The United States is waiting for China's lithography machine to fail, what is China's response to it?
As we all know, some time ago the United States updated the chip ban to ban immersion lithography.
The reason why immersion lithography is banned is, of course, because with immersion lithography, after many times, it is possible to produce 7nm wafers, and the US goal is to fix our process at 14nm.
Therefore, the U.S. hopes that after banning this type of infiltration, it will be able to achieve the goal of immobilizing the process at 14 nanometers.
However, we are all well aware that China has accumulated a large number of lithography machines before the United States did not ban Chinese mainland from buying immersion lithography machines.
According to ASML, China expects to purchase a total of 1,400 lithography machines from ASML by the end of 2023.
The number of these immersion lithography machines is at least more than 400 units, especially in 2022 and 2023, Chinese foundries are stockpiling a large number of immersion lithography machines.
In the third quarter of 2023, Chinese mainland contributed 46% of ASML's revenue, and in the first three quarters of this year, Chinese mainland purchased more than twice the amount of lithography machines for ASML as in the whole of last year.
Therefore, the explicit prohibition of immersion lithography machines will not play a role, because so many goods have accumulated and can be used in the same way.
However, the United States also said that this kind of lithography will be bad, according to the ban, once it is broken, if ASML needs to be repaired and replaced with spare parts, it must also be authorized, and the United States does not give authorization, so once this lithography machine is broken, it will become a scrap.
The United States waited for the lithography machine to become scrap, and the purpose of the ban had been achieved.
So the question that arises in this case is: what should we do, as the United States expects, to turn these lithographs into scrap?
In my opinion, there are two ways, the first is to repair and produce spare parts by yourself, after all, the immersion lithography machine is not so complicated, I believe that you can train a group of maintenance personnel, support a group of companies, and produce spare parts, so that the broken ones can also be repaired, without ASML, you don't have to worry about it becoming a waste product.
The second way is to find a unique way, that is, your own lithography technology has advanced, when we can produce our own immersion lithography machine, the internal market can replace it, what is not bad?
And the second method is obviously correct, even if the national ** chain can't surprise us, when will the national penetration lithography machine that has been talked about for a long time be promoted, otherwise it is really a bit of a problem.