implications of China’s Technological Breakthrough in Extreme Lithography (Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos), p. 8.
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*Juan Embid Sánchez, 2026, The Black Swan of Semiconductors: Strategic Implications of China’s Technological Breakthrough in Extreme Lithography (Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos). “…the [US] sanctions were designed to prevent China from replicating the Western technique of firing lasers at tin droplets to generate light; however, Beijing has opted for a completely different physical route, using particle accelerator principles to generate that same radiation. This move, which invalidates the effectiveness of trade blockades by changing the rules of applied physics, is a textbook example of the innovation phenomenon known as leapfrogging…voices have begun to emerge that rationalise the event after the fact, arguing that massive Chinese state investment made this outcome inevitable, ignoring the fact that just a month ago those same analysts were calling China’s efforts ‘inefficient spending.'”
Jessica Park, Susan Stepney and Irene D’Amico, 2026, Benchmarking the ORCA PT-2 Boson Sampler using Minimum Dominating Set Problems (arXiv) [quantum]. “This study recommends a watching brief on boson sampling as the complexity of the interferometer is improved and the loss in the hardware is reduced allowing for better performance from the associated algorithms…The PT-1 is no longer in use, and therefore cannot be used for comparison…Therefore this study reports new simulated results as well as the results from the real device, to ensure a fair comparison…A photonic boson sampler, such as the ORCA PT-2, performs calculations using samples from a distribution of identical photons after they have passed through a linear interferometer….At small problem sizes, the ORCA PT-2 device running the gradient-free Binary Bosonic Solver (BBS) finds dominating sets of equivalent size to classical methods. Within the range explored, at larger problem sizes, higher n, the performance of the PT-2 (and simulator) degrades compared to the classical methods….The authors wish to acknowledge Defence Science Technical Laboratory (Dstl) who are funding this research.”
Changhun Oh, 2025, Recent theoretical and experimental progress on boson sampling, in: Current Optics and Photonics. “Over the past decade, boson-sampling experiments have evolved from small-scale proof-of-concept demonstrations involving a few photons to large-scale systems that claim quantum supremacy. These experimental achievements illustrate the practicality of quantum sampling tasks for proving quantum advantage, even prior to the advent of fault-tolerant universal quantum computers. However, significant challenges remain in scaling these systems further and addressing issues related to noise, photon loss, and detection inefficiency.”
Kim, et al., 2025, Is Techno-Nationalism in the Semiconductor Industry Viable? in: East Asian Science, Technology and Society
Gargini, 2025, How lithography lost the leadership position in semiconductor technology, International Conference on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography
*Paolo Gargini, 2023, Semiconductor Crises and Roadmaps Rescues (IRDS)
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D. D. L. Chung, 2020, Thermal interface materials, in: Journal of Electronic Materials
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Khan, 2017, Scaling Moore’s Wall: Existing Institutions and the End of a Technology Paradigm, Carnegie Mellon University
Chu, 2013, The East Asian Computer Chip War
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*Hiroo Kinoshita and Obert Wood, 2009, EUV Lithography: An Historical Perspective, in: EUV
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Vapnik, 1999, Introduction: four periods in the research of the learning problem, in: The Nature of Statistical Learning Theory, 2nd edition
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