News Summary

• According to Bloomberg, Biden's administration reportedly reached out to ASML "weeks before" the January 1, 2024 export ban deadline, requesting the firm to halt some pre-scheduled shipments of its deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV) machines to its Chinese customers..
• "Shipments of a limited number of machines" were affected.While China had been able to source lithography machines from elsewhere, they tended to be off less advanced methods..
• NVIDIA may have figured out a way to go around the US export restrictions on China, but apparently ASML, the Dutch firm behind the key chipmaking equipment, isn't having much say on this end..
• It's no wonder the US was desperate to halt ASML's final DUV shipments to China, though doing so before the agreed deadline may be a questionable move..
• That said, China had since been pushed to beef up its own silicon ecosystem, to the point where it surprised the world with its homegrown 7nm mobile 5G chip..