China begins mass production of homegrown DUV lithography machines in major chip breakthrough

“The country has moved beyond building prototypes and into manufacturing commercial lithography systems that domestic chipmakers can begin evaluating inside real production lines.”

Call it mass production if you want. Five units this year and about twenty next year is a rounding error next to ASML, and critical components still come from Japan. What matters is that the tools now ship to SMIC, Hua Hong and CXMT for real production evaluation. Export controls were supposed to keep this from existing. They funded it instead.