In 2023, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo said that he was considering optimizing the export control rules for semiconductor equipment. Judging from the reports of the American media at that time, the so-called optimization rules are actually to continue to expand the restrictions under the condition of restricting the shipment of lithography machines and other equipment.
It's just that it is not to include more process lithography machine equipment in the scope of control, after all, the mature process of Chinese chips has basically achieved domestic substitution, and there is no point in doing so, but it is intended to start with the parts and maintenance services of the lithography machine. To put it simply, in fact, it is to make the lithography machine equipment purchased by Chinese enterprises become "scrap metal".
After all, in the fourth quarter of 2023, ASML, which has obtained the shipping license, will ship a large number of lithography equipment to Chinese enterprises in a short period of time, which is enough to meet the needs of Chinese enterprises for lithography equipment for two to three years.
The U.S. is planning to optimize the export control rules for lithography machines and impose further export controls on AI chips. The export control of AI chips is nothing more than expanding the scope of restrictions, and the export control rules of lithography machines are to restrict parts and maintenance services, which is equivalent to wanting to make the lithography machines of Chinese enterprises become "scrap metal".
Lithography machines have extremely high technical thresholds and manufacturing difficulties, which is why only ASML can ship EUV lithography machines in the world, and even high-end immersion DUV lithography machines can only be shipped by a few equipment manufacturers such as ASML, Nikon, and Canon.
As a precision equipment, although the lithography machine is not particularly prone to various failure problems, once it does fail, it needs to have sufficient technical support to repair it. The most important thing is that a lithography machine contains tens of thousands of parts, and there are thousands of types, and it is not enough to have technology to repair the lithography machine, but also to have enough parts suppliers to support.
In this case, chip manufacturers will basically negotiate with equipment manufacturers on after-sales services such as maintenance when purchasing equipment, and the two sides will ensure that equipment manufacturers need to provide maintenance services within a certain range. This also means that if the maintenance service cannot be completed, then the lithography machine equipment purchased by Chinese enterprises may become "scrap metal".
Now, in the face of the possibility of purchasing lithography equipment becoming "scrap metal", we have also carried out strong countermeasures: ASML either buys back these equipment, or does not want patent rights in China. The total value of ASML's lithography machines shipped to the domestic market has exceeded 500 billion yuan.
This is obviously a lot of pressure for ASML, if you take ASML's latest NA EUV lithography machine as an example, the price of a NA EUV lithography machine is about 2 billion yuan, and ASML's annual production capacity is ten. This also means that even if the production capacity is full, ASML will only be able to obtain about 20 billion revenue under the condition of full shipments.
500 billion is also a total revenue of about ten years for ASML, and for ASML, which must invest a lot of money in technology research and development, and constantly break through advanced technology, it is obvious that there is not so much liquidity. This also means that if you really want to buy back these devices, ASML basically can't do it.
If ASML refuses to buy back, it means that its technology patents in China may be used to compensate for losses. In this case, ASML is clearly unacceptable for both.
It is for this reason that ASML is facing a dilemma and has been refusing to restrict lithography machine repair services. It is worth noting that the Netherlands and Japan, which previously restricted the shipment of semiconductor equipment, also have a very unified attitude on this issue and have clearly expressed their opposition.
Judging from the current situation, it is still unknown whether the United States can really ask ASML, Nikon and other manufacturers to restrict maintenance services, but this also reminds us of the importance of developing core technologies and realizing domestic independent substitution.
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