According to Bloomberg, Wenninke, CEO of Dutch lithography giant ASML, said in an interview a few days ago that the US-led semiconductor export control measures against China will eventually promote China's successful development of its own technology in the field of high-end chip manufacturing equipment.
Wennink said Chinese semiconductor companies "have to compete globally" and if they don't have access to these machines, they will develop their own. "China's 'laws of physics' are the same as here, the more you put pressure on them, the more likely they are to redouble their efforts" to make lithography devices that can rival ASML's.
In fact, the Netherlands has been trying not to be swayed by the US export restriction policy, and Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Liche Schreinamacher recently said that he would not hasty follow up on the new restrictions imposed by the United States on mainland chip export manufacturing technology. Judging from the Dutch entanglement and vacillating attitude towards whether to sell lithography machines to China, Dutch ASML and Dutch officials tend to believe that China will have the ability to develop its own lithography machine equipment in the future.
The more restrictive, the more likely it is to prompt China to develop its own technology, the view of the CEO of the Dutch lithography giant, in China, most people also agree. Many Chinese people believe that lockdown restrictions can force China's potential, and there have been many examples of successful rise after blockade in the past.
From the perspective of the chip industry, the huge market is in China, and the huge market can naturally stimulate greater business opportunities and soil, attract more investment and talents to come in, drive the development of technology, and promote the improvement of the industrial chain.
All we need is more time.
However, we found that the United States does not seem to believe in this set, and chip export restrictions have been increased layer by layer, and outside the Netherlands, it has constantly attracted countries such as Japan and South Korea for further export restrictions.
Why is the United States reluctant to believe that China can successfully develop its own technology under export restrictions?
Why doesn't the United States want to believe it?
In the author's opinion, the United States may be half-convinced. From the perspective of interests, the United States naturally will not agree with the Netherlands' statement, after all, the Netherlands' lithography machine obtains export authority, which is closely related to the interests of ASML, the Netherlands' statement has its interest considerations, and for the United States, export restrictions are in line with its interests, and the Netherlands and the United States are at odds with their interests. And even if China eventually develops it, the United States wants to slow it down.
First of all, for the United States, the leading edge of chips is too important, which is an important part of its global technology leadership, after all, the west coast of the United States gathers global technology giants such as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Tesla, and the industrial demand generated by these technology giants provides a huge market for the US chip industry.
The development and rise of the technology industry in the United States are basically closely related to the development and leadership of chips. In the era of personal computers in the 20th century, the rise of companies with Intel and Chaowei semiconductor processors as the core laid the leading position of science and technology in the era of personal computers and PCs in the United States, and around 2010, the rise of smart phones, and relying on communication chip design giants such as Qualcomm and Broadcom, won the core link in the high profits of the consumer electronics industry; In the era of artificial intelligence, rising stars such as NVIDIA have risen.
From the current global chip market structure, American companies have a market share of more than 50% in the global chip industry, far ahead of South Korea (about 20%). The United States has maintained a leading position in many core links such as chip design, wafer foundry, chip design and production integration, electronic design automation (EDA), equipment and packaging and testing.
In the view of the United States, China's demand for chips is very large, the market is large, which means that the potential for technological progress is great, in the global market, the only challenge to its status is China, it is more willing to believe that in the environment of global supply chain openness, China is more likely to develop top-notch lithography equipment. If China makes a breakthrough in this key link of lithography equipment, then the leading position of the United States may not be guaranteed.
The United States is very wary of potential opponents who can challenge its chip status, and it also has a sense of crisis. At present, the US chip bill investment of more than 280 billion US dollars, the bill stipulates that enterprises engaged in semiconductor R & D and manufacturing in the United States have subsidies and tax exemptions, and Japanese and South Korean companies, TSMC and other giants have begun to build factories in the United States. According to foreign media "Evertiq" report, the US chip bill has caused 200 billion US dollars of private investment in the United States, covering 16 states and involving 32 wafer fabs, which shows that the effect of the US chip bill has begun to appear.
But what the United States may not realize is that in the absolute open market competition environment, for the Chinese chip industry, it may be the real suppression. Because the most cutting-edge chips are in the hands of American companies, its technology and products are the most competitive and demanded.
From China to the global market, in the field of consumer electronics, based on the high-end market demand, we must use the highest-end chips to make better performance products, which often leads to worse performance, more backward technology chips have no market demand, the technology backward chip industry has no market demand, there is no profit, can not continue to invest enough R & D funds, and the gap with the head chip companies is getting bigger and bigger.
