ASML lithography machine ended, foreign media: overtaking in corners failed, and the semiconductor pattern is about to change.
With the increasingly fierce competition between China and the United States, the domestic Internet has gradually paid more attention to chips, and many people have realized the importance of chips. In fact, with the rapid development of emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and new energy vehicles, chips have become more of these fields"Sweet and sweet"。
With the country's emphasis on chips, the improvement of the chip production environment, which accounts for more than 20% of the demand for lithography process, has also begun to attract the attention of the state. Lithography technology can not only be applied to the chip manufacturing process, but also to the chip packaging and testing process to achieve higher chip packaging and testing efficiency.
At present, there are many world-renowned semiconductor equipment manufacturing enterprises in China, such as Shanghai Microelectronics, North Hualong, Hua Microelectronics, etc., among which Shanghai Microelectronics has developed very rapidly in lithography technology and has entered the top ten in the world, basically second only to ASML in the Netherlands, as well as a few enterprises such as Nikon and Canon in Japan.
China's domestic lithography machine process has reached 90 nanometers, and after many iterations, it can be produced on the 65 nanometer process. Previously, Shanghai Microelectronics also reported a breakthrough in the 28nm lithography process, which is expected to be delivered to the Chinese market by the end of 2023 or early 2024.
When it comes to lithography machines, Dutch semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML is a leader in the industry, not only the only company in the world that can provide EUV lithography machines, but also the world's largest lithography equipment manufacturer.
ASML engineers once arrogantly said that even if the design drawings of the lithography machine were handed over to China, China would not be able to build an advanced lithography machine. However, some time ago, China apparently did not need ASML's lithography drawings to produce lithography machines.
ASML, which is now a leader in the field of lithography machines, actually experienced serious difficulties in the development process, and was even on the verge of bankruptcy, but finally survived. Based on this, it is not difficult to see that the future development of China's lithography machine industry may not be able to surpass ASML and other American and Western companies.
In order to restrict the development of China's chip industry, the United States has not only revised chip regulations many times, restricting the shipment of advanced chips, technologies and materials. The United States, Japan and the Netherlands have also signed a tripartite agreement to restrict shipments of semiconductor equipment. Under repeated pressure and demands from the United States, the Netherlands finally announced that it would restrict the shipment of semiconductor equipment from September 1.
However, on the same day that Dutch export controls on semiconductor equipment came into effect on September 1, ASML publicly stated that it had been approved to ship lithography machines and could continue to ship them until 2024. In addition, starting in the second quarter of this year, ASML began to accelerate the shipment of semiconductor equipment to the Chinese market.
According to the financial data released by ASML, in the first three quarters of this year, ASML's revenue in the Chinese market accounted for % and 48% respectively. From these figures, it is not difficult to see that ASML seems to be more focused on accelerating the delivery of devices to the Chinese market than Chinese chip companies.
In fact, this is due to the rapid development of domestic equipment manufacturers, various semiconductor equipment manufacturers have completed the upgrading, and Tsinghua University has also proposed"Lithography factory"concept. ASML began to worry that China's lithography technology could not keep up. ASML has encountered similar situations many times in the process of development, and even was on the verge of bankruptcy for a time, and I believe that ASML does not want to try again.
Founded in 1984, ASML, which specializes in high-end lithography production, provides a full range of solutions including lithography, lithography simulation, and lithography inspection, as well as support services, parts, and more.
In 1984, several members of the lithography equipment development team at Philips thought: why not do it yourself anyway, so why not do it yourself?Moreover, the future of lithography is very bright. So, these people left Philips and founded ASML.
For a long time, ASML's performance was not good, the technical level lagged behind the semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the United States and Japan, almost all lithography consumables were sold to Philips, and ASML even had a lot of financial problems.
The turning point in ASML's fortunes began in 1990. In this year, ASML launched the PAS5500 series of lithography machines, breaking the monopoly of American and Japanese manufacturers and gradually becoming one of the world's leading lithography machine manufacturers.
From 1999 to 2007, ASML began to expand and optimize its product line through major mergers and acquisitions, and ASML entered a phase of rapid development. In 2001, ASML completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley Group (SVG), which already has mature 157nm optical technology, and through the acquisition of SVG, ASML's lithography technology has reached the world's leading level. With the acquisition of SVG, ASML is a world leader in lithography technology.
ASML's technical level began to grow rapidly, and even triggered a technological change in the industry, and in 2001 ASML launched a double lithography machine machine.
However, despite the growth achieved during this period, ASML still faced Japanese lithography machines from both Nikon and Canon"Constraints", as well as the strong influence of several semiconductor equipment companies in the United States. At the time, ASML was even used by Nikon and Canon"Defeated", repeatedly suffered bad luck and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
But ASML is on the rise again. At that time, Japanese companies Nikon and Canon hoped to use dry lithography technology in the development of future lithography technology, and most of the industry believed that ASML was experimenting with wet lithography technology, which was the immersion lithography technology proposed by TSMC's Hayashi Benjian some time ago.
In 2004, ASML launched the first immersion lithography machine prototype, and since then, immersion lithography has taken the lithography machine market by storm, and ASML has taken the opportunity to surpass semiconductor equipment companies such as Nikon and Canon to become an industry leader.
Later, Intel and other U.S. semiconductor companies formed the EUV Alliance, and ASML was the only non-U.S. semiconductor company. After the consortium developed the EUV light source technology, ASML also developed the EUV lithography machine, and today ASML is the only company that can provide EUV lithography machine.
Using ASML as an example, it's not hard to see that at some point, it's difficult to choose the right critical path for future growth.