Yes, the precision equipment has been withheld from China. Steppers, sputterers, etchers, etc. Then there is the sort, packaging, testing, etc back end. Dialing in fab parameters with ET testing. Characterization/qualification of fab processes and die products. Water deionization, chemical purity, lots of items unavailable in China. I seriously doubt China can improve on Western quality, they have been unable to meet western quality in any other industry to date. Their strength is cheap labor. If China needs TSMC to get a foothold in the bleeding edge race. USA has very few fabs that have attained TSMC level quality. It is faster and cheaper to go fabless and send their designs to TSMC to manufacture the chips.
I'm old enough to remember how Japan was underestimated, then South Korea, and then China. China delivers exactly the specified quality, this is not a matter of luck like with Indian suppliers.
They not only copy but optimize things. That's why Haier could buy the appliance division from GE, they have the fresh ideas. That's why they have hypersonic missiles: they not only stole the fluid dynamic computations from the US but built the shockwave tunnels to adjust the computer models to reality. They never stop with just doing the same the West can do.
Has anyone seen the hypersonic missiles in action? I heard video from their space station had an open cup holding water (I didn't see it myself). I think there is a lot of deception coming out of China. I don't know exactly what is real vs illusion.
There are videos of hypersonic missiles in the Ukraine. The hot plasma glows in front of the missile and a ground-to-air missile sent to catch the thing is slow like an airsnail in comparison.
I've read about the Chinese shockwave wind tunnels 20 years ago. They do a lot of basic research instead of relying on computer simulations like the West does. The Russians have the materials that can withstand the heat of the plasma caused by the compressed air. I'm sure that there was some technology transfer because for hypersonic missiles you need both the fluid dynamics and the material.
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