With the development of emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and new energy vehicles, chips that can be called the core in these fields have begun to be paid more and more attention, and countries have begun to devote themselves to the development of their own chip industries.
But in fact, chip production is a very complex industrial chain, which not only needs to involve multiple links such as chip design, chip manufacturing, chip packaging and testing, but also needs to use a variety of semiconductor equipment such as lithography machines, etching machines, and wafer inspection equipment. In addition, there are a variety of software and hardware such as EDA software and chip instruction set architecture.
In the chip manufacturing process, the lithography process accounts for more than 20%, so many people in the industry believe that the lithography machine is one of the most important semiconductor equipment, and even today's chip foundry giant TSMC can have today's market position is also inseparable from ASML's EUV lithography machine.
Participating in the chip ban, the Netherlands beats China?
In order to curb the development of Chinese chips, the United States not only restricted the shipment of a variety of advanced chips, but also hit the idea in the field of semiconductor equipment. In the field of semiconductor equipment, the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands basically occupy more than 90% of the global market share, so once the semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands join forces to restrict the shipment of semiconductor equipment, Chinese manufacturers are likely to fall into the embarrassing situation of having no equipment to use.
Although in the fields of lithography machines, etching machines, wafer inspection equipment, etc., China has many internationally renowned enterprises such as Shanghai Microelectronics, China Microelectronics, and North Huachuang. However, there are still some difficulties in achieving comprehensive localization substitution, especially in the field of advanced processes, and the technical level of Chinese manufacturers is still difficult to achieve.
It is precisely for this reason that after the signing of the tripartite agreement, many foreign media said that China's chip industry will regress to the 45nm process. However, what people did not expect was that after the tripartite agreement was officially implemented, the impact on Chinese chip manufacturers was not great.
On the one hand, it is because Chinese equipment manufacturers have achieved domestic substitution in many fields, although it is difficult to catch up with internationally renowned companies such as Nikon, Canon, and ASML in terms of advanced processes, but there is still no big problem in meeting domestic demand in terms of mature processes.
Judging from the news from SMIC, Chinese chip manufacturers are verifying the 28nm non-American whole process, and it is expected to achieve the 7nm non-American full process within December, which basically means that China's semiconductor equipment is making rapid breakthroughs.
On the other hand, because Chinese manufacturers have hoarded a large amount of semiconductor equipment, there is no need to worry about the lack of equipment in the short term, resulting in production capacity that cannot be maintained. According to the information disclosed by some industry insiders, the service life of a lithography machine can reach 10 years, even if the replacement after considering the change of technology, it can generally be used for about five years.
On top of that, although ASML is restricted from shipping semiconductor equipment, it is taking advantage of the shipment permit period to ship large quantities of semiconductor equipment in order to be able to "make a profit" in the Chinese market, so that Chinese manufacturers can quickly obtain semiconductor equipment.
Lithography machine factory?China challenged
Huawei's example has taught Chinese chip manufacturers that they should not have illusions about American and Western companies, and only by mastering core technologies can they avoid being stuck. Although ASML is accelerating the shipment of advanced lithography machines to the Chinese market in order to get more revenue, ASML may not be able to continue shipping once the United States shrinks its export control ban.
Therefore, if you want to build a domestic chip industry chain, you must achieve a technological breakthrough in the field of lithography machine.
Judging from the public information, Shanghai Microelectronics has been able to manufacture and ship 90nm lithography machines, and has also achieved key breakthroughs in the field of 28nm lithography machines, and is expected to ship 28nm lithography equipment at the end of this year or early next year.
This can basically meet the needs of domestic manufacturers in the mature process, in the field of advanced EUV lithography machine technology, China's research institutes, universities are also accelerating breakthroughs, and have achieved technological breakthroughs in many fields such as light source engineering prototypes and objective lenses.
In addition to moving forward on the traditional road of EUV lithography machines, China is also looking for opportunities to overtake in corners. According to the news from Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University recently released an article titled "Experimental Demonstration of Steady-State Micro-Cluster Distance"**This** completed the first principle verification.
Judging from the content of this article, a large SSMB-EUV steady-state micro-beam light source can be split with some key technologies, and then the beam can be split to dozens of EUV lithography machines. Although this will make the lithography machine unable to move, and the cost is high, it solves the EUV light source limitation very well.
Postscript: Judging from the current news, China's EUV lithography plant technology still has a long way to go to be applied in practice, but the feasibility verification has basically been completed, which means that the emergence of lithography plant technology is basically just a matter of time. This undoubtedly broke ASML's monopoly in the field of EUV lithography machines.
For ASML, EUV lithography machine is the focus of revenue, as the United States chip companies have reduced production capacity, ASML's revenue and shipments have also been affected, and now it is facing the rapid rise of lithography machine technology in China, I am afraid that ASML will not have such a good time after that.
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