Meixin once again abandoned EUV, ASML frowned, and the Chinese market is indispensable.
A few days ago, news broke that the EUVDSA lithography chip manufacturing process developed by Intel without technological progress has reached 14 nanometers, which excludes one more EUV lithography chip company, which is undoubtedly a big blow to ASML, which has always met the requirements of the United States.
First of all, chip companies have been developing technology to bypass EUV lithography machines.
The first to successfully develop EUV-free lithography technology is undoubtedly Japan's Canon, Canon's EUV-free lithography nanoimprint technology (NIL) has broken through 10 nanometers, and is expected to eventually reach the 5 nanometer process, which has been adopted by Japanese armorers.
When Japanese lithography companies such as Canon and Nikon mainly developed dry lithography machines, ASML quickly squeezed them out by cooperating with TSMC to develop immersion lithography machines, resulting in the rapid decline of Japan's lithography machine industry. After ASML developed the EUV lithography machine in the United States, the Japanese lithography machine industry completely declined, and it was unable to compete with ASML in technology, so Canon chose the EUV lithography machine that did not require NIL technology to seek survival space.
The second is the American chip company Micron, the 1 process developed by Micron does not need EUV lithography, and the 1 process developed by Micron is to use the existing DUV lithography technology to further improve the performance of the chip and reduce the production cost, after all, the ** of EUV lithography is at least three times that of DUV lithography, and the cost of materials and other materials required for production is also higher.
Today, Intel is in third place, Intel R&D and DSA mainly consider production costs, Intel is no longer the glory of the past, AMD is based on the ZEN architecture, and is still trying to conquer the desktop PC market, surpassing Intel for the first time since 2007. Server chips are Intel's main profit**, which directly led to Intel's third consecutive quarter of losses.
In order to reduce costs, it can now be said that Intel has taken a variety of ways, it has laid off more than 10,000 employees since last year, and now the development of DSA technology is undoubtedly to further reduce production costs, avoid buying more EUV lithography machines, and use DSA technology to further improve chip performance.
Second, ASML has regrets.
In recent years, ASML can be said to listen to the words of the United States, the United States from 2018 to require ASML not to China chip companies to **EUV lithography machines, from the second half of last year to the United States to require ASML not to China ** 14nm below DUV lithography machines, to some time ago plans to further block ASML ** 28nm below DUV lithography machines, ASML has basically complied, ASML has complied to a large extent.
As a result of complying with U.S. requirements, ASML's share of revenue from the Chinese market has fallen rapidly from 30% in the first quarter of 2022 to about 10%, and ASML's performance has also increased last year, which has led ASML executives to say that even the loss of the Chinese market will not affect it.
However, with the continuous improvement of China's chip self-sufficiency rate, chip procurement continues to decline, since last year, China has reduced chip imports by as much as 150 billion pieces, which has begun to have an impact on the global chip market, most of the chip companies in the United States have experienced a decline in performance, the decline in chip performance in the United States has led to a decrease in chip orders, and even requires TSMC to reduce wafer foundry**, which has led to TSMC to reduce chip production capacity, and naturally no longer purchase lithography machines on a large scale, which will eventually have an impact on ASML.
Micron and Intel, two consecutive chipmakers in the United States, plan to bypass EUV lithography technology, which will have a greater impact on ASML. EUV lithography machines account for the majority of ASML's profits**, so U.S. chipmakers will reduce the amount of EUV lithography machines purchased, putting ASML under pressure. For ASML's lithography business, this situation can be described as a great situation.
ASML's second-quarter earnings report reflects ASML's other considerations, and its financial report shows that China's lithography machine sales reached 27 units in the second quarter, compared with only 8 in the previous quarter, an increase of more than 2 times, showing that ASML took advantage of the window period some time ago when lithography machines were implemented to implement stricter export restrictions on large-scale sales in China.
Obviously, ASML, which is working against the American chip industry, has its own ideas, that is, it can no longer completely obey the instructions of the United States, but must take into account the survival of the company, so it takes the opportunity to actively go to China's first lithography machine, after all, for enterprises, interests are the first consideration, which also shows that the importance of the Chinese market to ASML is not increasing but decreasing.