ASML, as the "brother" of the global lithography machine, even once made a bold statement: even if you give Chinese drawings, you can't make a high-end lithography machine.
The reason why ASML can become the hegemon of lithography machines is because it can create advanced lithography machines. THE DUV lithography machine produced by ASML can produce chips that manufacture the 28nm process, and the EUV lithography machine can produce chips below 7nm.
But this is all based on "Moore's Law", which is what we often call "silicon chips".
However, with the continuous updating and iteration of the chip process, it is now close to the ceiling of Moore's Law, that is to say, no matter how the chip process technology is updated, the performance improvement effect is not large, but the cost is higher. So many countries and research institutes have begun to bypass Moore's Law for research and development.
The ASML side of the old united states has become the fuse for other countries to begin to "abandon" ASML.
Why can ASML become a lithography giant?
First of all, we must know, why do ASML executives dare to make bold statements, saying that we can't build a lithography machine for drawings? Because what we lack is not theoretical knowledge, but the supply chain behind it.
The reason why ASML can become the hegemon of lithography machines is not because of how top-notch its technology is (only 11% of the patents related to lithography machines, which are not as good as Samsung and ZEISS), how many talent teams (the Dutch population is only more than 17 million), but because there is a strong supply chain behind it.
At the same time, ASML was founded in 1984, and it has only been more than 30 years, and this "age" is not worth mentioning in the industry, and Japan's Nikon and Toshiba have completely hung it.
But the strong supply chain behind ASML is unmatched by many manufacturers. Since 2000, ASML has invested heavily in chip semiconductor manufacturers, and even invested in some core technologies and equipment to acquire shares, just to protect its own supply chain.
In 2001, ASML formally acquired the American lithography giant SVGL. This move directly allowed ASML to take a 37% share of the lithography machine market, becoming Nikon's biggest competitor at that time.
In 2004, A TSMC Lin Benjian from Chaoshan in Guangdong Province developed the "immersion lithography machine technology", which was not looked up to by many manufacturers after it came out, because it did not conform to the mainstream at that time. But ASML doesn't think it's an opportunity, and even thinks it's an opportunity. Subsequently, ASML cooperated with TSMC, not only introduced this technology, but also reduced the cost of its lithography machine by more than half, and finally surpassed Nikon and became a real lithography machine "brother".
With the technology in place, ASML did not abandon the acquisition. In 2012, ASML acquired Cymer, the world's leading excimer laser manufacturer, for $2.5 billion. In this way, the world's lithography machines are all from ASML.
In 2016, ASML divested to acquire Hanweike, which accounted for more than 85% of the global e-book testing equipment market share.
In November 2016, ASML acquired a €100 million stake in ZEISS, accounting for 24.9% of ZEISS.
It is not difficult to find that ASML either buys and buys or invests in cooperation along the way, just to be able to improve its own supply chain.
However, ASML produces a lithography machine, not on its own, but needs to provide equipment and technology from manufacturers around the world, of which more than 60% of the core technology is from the United States. So this is why after the US ban came out, coupled with the existence of the Walson Agreement, ASML could not be shipped freely. In particular, the EUV lithography machine cannot cooperate with China, the world's largest consumer market.
Therefore, the situation of ASML being the only one, coupled with the example of the United States blocking Huawei, has made all countries begin to understand that core technology is the last word, and building their own supply chain is the best policy. So that after Huawei was suppressed, countries began to embark on the road of research and development.
Japanese energy saving, Nikon and other manufacturers have also begun to bypass the United States technology to embark on the road to research and development of lithography machines, but also began to develop new technologies, bypassing Moore's Law.
The Russian side is embarking on advanced X-ray lithography machine research and development, compared with ASML's EVU lithography machine, this X-ray light source technology is more advanced.
Therefore, as Western scholars have said: excessive suppression of Huawei has shown far more evil consequences than the United States expected. Today, not only ASML is feeling unprecedented pressure, but even TSMC and many U.S. manufacturers.
This is also why the United States will rush to invest a lot of money today to launch the "high-end manufacturing recovery" plan, that is, afraid of losing the position of chip hegemony.
The emergence of new things will surely replace the old things
In the past, the smaller the chip process, the more powerful the performance, so many manufacturers are competing for EUV lithography machines to develop chips with smaller processes. However, as the chip process technology continues to approach the ceiling of Moore's Law, major manufacturers have begun to understand that the development of new technologies is the way out, and cannot blindly spin around in Moore's Law.
Today, many manufacturers have begun to release new technologies to improve chip performance, rather than relying on EUV lithography machines to achieve.
Like canon's NIL process, it can bypass the EUV lithography machine to reduce the chip process to 5nm, achieving the same performance as the chip produced by EUV. At the same time, Apple has also launched a chip produced by stacking technology, using the 1+1>2 method to stack two chips, and ultimately achieve higher performance and reduce energy consumption.
Manufacturers such as TSMC and AMD have made breakthroughs in chip packaging technology, directly increasing chip performance by more than 40% without changing the chip process.
It is not difficult to find that the era of silicon chips has passed, and the future will usher in new technologies. After all, the development of EUV lithography machine to the end, not only the new energy can not be improved much, but the cost is high, but also to see the face of the old beauty.
And the mainland's Huawei is also constantly developing, Ren Zhengfei once said: If the photoelectric chip is developed, then it can completely bypass the Us technology, and even walk in the forefront of the West. It should be known that long ago, Huawei began to lay out optoelectronic chips, and even planned to establish a global research and development center in the United Kingdom.
Summary: Judging from the development of today's chip semiconductor industry, there is really not much time left for ASML. Especially after Huawei was suppressed, all countries have accelerated their independent research and development, which the United States did not expect. I think that blockading and suppressing Huawei can make China compromise. As everyone knows, Huawei not only did not fall, but woke up a manufacturer to embark on the road of research and development.
On the one hand, it reveals that China's rise has become an indisputable fact, and the blockade and suppression cannot stop our pace of progress, but will only make us more courageous in the Vietnam War; on the other hand, it reveals that Lao Mei has not yet "woken up" and lived in the past hundred years ago, feeling that all countries cannot do without it. As everyone knows, today's China has the ability to sit on an equal footing with it, and even in some areas has been at the forefront of the United States.
"Science and technology without borders" is just a pretext, and increasing investment in independent research and development is the last word.
As long as we insist that Qingshan does not relax to develop and innovate, in the near future we will certainly be able to break through the chip difficulties and stand on the stage of globalization to hold high the banner of domestic production again! #春日生活打卡季 #