I mean, it would bring global tech to a standstill. It would be a significant problem. Once existing stuff broke, there would be no replacement. I know very little about chip manufacture, except that the lithography machines are fantastically complex and costly. It would probably take years to spin up new production.
This seems like a pretty solid mutually assured destruction deterrent and doesn’t even involve nukes.
You have clearly and concisely explained the exact reason the US wouldn’t and couldn’t allow China to invade Taiwan (well, wouldn’t under a rational administration).
From what I can find, it looks like ASML has a software brick they can just drop into the update stream. As cool as physical disabling would be, a remote software trigger is simpler and leaves the machines in tact to spin back up after aggression ends
Would be brilliant
I mean, it would bring global tech to a standstill. It would be a significant problem. Once existing stuff broke, there would be no replacement. I know very little about chip manufacture, except that the lithography machines are fantastically complex and costly. It would probably take years to spin up new production.
This seems like a pretty solid mutually assured destruction deterrent and doesn’t even involve nukes.
You have clearly and concisely explained the exact reason the US wouldn’t and couldn’t allow China to invade Taiwan (well, wouldn’t under a rational administration).
From what I can find, it looks like ASML has a software brick they can just drop into the update stream. As cool as physical disabling would be, a remote software trigger is simpler and leaves the machines in tact to spin back up after aggression ends