As one of the world's strongest and most difficult weapons to study, the nuclear bomb has only 8 countries, but it has a civilian equipment, and only two countries in the world can build it, which is rarer than the atomic bomb, it is a lithography machine.
At first glance, many people are unheard of, but we are inseparable from it in our daily lives. From mobile phones to computers, from luxury goods to office necessities, and even aircraft carriers and tanks, they are inseparable from a heart - "chips", and lithography machines are indispensable core equipment for manufacturing chips.
At present, the mainland is the country with the largest demand for chips, which directly drives 1/3 of the global chip market demand. But such a large number of 90% need to be imported from abroad, which also leads to us is very easy to be "stuck neck" by foreign countries, this is not, the Huawei storm in the past few years is the United States trying to contain China's development, and made a chicken feather.
It's not that we don't want to build it, but there are now two countries in the world that can make it - Japan and the Netherlands, and these two countries need the assistance of other countries to make "lithography machines", which is enough to see the high difficulty of lithography machine technology.
However, it is strange that the United States, which has always prided itself on being the boss of cutting-edge technology, not only failed to dominate the field of lithography machines this time, but even did not catch up with these two small countries? Is the technology of this lithography machine really more difficult than the atomic bomb?
The world's cutting-edge lithography machine is in the Netherlands, why is it?
Japan, as the world's second largest, has developed industry and can build it, so today we will focus on the Netherlands. This country, in the field of cutting-edge technology sounds unknown, why is it?
In fact, the Netherlands is also riding on the "east wind" of the development of the United States, which gradually seizes the opportunity to develop and leaves countries all over the world behind.
In the early years, people have realized that the lithography machine as the highlight of the future development of science and technology, many capitalists have set their sights on the lithography machine, they do not hesitate to spend a lot of money, the main purpose is also to be able to share in the field of lithography machine.
Therefore, at that time, many old capitalist countries, such as the United States, Britain, Germany, France and a series of other countries, in the field of lithography machines have made big capital research and made achievements.
Among them, the development of the United States in the field of lithography machine has been smooth, it can be said that in the early days of the last century, the development of lithography machine in the United States can reach the world's top industry level.
At this time, the Dutch lithography machine was not very conspicuous, and in 1984, the Dutch lithography machine was officially established. At the beginning of the capital injection, it was a joint venture between Philips and a small company with 50% each investment, while the Dutch lithography machine company was only 31 people when it was first established.
Comparatively speaking, the development of Japanese lithography machines at that time was far more than that of the Netherlands, because in the 90s of the last century, Japan's semiconductor industry was greatly supported by the United States.
But the Netherlands, although it has not received such a large support from the United States, has also gained the favor of technology by seizing the opportunity.
At that time, the United States was eager to unify the lithography machine and related semiconductor industry technology into the Territory of the United States, but encountered many difficulties and setbacks. The reasons include, but are not limited to, the market economy, local talents, etc., who are powerless or need to pay a great price in order to integrate technology, which the United States is not willing to do.
The Dutch lithography machine company was keenly aware of this threshold and informed the United States that after signing an agreement with the United States, it could guarantee that more than half of the parts would be purchased only from the United States. And accept the regular review of the United States, the door is wide open, in order to ensure the development of lithography machines, to obtain the support of the United States.
This hit the heart of the interests of the United States, and the United States was naturally happy to see it succeed, so it also began to fund the Netherlands. Later, the Netherlands has obtained the support of Germany's advanced mechanical technology and ZEISS lenses, as well as other EU countries through similar methods, and gradually becomes the "integrator" of the world's lithography machines.
In 2007, the lithography machine ushered in a key technical turning point, when the Dutch company ASML did not have a clear advantage, but competed with Japan's Nikon and Canon.
However, ASML has significantly improved the accuracy of its lithography machines because it actively cooperates with TSMC's technical direction, and at this time, Nikon and Canon have to lose under the significant performance difference and gradually decline. The world's lithography machine is now a monopoly on ASML, showing a monopoly trend.
Although Japan can also build, but now the precision and technical height are not as good as the Netherlands, which can be said to be one of the biggest achievements of the Netherlands in actively seeking international support before, and it is also full of inspiration for our development.
Can the difficulty of manufacturing lithography machines be compared with atomic bombs?
If the manufacture of atomic bombs is from scratch, and the lithography machine is from scratch to demand perfection, so the manufacture of bullets and lithography machines is actually not comparable, one is from the desert to the forest, one is from ceramics to works of art, from the fine end to the high end of the effort. There is not much comparison between these two technologies, and no one is more difficult to create this contrast, both require strong technology.
However, if you want to talk about rarity, it must be that the "lithography machine" is more rare. After all, there are 8 countries that hold atomic bombs, but there are only two countries that can build lithography machines.
Lithography machines, which don't sound so lethal, are indeed rarer than atomic bombs. Mainly because there are many difficulties in the breakthrough of lithography machine technology, it has not been broken so far. So why is it so hard to break through?
As we said earlier, the world's most advanced, highest precision and most efficient lithography machine is provided by asML in the Netherlands, and this is not the credit of ASML, more than half of the lithography machine parts need to be manufactured and developed by other companies, and ASML is responsible for assembling these parts together at the end.
That is to say, to manufacture a high-end lithography machine, it may take parts manufacturers from all over the world to work together to complete, and it is not possible to lack any part. Now that the Netherlands has already taken the lead, it is difficult for other countries to get a piece of the pie.
Moreover, this is also associated with the most influential country in the world, the United States.
As one of the member states of the European Union, the Netherlands is relatively easy to manage for the United States and the European Union itself, and in countries like Japan and China, although the hand of the United States can be extended, it is obviously not as free as in the Netherlands, so the United States and the European Union will also try their best to obtain these cutting-edge technologies outside them, hindering their monopoly path.
What's more, in order to ensure its monopoly position, the Dutch ASML company has also imposed multiple layers of protection on its products, established strict procurement procedures, and even raised them to the level of local government laws in the Netherlands. It clearly states that importing enterprises must not infringe on the company's intellectual property rights, including reverse development, so the road of using the products of other companies to help the birth of mainland technology is not feasible.
For these three reasons, ASML has long banned real support to China.
Therefore, from the current situation, the domestic lithography machine technology lags behind ASML for at least 10 years, and for China, it can be said that the first step of the Long March has begun.
If China can build an atomic bomb, will it not be able to build a lithography machine?
However, we have not allowed others to "stuck necks" for so many years, and we have no action, and we also have some of our own research results on the "lithography machine".
China's lithography machine technology achievements At present, The 90nm lithography machine independently developed by China has been commercialized, and the main technology of the DUV infiltration lithography machine has been successfully overcome; the 28nmDUV lithography machine developed by Shanghai Microelectronics can be used for the production of 14nm chips.
Don't look at this 14nm seems to be far away, you know, usually although we listen to what 14nm, 7nm or even 3nm listen to more, the chip technology has lost the concept, but in fact, as long as you cross the 28nm process of this insurmountable wall, it is even the world's cutting-edge level.
Today's China, there is no shortage of resources, funds and talents, the only thing missing is time, after all, we have not eaten pork, have not seen the pig run? Even ASML CEO Winnick believes that even if the lithography machine is not sold to China, perhaps in 3 years, China will be able to master the technology itself.