The opportunity of domestic chips is coming, and Nikon's lithography machine won the bid for Jita Semiconductor
Some time ago, a number of ** reports said that Japan, the United States and the Netherlands have reached an alliance and plan to implement a new round of blockade of China's lithography machine;In addition to the EUV lithography machine, the DUV lithography machine will also be used"Truncated beard"。
According to **, if this plan is implemented, China's chip industry will face the bottom of wages, and 45-nanometer chips will not be able to be produced. China's industrial, civil, and technological industries will all be severely impacted.
However, this plan is just beginning to fade!
Some time ago, Shanghai Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. officially announced that Nikon and Tokyo Electron won the bid for 1 lithography equipment and 1 coating and development equipment. The Dutch lithography machine giant ASML unexpectedly won the bid, which is thought-provoking.
The question is: why does Japan want to give its own company the most lithography equipment?Can an alliance between Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands be realized?
Conflict between Nikon and ASML.
When it comes to lithography, everyone thinks of the Dutch company ASML.
Founded in 1984 and headquartered in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, ASML is the world's leading manufacturer of semiconductor equipment and the only manufacturer of EUV lithography machines.
ASML is in the hands of ASML for 100% of the world's EUV lithography machines and more than 90% of DUV lithography machines.
In our opinion, whether it is TSMC, Samsung, Intel or the emerging SMIC, they are inseparable from ASML's lithography machines, and ASML has become the spokesperson of lithography machines.
But until 2000, these honors were held by Nikon in Japan.
In the 80s of the 20th century, ASML had just been established, and the ship was in danger of capsizing at any time. Japan's Nikon is on the rise, crushing American semiconductor equipment companies.
At the time, major chipmakers such as Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM, and AMD were all lining up for Nikon equipment.
In addition to Nikon, Japan also supported Canon, which became Nikon's biggest assistant. The two companies account for 80% of the global lithography market.
Coupled with NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Tokyo Electron, Shin-Etsu Chemical and other companies, it can be seen that the entire Japanese semiconductor industry has formed a complete industrial chain.
At that time, Japan's GDP reached 545 trillion dollars, second only to the United States at 76 trillion US dollars, with a GDP per capita of 4$340,000, more than $2 in the United States$870,000.
At that time, many Japanese people wanted to buy New York and buy Japanese semiconductors"No. 1 in the world"Title.
Subsequently, three events occurred that brought Nikon off the altar.
First, immersion lithography.
At that time, Nikon focused on 193 nanometer lithography technology, invested hundreds of millions, and mobilized a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, but it could not be attacked.
At that time, TSMC engineer Benjamin Lin came up with a solution:"The refraction of water can be used to alter the light source, resulting in a narrower wavelength of light"。
However, the condescending Nikon rejected this plan, and it did not realize it with all its efforts, can it be achieved in a simple way?
However, ASML seized the opportunity and approached TSMC to collaborate on the manufacture of an immersion lithography machine.
Two years later (2004), ASML and TSMC jointly launched the first generation of immersion lithography with an accuracy of 132 nanometers, ahead of Nikon's 190 nanometer lithography machine.
TSMC also used ASML's lithography technology to create 45-nanometer chips, pushing Moore's Law forward by four generations.
A few years later, Nikon also began to attack immersion lithography, but this market had already been conquered by ASML.
The second piece is the EUV lithography machine.
In 2008, ASML launched the EUV lithography machine, and the chip manufacturing process began to move towards 7nm. Many people can only praise ASML's technology for being too good.
But in fact, ASML has less than 10% of the underlying technology, and the remaining 90% comes from countries such as the United States, Europe, Japan and South Korea.
In order to weaken Japan's control over semiconductors, the United States established the EUV-LLC alliance, which includes: Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Lawrence Berkeley, as well as IBM, Intel, Motorola, Samsung and ASML.
Japan's Nikon and Canon were left out, so Nikon had to choose other technological avenues, thus completely losing its competitive advantage with ASML.
ASML not only has the support of the EUV-LLC alliance, but also joined forces with Zeiss, Oxford Instruments, Philips, and the German Metrology Institute to finally successfully launch the EUV lithography machine, iterating the chip manufacturing process to below 7nm.
Nikon completely ceded the throne of the leading lithography machine, but at the same time, ASML was also firmly controlled by the United States.
The third piece is the Japan-US semiconductor agreement.
Japan's semiconductors are in full swing, and Intel, IBM, and Texas Instruments in the United States continue to publicize the United States, hoping that they can intervene to save the semiconductor industry in the United States.
As a result, in 1985, the United States launched a Section 301 investigation into Japanese semiconductors, and in 1986, Japan was forced to sign the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement.
The agreement provides detailed rules for Japan's exports of semiconductors to the United States, as 100% punitive tariffs will be imposed below the regulations.
In 1987, the Japanese semiconductor industry was shocked when Japanese semiconductor companies were imposed 100% punitive tariffs for violating the Japan-US Semiconductor Agreement.
In 1991, the U.S. forced Japan to sign a second semiconductor deal, forcing Japan to cede 20 percent of its market to U.S. companies. At the same time, companies such as Samsung and TSMC are growing rapidly with the support of the United States to compete with Japanese semiconductor companies.
