Foreign press: ASML has disappointed the United States.
I don't know if you have noticed that with the intensification of US sanctions on China's chips, relevant voices from ASML are becoming more and more frequent. On the other hand, the importance of our mainland market cannot be ignored.
ASML's attitude is also not very stable, constantly reversing and reversing. Some time ago, the president of ASML was interviewed by foreign media again and expressed two obviously contradictory views. In this regard, some foreign media said: ASML has disappointed the United States!
The first contradiction is that ASML's lithography machines are not sold, but they cannot give up the mainland market. The president of ASML said that the current production capacity of lithography machines simply cannot meet the demand outside the mainland, and the accumulation of equipment alone is equivalent to twice the annual revenue.
At the earnings conference some time ago, ASML publicly stated that the lithography orders alone currently exceed 38.9 billion euros.
What's more, according to TSMC, ASML's main customer, the rumors about a 40% reduction in EUV orders are also false, just postponed, and will not change the total number of orders. The crux of the matter is that TSMC has already announced that it has not reduced capital expenditures.
The president of ASML also mentioned that the United States and Europe have introduced a bill on tablets, which provides for huge subsidies to support the development of tablet manufacturing, the United States will receive subsidies worth 52 billion US dollars, Europe will receive subsidies worth 43 billion euros, and the two places will invest about 100 billion US dollars.
This means that the demand for lithography technology in the United States and Europe will increase, so ASML will not be short of orders in the future.
Still, the ASML president said he could not give up the mainland market. Given the very rapid growth of the continent's market, ASML's revenue from the continent was almost negligible 10 years ago, but last year this proportion has increased to 15%.
By 2022, mainland China has become ASML's third largest overseas market after Chinese mainland, Taiwan and South Korea. Especially in recent years, the United States has continuously implemented chip restrictions, but instead of promoting the development of the mainland, it has begun to work hard to build its own semiconductor industry.
To this end, the mainland is investing billions of dollars in chip manufacturing, and the demand for old-tech lithography machines is also growing rapidly.
On the one hand, ASML said that it was not worried about the sales of lithography machines, and on the other hand, it said that it could not give up the mainland market because it was worried that the inability to sell lithography opportunities in China would drag down future growth, and on the other hand, it was limited to the acceleration of lithography machines in the mainland.
The second contradiction is: ASML's lithography machine is not good, but the mainland can achieve a breakthrough. In an interview, the president of ASML once again said that the implementation of wafer restrictions was a mistake, which would further accelerate the development of China's own wafer equipment.
ASML once claimed that even if we were given drawings, we would not be able to build a lithography machine. But as we continue to make progress in related technologies, this attitude has also begun to change, and we believe that the laws of physics are the same all over the world, and there is no reason why China cannot create them.
This time, the president of ASML said that it will take some time for China's breakthrough, but they will eventually build their own lithography machine.
The change in ASML's attitude must have something to do with our progress. According to the news some time ago, Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shanghai Microelectronics, etc. have made new progress in related technologies. As everyone expected, the higher the pressure, the faster the breakthrough.
However, the president of ASML also said that the success of ASML's lithography technology is not only due to technological leadership, but also because it has a global ecosystem that is difficult to match, with 5,000 ** companies in the world, from software to tin and tungsten.
For example, it has established strategic partnerships with companies such as Zeiss in Germany and Carl Zeiss for ASML.
In addition, ASML points out that a lot of the technology is not even in the design, but in the minds of engineers. To achieve cutting-edge lithography, you need not only the project, but everything around the project and the entire ** chain.
Establishing a replacement company for a company like Chase is a daunting task that may take a decade or more to complete.
On top of that, ASML has also strengthened its intellectual property protection measures, increased information security spending and information security personnel, and trained its affiliates on cybersecurity risks, with a particular focus on any potential reverse engineering of its machines.
This seems to mean that you are telling us that the progress of lithography technology is too difficult, and it is better to use your lithography technology, which is equivalent to using another reason to persuade us to abandon the development of domestic lithography technology and create a larger market for your lithography technology instead.
At the same time, ASML also wants to get the United States to stand aside, to make the United States realize that restrictions simply do not work, and that although lithography technology is complex to manufacture, restrictions will accelerate China's advance. In this regard, some foreign media said: ASML has disappointed the United States!
But we must be soberly aware that no matter what ASML says, we must not allow their remarks to influence the development of lithography machines produced in-house.