In three days, three major events occurred in the scientific and technological world related to chip manufacturing, all of which are independent, but the conclusions that can be seen together will be very explosive.
Boldly guess, it should be good news for China's lithography machine!
Let's start with these three pieces of news. In chronological order, look at the near first and then look at the far.
On April 18th, Huawei Pura 70, Huawei Pura 70 Pro, Huawei Pura 70 Pro+ and Huawei Pura 70 Ultra four products were officially unveiled, Huawei Pura70 Ultra and Huawei Pura 70 Pro opened the pioneer plan and officially went on sale.
On April 17, it was reported that the share price of global lithography machine giant ASML fell sharply because the latest disclosed orders for the first quarter were far lower than market expectations. In the night trading session of the U.S. stock market, ASML once plummeted by more than 11%, and the financial report showed that ASML sold 66 new lithography systems and 4 second-hand lithography systems in the first quarter, compared with 113 and 11 in the previous quarter, down 41.59% and 63.64% respectively.
On April 15, 2024, an exciting news spread in the industry - the mainland scientific research team has made a major breakthrough in the field of photoresist, a key core material. The research team of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Jiufengshan Laboratory has successfully developed a new system of "chemical amplification photoresist with synergistic enhancement of response of double nonionic photoacid", and completed the preliminary process verification on the production line, and all technical indicators have reached the optimization level.
"Chemically amplified photoresist with synergistic enhanced response of bi-nonionic photoacids" is a new material, which is currently used in DUV and is expected to be used in EUV lithography machines in the future.
Where did the chips for Huawei's new machines come from?
Why did ASML's stock price plummet at this time?
Why are photoresists that can be used for EUV suddenly appearing now?
If China's lithography machine has broken through, then the logic behind these three major events can be explained clearly.
The breakthrough of EUV photoresist is because with the EUV lithography machine, it needs to "break through" now.
Even the United States can't figure out who made Huawei's chips, so is it possible that they produced them themselves? Huawei's chip design capability has long been the first in the world, but it can't be built because it doesn't have a lithography machine.
ASML's performance has been bad since the supply to China was cut off, and the negative has long been digested, so it stands to reason that it should not fall sharply. But if China successfully develops a lithography machine, it will be different.
ASML's core technology is an EUV lithography machine that can make chips below 5 nanometers, and as long as China breaks through it, it will be worthless in an instant.
Could the sharp drop in the stock price be caused by ASML's shareholders who knew the news in advance and emptied their shares?
I believe that news will come soon. Of course, we can also see the clues from the following two points.
One is the disassembly of Huawei's new machine, to see how many nanometers the chip is this time. If it's below 5 nanometers, that's OK. Because no matter how many exposures the DUV is, it can't reach this level.
The second depends on whether ASML will continue to plummet. If it continues to fall endlessly, it is basically certain that the domestic lithography machine has come out.
There is a high probability that the good news is really coming this time, let's wait and see!