BEIJING :China, the world's top processor of rare earths, banned the export of technology to extract and separate the critical materials on Thursday, the country's latest step to protect its dominance over several strategic metals.Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into
People were really underestimating how quickly China could make chip progress, too
Whatever people’s estimations, we’ve yet to see this progress that you are talking about. It’s an interesting race for sure.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-poised-to-break-5nm-barrier-huawei-lists-5nm-processor-presumably-built-with-smic-tech-defying-us-sanctions
SMIC makes 5nm chips with DUV tech when Intel can’t break 5nm with EUV and billions in subsidies.
What it implies to stretch the DUV process into ever thinner lithography: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4E-0VFaEA
Some background on how it was made: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/how-huawei-made-a-cutting-edge-chip-in-china-and-surprised-the-us/
tl;dr/dw: China managed to produce small batches of semiconductors using stockpiled american and japanese equipment before sanctions kicked-in