In the face of domestic and foreign difficulties, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi and other Japanese integrated companies gradually withdrew from the semiconductor field. Japan's local semiconductor companies are gradually losing their competitiveness.
Without the help of the Japanese semiconductor industry, Nikon is also declining, and ASML is completely outdated.
Nikon's departure from the altar is inseparable from the operation of the United States, but it is also inseparable from the help of ASML. If something like this happened to you, would you still be willing to cooperate with someone who was trampled under your feet alone in the past?
That is why the Japan-US-Netherlands alliance is conflicting from the start, and as soon as the interests of the other side are affected, the fragile alliance will give in or even collapse.
In fact, there is another reason why Nikon dares to lead lithography machines to Chinese enterprises: Japan's semiconductor technology is relatively independent and its dependence on American technology is very small.
Japan has strong semiconductor strength.
In the field of semiconductors, Japan does not have well-known companies such as TSMC, ASML, Intel, Qualcomm, etc., but Japan cannot be underestimated because of this.
In the division of labor in the global semiconductor field, Japan has a good strength in chip manufacturing equipment and semiconductor materials. At the same time, it has a full-process, high-barrier, and multi-patent ecosystem.
In the field of semiconductor materials, Japan has a market share of 66%, which gives it a considerable advantage over other competitors.
In wafer manufacturing, 19 materials are required, and Japan has 14 of them, with a market share of more than 50%. Japan has a 70% market share in the four main materials of silicon wafers, photoresists, electronic specialty gases, and masks.
In the field of EUV photoresists, Japanese companies own 80% of the patents and are veritable monopolies.
In short, without Japanese semiconductor materials, global chips would stagnate.
Japan also has a great advantage when it comes to semiconductor equipment.
In terms of high-end lithography technology, Japan lost to the Netherlands. However, low-end lithography machines such as KRF lithography machines, i-line, and G-line are still in the Japanese market.
In addition, in the entire field of semiconductor equipment, there are more than 10 kinds in Japan. Among them, Japan occupies a monopoly position in electron beam imaging equipment, coating development equipment, cleaning equipment, oxidation furnace, CVD decompression equipment and another important front-end equipment - packaging and testing equipment.
According to the data, Japan provides 37% of the equipment to global wafer manufacturers, which is much higher than other countries, including the Netherlands.
The most important thing is that most of these materials and equipment in Japan are independently developed, and the technology and patents are firmly in their own hands, which is difficult to obtain from third countries.
With independent intellectual property rights, of course, the bones will be harder, which is one of the reasons why Japan will sell lithography machines to Chinese companies!
While working with Japan will bring great benefits in terms of equipment and wafer materials, it will only be a change of people"neck", the timing is not reliable.
The national chip industry can only rely on independent research and development, although this road is difficult to take.
Independent research and development is king.
In the field of chips, nothing is more important than independent research and development.
In 2022, China's total chip imports reached US$415.6 billion, accounting for 72% of global chip sales5%。Theoretically, China should have a greater influence in the field of chips, but this is not the case.
China's Huawei, SMIC, Yangtze River Storage, Shanghai Microelectronics and other enterprises have been included"Entity List"It has become the new normal of China's chip industry to find foundries, equipment accessories, and advanced chips.
5G, smartphones, personal computers, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving have all been restricted, which is very detrimental to China's development, and at the same time has a significant impact on China's economy.
It's tolerable, it's unbearable", we have to face the opponent, how to meet the head-on?How to hit in one hit?We must engage in independent research and development, so that domestic chips, equipment, and accessories can enter the world market, so that opponents will suffer. Just like the original EPBM.
In 1997, China bought two German armored aircraft, ** for 700 million yuan, but we had to admit defeat. Why?We can't make such equipment, the national infrastructure is poor.
In 2006, we spent tens of billions of yuan on armored vehicles, but we were still controlled by others.
The equipment broke down, the German engineers arrived a few days later, and all the costs were borne by us, shuttles, luxury hotels, high-end dishes, and even then, there was not a trace of goodwill in return.
German engineers who maintain the equipment do not let us see. In 2008, domestic scientific research institutions, universities and enterprises worked together to successfully launch China's first armored machinery"China Railway No. 1"。
In the mass production of armored machinery in China, the first class of German armored machinery has been repeatedly forced to drop below 1 million yuan, and German engineers are no more"Pride"。
It can be seen that as long as we can achieve 100% independence in the field of chips, the international chip ** will plummet, and at the same time, large companies will also find us to cooperate.
At that time, Huawei's Kirin chips will be installed in Huawei's mobile phones again, 5G will become our first product, and artificial intelligence, big data, and autonomous driving will also develop rapidly.
China will move from a labor-intensive economy to an innovative science and technology economy, bringing great benefits to the country and the people.
No matter how the alliance between Japan, the United States and the Netherlands plays out, Chinese companies cannot afford to abandon independent R&D, because all externalization is psychedelic. Only by independent research and development and mastering basic technology can we straighten our waists and be fearless"Stuck neck"。
Chips are the foundation of digitalization and the core driving force of technological change, and over-reliance on other countries is not a long-term solution. Therefore, state institutions, universities, and enterprises have united, strengthened confidence, actively responded, and jointly smashed the chain of the national chip industry.