According to a Reuters report on January 24, Roger Dassen, ASML's chief financial officer at the annual earnings conference, revealed that the latest export control regulations issued by the United States and the Netherlands have come into effect, and it can be expected that ASML will not obtain an export license to ship NXT:2000i and above immersion equipment to China in 2024; in addition, a handful of Chinese mainland fabs will not be able to ship NXT: 1970i and NXT: Licenses for 1980i immersion equipment.
Pictured: ASML CFO Roger Dawson
This is the first time that ASML has officially confirmed that the U.S. regulations will also directly restrict the company's low-end immersion DUV lithography machine exports to China.
According to ASML's DUV lithography machine product lineup, NXT:1970i and NXT:1980i belong to ASML's products from ten years ago, but shipments are still restricted.
According to ASML's latest financial report, ASML2023's annual sales were 27.6 billion euros, up 34% from 2022, and profits increased by 43%, while the Chinese market accounted for 29% of total sales, with sales reaching 8 billion euros, up 14% from 2022.
因此，阿斯麦CEO彼得·温宁克（Peter Wennink）将2023年称为ASML的“巅峰之年”（top year）。
Although China has replaced South Korea as ASML's second largest market, the pressure of the U.S. export ban has limited exports of low-end DUV lithography machines. Is there anything we can do about it?
Yes, in 2022, a R&D center officially announced that a R&D team of Harbin Institute of Technology had successfully innovated and developed an embedded fiber microprobe ultra-precision laser interferometer that year, supporting the high-dynamic workpiece table calibration platform of China's lithography machine, and improving the measurement capacity of domestic lithography machines from 28nm to 7nm and below.
What is the use of this ultra-precision laser interferometer, can it help domestic chip manufacturers use low-end DUVs to achieve 7nm or even 5nm process technology?
We know that the most critical and difficult process in the chip manufacturing process is the front-end exposure, which requires DUVi with extremely high overlay accuracy to meet the requirements, for example, the DUVi overlay accuracy of 5nm or even 3nm process technology must reach less than 2nm.
As shown in the figure above, taking the 1980Di DUV lithography machine as an example, its resolution has been less than 38 nm, and the overlay accuracy is less than 2.5 nm, if the 1980Di lithography machine can be used to manufacture 7nm process chips, but due to the insufficient overlay accuracy, the yield of the 7nm process chips produced will be low and the cost is very high. At this time, if you want to improve the yield of 7nm process chips, you must improve the overlay accuracy of the dual workbench.
And the role of the above-mentioned Harbin Institute of Technology ultra-precision laser interferometer is revealed. As long as the NXT:1980Di is replaced with a higher precision double workpiece table, the DUV with higher overlay accuracy can be retrofitted, and it is even expected that a DUV lithography machine with an accuracy comparable to NXT:2100i can be retrofitted to achieve an overlay accuracy of 1.3 nanometers.
Theoretically, the DUVi that meets the needs of 7nm or even 5nm process can be modified with the highly dynamic workpiece table calibration platform developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology team. That is to say, using the embedded fiber microprobe ultra-precision laser interferometer developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology team, and supporting the high-dynamic workpiece table calibration platform of the Chinese lithography machine, the DUV lithography machine that meets the 7nm or even 5nm process technology can theoretically be modified.
It is said that some domestic chip manufacturing foundries have been using the ultra-precision laser interferometer developed by Harbin Institute of Technology, and have achieved good results, as shown in the figure above, the official announcement has created hundreds of millions of benefits for domestic manufacturers, as for which manufacturers, due to many factors can not list the specific name.
Therefore, it is obviously unwise for ASML to further restrict the export of low-end DUV lithography machines to China, and with the progress of domestic semiconductor equipment accessories technology, I believe that the breakthrough of domestic lithography machines is just around the corner!