What is most important for semiconductor chips?
Anyone who knows this knows that it is a lithography machine with more advanced research and development technology. The advanced degree of the lithography machine determines the performance and yield of the chip to a certain extent, and the Dutch company Asma has an absolute right to speak in the lithography machine.
As early as last year, it threatened not to export the most advanced EUV equipment to the mainland, but now it plans to recruit more Chinese employees to serve Chinese customers in the long term.
What does a sudden shift mean, and what are the reasons behind it?
First, the importance of the mainland market
According to relevant data, Asma's revenue in the mainland market accounted for 15% of its global revenue last year, a figure that does not seem very surprising. After all, the mainland is the world's largest semiconductor chip consumer market, but also the largest lithography machine market.
However, combined with the overall environment at that time, this proportion was when the United States implemented a series of trade restriction policies on the mainland, which meant that if it were not for some rule restrictions, the mainland market would have more benefits for Asma.
And this is also realized by the managers of Asma.
Although the United States has exerted a lot of pressure on enterprises, it has done everything possible to prevent the most advanced lithography machines from coming to the mainland. But Asma was still not willing to give up the cake, so there was a plan to recruit Chinese employees.
In the first quarter of 2022, Asmail sold a total of 62 lithography machines. In its quarterly financial report, 34% of the revenue composition shows that it comes from Chinese mainland, compared with 22% in Taiwan. Taken together, half of Asma's revenue in the first quarter came from the mainland market.
How could Asma give up on such a large proportion?
Therefore, Within the scope of not violating the provisions of international treaties, Asma has continuously increased its investment in the mainland market, and at the same time, it has been shown many times that Asma is not selling lithography machines to China, but is not allowed by politics.
2. Sudden change
On June 7 this year, Asma, which has been unable to sell the most advanced lithography machine to the mainland, suddenly announced that in order to support the growth of business in China, it will expand the export scale of other types of lithography machines in the Chinese market in addition to EUV lithography machines in the future. This means that the mainland will have enough lithography equipment, and it also means that the mainland is not far from developing its own EUV.
However, when things go wrong, there must be demons.
Is Asma, which used to be strictly limited by the treaty in quantity exports, now suddenly dumping low-end lithography machine products at a reduced price, is it because Asma really wants to help the continent that is struggling to develop new technologies?
So, since this move is so obvious, why has the United States, which has been playing an important role in it, not stopped it and allowed Asma to increase its exports to the mainland?
In fact, this new decision not only means that the mainland is one step closer to the research and development of new technologies, but also means that Asma wants to compete with domestic lithography machines for the market.
Under the condition of low price and advanced technical system of Asma, it is bound to have many domestic enterprises use its products and abandon domestic lithography machines, so that Asma has achieved the effect of killing two birds with one stone.
It not only increases its own profits, but also effectively cracks down on the production and sales of domestic lithography machine enterprises. If it continues for a long time, the new technology of lithography machine being developed in China may also be stranded. When Asma can export high-end lithography machines to the mainland, it will increase the price and make a lot of money. Eventually, the mainland may rely more on foreign companies in the development of lithography machines and chips.
Third, the current situation of mainland lithography machines
In fact, mainland enterprises that have learned lessons in the past will not fall into such a trap again.
In the field of lithography machines, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has already launched a detailed and precise layout. In the recruitment released by Shanghai Institute of Optics and Machinery in 2022, it mainly involves the generation theory and technical research of the EUV light source of the lithography machine.
Among the three components of lithography machines, Continental has made major breakthroughs in the workpiece platform. At present, the 1.8nm precision duplex workpiece table developed can achieve an accuracy of 2nm in the high-speed operation state, which fully meets the requirements of the EUV lithography machine.
At the same time, in terms of lenses, it has been possible to reduce the thickness to less than 0.1nm. As long as the big problem of EUV light source is broken, the EUV lithography machine independently developed by the mainland is not far from the market.
Epilogue:
When the mainland was developing the Beidou navigation system, many countries thought that this was a useless project, because there are navigation systems now. Now when the mainland uses anti-dumping as an excuse to protect the main science and technology in the United States and other countries, it insists on the independent research and development of lithography machine technology, so that in the future, it will not be restricted by other countries in the use of semiconductor chips and lithography machines.
Taking your own destiny into your own hands is the way to survive forever. So what do you think about the development of lithography machines?