How China’s award-winning EUV breakthrough sidesteps US chip ban

"New approaches in the development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV)
lithography are being pioneered by Chinese scientists, paving the way
for the mass production of advanced semiconductor chips as researchers
race to sidestep the strict sanctions put in place by the United States.
And one such project from the Harbin Institute of Technology was
recently awarded first prize at the Harbin Provincial Innovation
Achievement Transformation Competition for employees in universities and
research institutes on December 30.
The research team took a completely different technological approach
from Western methods to generate EUV laser light.
According to the institute’s website, the “discharge plasma extreme
ultraviolet lithography light source” project, led by Professor Zhao
Yongpeng from the school of aerospace engineering, “boasts high energy
conversion efficiency, low cost, compact size and relatively low
technical difficulty”.
“It can produce extreme ultraviolet light with a central wavelength of
13.5 nanometres, meeting the urgent demand for EUV light sources in the
photolithography market,” the official report said.
In the semiconductor industry, the most complex and
difficult-to-manufacture machine is the photolithography machine."
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3295209/how-chinas-award-winning-euv-breakthrough-sidesteps-us-chip-ban