As we all know, since the United States has carried out unscrupulous all-round sanctions and suppression against Huawei, China's outstanding science and technology enterprises, including DJI, ZTE and other Chinese outstanding science and technology enterprises have been hit to varying degrees, and in order to further suppress the rise of Chinese chips, the United States signed the so-called "tripartite agreement" with Japan and the Netherlands, the purpose of which is to restrict the shipment of advanced semiconductor equipment such as lithography machines.
It is undeniable that China's semiconductors have developed rapidly in recent years, but they started late, and there is still a big gap compared with the semiconductor technology of the United States and other countries, and the United States has seized this point and wants to suppress the rise of Chinese chips by restricting the shipment of lithography machines and other equipment. However, not long ago, an exciting news came that China's first self-developed domestic lithography machine has been successfully delivered!This is a milestone for China's science and technology.
As soon as this news came out, it quickly caused a sensation, and all parties had different opinions about it, especially the United States, it is estimated that Biden was completely dumbfounded, and the United States staged a dramatic "strange behavior".
First of all, the importance of lithography machine in the chip manufacturing process is self-evident, if the chip is known as the "pearl of the palm" of modern industrialization, then the lithography machine is the "heart" of chip manufacturing. At present, chips have become the cornerstone of modern science and technology, and are widely used in high-tech fields such as computers, military, aerospace, artificial intelligence, etc., and without lithography machines, there will be no high-performance chips.
The delivery of China's first domestically produced lithography machine this time is undoubtedly a beautiful "turnaround" and a slap in the face to those Western countries led by the United States.
Previously, a large part of the reason why we were controlled by others everywhere on chips was because of the lack of advanced lithography machines and basically relied on imports. The technical threshold of lithography machine is very high, and only a few companies in the world have the ability to mass-produce lithography machines.
In the field of lithography machine manufacturing, ASML in the Netherlands is a well-deserved "leading enterprise", with the most advanced lithography machine production technology, and it is also the only company in the world that can mass-produce EUV lithography machines. In addition, there are Nikon and Canon in Japan, and Terrico in the United States, although they all have the ability to mass-produce lithography machines, but there is still a big gap between them and ASML in terms of process.
As the world's largest chip consumer market, China has long relied on imports for lithography machines, which has made China's chip semiconductor industry fall into a very passive situation, especially after the United States has imposed a technical blockade on China's semiconductor industry, which not only restricts Chinese companies from obtaining and using American chips, technology and related equipment, but also puts pressure on the Netherlands to prevent ASML from shipping lithography machines to the Chinese market.
In the face of unprecedented difficulties, Chinese enterprises have not compromised, but have increased their independent research and development efforts, and are committed to building their own lithography machine equipment through a large amount of capital and manpower investment.
Finally, the hard work paid off, and in the field of lithography machines, China finally made a major breakthrough, and the first domestic lithography machine was successfully delivered!This lithography machine, independently developed by Shanghai Microelectronics, has reached 90nm, although there is still a big gap compared with ASML's EUV lithography machine, but it is also a good start, and it is enough to meet some chip needs in the Chinese market.
More importantly, the delivery of China's first lithography machine has allowed us to make our own voice in the field of international lithography machines, so that more countries and regions can feel China's scientific and technological strength. On the one hand, the Dutch ASML has also begun to adjust its strategy and no longer restrict the shipment of lithography machines to the Chinese market in an all-round wayOn the other hand, the U.S. response was unexpected, and there was a reason behind Biden's sudden easing of export controls to China, such as the official announcement of the lifting of the Entity List sanctions on the Identification Center of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the Medical Research Institute of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
As we all know, China is one of the world's largest chip consumer markets, once the United States completely cuts off the connection with China's chip market, American companies will also suffer heavy losses, we can understand that the United States has taken a compromise approach, while protecting its own chip interests, and then restricting the development of Chinese chips.