The head chip has market demand, sufficient profit, sufficient technical barriers and R&D investment, and the market will also show a pattern of stronger and stronger.
In fact, from the past development history of China's science and technology industry, the R&D investment of the technology industry is often inert, and once the global supply chain is opened to supply, it often has no motivation for R&D investment, and tends to supply chain "take-ism". However, if the lockdown is restricted, the huge market demand will stimulate greater R&D momentum and potential.
The United States may not be unaware of this, but for it, export restrictions are more direct and have been successful, and the United States has become path-dependent because of this.
For example, in the past, the United States' sanctions against France's Alstom and Japan's chip industry were ultimately successful. In the eighties of last century, the Japanese semiconductor industry developed rapidly, in 1989, Japan Electric, Toshiba and Hitachi three companies occupied the top three companies in the world's largest semiconductor production, larger than the scale of the United States Intel, NVIDIA and other chip giants, gradually threatened the United States chip market position, the United States also imposed technical restrictions and export restrictions on Japan.
Later, the United States forced Japan to sign the Plaza Accord and the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement. After several rounds of suppression, the upward momentum of Japanese chips was interrupted.
The lithography machine is too difficult, and the United States does not believe that China can make it in a short time
The more restrictive an industry in China is, the more it often ends up stimulating independent technological and industrial advantages. This was true in the past, China's aerospace, rare earth, photovoltaic and other industries.
But the lithography machine has its peculiarities - it is too difficult. At present, the Dutch EUV lithography machine is made by integrating the power of the global supply chain, a lithography machine has more than 100,000 parts, and each step involved requires advanced processes and parts. ASML's EUV lithography machine requires top-level lenses and light sources as well as extreme mechanical precision and composite materials, the light source adopts Cymer of the United States, the lens is Zeiss of Germany, the composite material is from Japan and so on.
Once the CEO of the Dutch lithography machine manufacturer ASML made a statement about the domestic lithography machine - "China is unlikely to independently copy the top lithography machine technology, because ASML relies on "relentless innovation", and some of the components can only be obtained from non-Chinese suppliers. ”
In Laomei's view, China masters the technology of lithography machines, but there are too many parts involved in lithography machines, as long as one of them is restricted, it may be difficult to reach the height of the Dutch EUV lithography machine. Although China has made breakthroughs in the photovoltaic industry, vitamins, large aircraft industry and other fields in the past, the difficulty of lithography machine is not comparable to the difficulty of the photovoltaic industry, vitamin industry, automotive industry, and aircraft industry.
And the progress of technology is from easy to difficult, DUV lithography machine involves the production of mature processes above 14nm, DUV lithography machine equipment is less difficult, does not involve the competition of the high-end chip market, therefore, in the past, the United States released DUV lithography machine, but from the current point of view, the United States in order to completely eliminate China's ability to develop high-end lithography machines, DUV is also restricted. This is actually a worry that China will gradually conquer related technologies from easy to difficult.
The United States wants to gamble and buy itself time to lead
In fact, for the United States, there is actually a way back, but it is to gamble and buy more time for itself to lead. Even if China can eventually develop it, it has been delayed long enough for it to still be ahead enough.
When China developed the lithography machine, it still had Plan B, that is, the ban on Dutch lithography machines was lifted, and the Netherlands could sell them in volume.
Because this is also a means of repression. In the past, an old trick in the West is - when a certain technology in the country does not break through, blockade, about to break through when the ban on expansion of production, the future or will also reduce the price of sales, you have developed it, the price is still higher, the technology is not mature, but now others have reduced the price and sold openly, the products you develop are not competitive in the market, this means of opening the market at a critical moment and selling in volume can still lead to your research and development progress being hindered and the competitiveness of the product being suppressed.
For China, whether others will not use it if they let go, the possibility of using it will be very large. Because China also hopes to ease relations between major countries through openness and cooperation, opening up a better situation for the future.
Therefore, the current restrictions on the export of chip equipment by the United States to China are actually to buy more time for itself, and at the same time, it also restricts the Netherlands from developing too fast in optical technology technology, so that it can better control the entire chip industry and maximize the profits of its current chip industry.
At the same time, the United States also wants to gamble, if the bet wins, then it can confirm that its strategy is still effective, if it loses, then the United States will eventually recognize China's strength, it still has Plan B, may open the card at that time, open the door to cooperation. Perhaps for China, at this time, it has the leverage to negotiate with it on an equal footing at the negotiating table.
Therefore, at present, in fact, China also needs this high-intensity test, to go out of its own way, to gain respect and recognition, and finally to prove itself, to win its own voice and status.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission