China can make near-5nm-class chips without the EUV machines it is barred from buying, but every step of the workaround adds cost.
EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography uses 13.5nm light to print the finest chip features. ASML, the Dutch maker, is the only supplier, and its EUV sales are export-restricted. Chinese manufacturers have leaned on older DUV (deep ultraviolet) tools and a technique called multiple patterning, which splits one intricate layer into several simpler exposures. In 2023, teardowns found SMIC had made the Kirin 9000S in Huawei's Mate 60 Pro on a 7nm-class process without EUV. Analysis of the newer Kirin 9030 found SMIC closer to 5nm-class density, though still behind TSMC and Samsung.
Chris Mack, co-founder and CTO of chip-metrology firm Fractilia, said three DUV exposures cost about the same as one EUV exposure. At four masks, EUV becomes cheaper. More exposures also mean more chances for misalignment, so designers leave extra space around features. That makes dies (the individual chips cut from a wafer) bigger, so fewer fit on wafers that cost tens of thousands of dollars each.
Memory shows what that looks like. In a June report, Morgan Stanley estimated that CXMT, a Chinese DRAM (computer memory) maker, gets only about one-third as many bits per wafer as Western rivals. The older process node explains only about a third of that gap, the analysts said, which implies the rest comes from elsewhere. They still called lithography access a "hard ceiling".
Micron shows the ceiling can be high. Its 1-alpha DRAM was built without EUV and competed with chips Samsung and Hynix made using EUV layers. But Micron's newer 1-gamma generation uses EUV, which the company said raises bit density per wafer by more than 30% over its 1-beta generation. Mack also noted that memory is far easier than logic, and he doubted 3nm or 2nm production is economical without EUV.
China's answer is volume. Morgan Stanley assumes CXMT stays on 1-alpha yet lifts its share of global DRAM bit supply from 14% in 2026 to 16% in 2028 by building new fabs. That is a two-point gain bought with capital, not efficiency.