The situation of the global chip crisis has not been effectively alleviated so far. But at the same time, this has also greatly promoted the enthusiasm of chip manufacturers.
In the past few years, major manufacturers have been competing for the resources needed for chip development. After entering 2022, the competition among manufacturers has intensified, and the national level behind it has also given strong support.
As one of the giants, Intel said that it will take out $20 billion to build a factory and expand production capacity; TSMC has not shown weakness, planning to spend $44 billion to increase production capacity.
In the United States, a chip subsidy program has been set, involving the field of chip design and chip manufacturing, with a total amount of up to $52 billion.
Not to be outdone by learning that the United States has made such a generous amount of support, the European Union hastily introduced a chip bill worth up to 43 billion euros. The money will be used by them to increase EU-wide chip production capacity to capture 20% of the global chip market share.
The most concerned is ASML. After all, looking at the whole earth, there is no longer a manufacturer that can develop such an advanced lithography machine as it.
When ASML saw the United States and the European Union, have launched chip support programs, ASML released the latest data on lithography machines, calling on the EU not to stare at the United States, but also to pay attention to the situation in other countries and regions.
According to the data provided by ASML, in the past three years, China, South Korea and other countries have increased the purchase of lithography machines; while the United States, the amount spent on the purchase of lithography machines, but continues to decrease, from 1.98 billion euros, fell to 1.58 billion euros.
Most intriguingly, ASML released these lithography machine data "coincidentally" after the U.S. introduced a $52 billion chip support program.
Presumably, ASML may have three deep meanings:
First, ASML is a reminder that the chip manufacturing industry in China, South Korea and other countries is developing rapidly.
In the data provided by ASML, the cost of buying lithography machines in China, South Korea and other countries is listed, and the cost of buying lithography machines in the United States is compared. The former continues to improve, while the latter continues to decline.
According to ASML data, the amount of money spent by China (including Taiwan Province) on the purchase of lithography machines has reached more than 8 billion euros; south Korea has also grown to more than 5 billion euros.
From this data, it can be directly seen that the chip industry in China, South Korea and other countries has a very rapid development momentum, so it is natural to buy more lithography machines.
In our country's SMIC alone, its investment in lithography machines is as high as 970 million euros at a time. Compared with the United States, half of the annual investment in the United States is not as high as that of a chip company on the mainland.
If you want to make chips, you have to rely on lithography machines. If the United States does not increase investment in lithography machines, then naturally it will not be able to increase the production capacity of chips.
What's more, the United States has always had huge ambitions to firmly grasp the global chip industry chain in its own hands. But if the lithography machine is lacking, their ambitions are delusional and can never be realized.
TSMC once said bluntly: "It is completely impossible for the United States to dominate the chip industry chain, and it is useless for them to invest 50 billion US dollars." ”
Second, ASML is trying to pour cold water on the United States.
The United States has always been keen on long-arm jurisdiction, unabashedly using hegemony, repeatedly revising the so-called "chip rules", requiring chip companies such as Samsung and TSMC to build more chip factories in an attempt to make chip production completed locally.
The ambition behind it is clear, that is, to include the global chip industry chain in its own hands, to listen to its own dispatch and release, and to maximize its own interests.
The United States has now come up with huge sums of money to subsidize chip companies, especially $39 billion, which is used to subsidize chip manufacturers.
ASML's move is to pour cold water on the United States: if you want to increase chip manufacturing capacity, you have to spend more money on buying lithography machines, rather than subsidizing chip manufacturing companies!
Third, ASML is hinting at where the market is headed.
According to the sales data provided by ASML, in the past 3 years, the sales contribution rate of the United States to ASML has been less than 1/3 of South Korea's, and far less than 1/5 of China's.
Therefore, as a company that sells lithography machines, ASML needs to bet on the future in China and other countries. After all, clear-eyed people can see that China, South Korea and other countries and regions are the best markets in the future.
In fact, ASML has made it clear that it will invest more in the Chinese market, expand the size of R&D centers, and build maintenance centers to provide better after-sales service.
ASML also hopes that the EU will pay more attention to countries such as China, because they are more dependent on European technology and products than the United States. In short, ASML hopes that the EU can help the free shipment of EUV lithography machines as soon as possible.
In fact, foreign companies such as Samsung have also built a large number of chip factories in China, and they also need more EUV lithography machines to improve the process and expand production capacity.
In this case, ASML chose to publish the relevant data of the lithography machine in this period, which is indeed quite interesting.