ASML announced that advanced lithography machines such as 7nm are restricted, but Huawei, SMIC and others are firmly moving forward.
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ASML submitted a satisfactory financial report with revenue of €27.6 billion in 2023, up 30% year-on-year. China accounted for 29% of sales, up from 14% in the previous year. However, ASML's challenge has just begun, according to the U.S.-Netherlands agreement, ASML announced that advanced lithography technologies such as 7nm are limited, but it cannot stop Huawei Semiconductor from manufacturing hundreds of billions of international entertainment.
ASML high-end lithography***
ASML is the world's leading manufacturer of semiconductor equipment, headquartered in the Netherlands. The company specializes in the development and production of advanced lithography technology, which is a key part of chip manufacturing equipment. Lithography uses optical technology to project a chip pattern onto a silicon chip, enabling precision manufacturing at the micron level.
Chinese chipmakers need advanced lithography equipment to meet the domestic market demand and improve their technological competitiveness.
ASML's lithography machines are widely used in the Chinese market, providing advanced manufacturing tools and technical support to Chinese wafer manufacturers. Both ASML and Chinese customers need to cooperate, but due to US and Dutch regulations, ASML's high-end lithography machines cannot be shipped to Chinese mainland.
ASML announced that the Netherlands has revoked the export license for NXT:2000i and above immersion lithography equipment. The lithography machine is a device used to make 7-nanometer chips, and ASML says that the inability to ship will affect some customers.
It was not ASML's intention to get to this point, after all, ASML has a close cooperative relationship with the Chinese market, and there is no need to offend this big financier. China has become ASML's largest market, and considering the future market prospects and China's demand for chip manufacturing, ASML is actively showing to China.
According to ASML CEO Wennink, only 10% of electric vehicles produced in China are made by Chinese factories themselves, so concerns about China's overinvestment in the chip industry are misplaced.
The ban could not stop Chinese companies.
The United States has been persuading the Netherlands to stand on its own. At first, the Netherlands refused because it did not want to follow the US policy towards China. Whatever the goals to which the Netherlands is committed, the choice is made by itself, and it must bear the consequences.
The related consequence is to face the most competitive variables in the market, because the Netherlands does not export advanced lithography machines, so Chinese manufacturers will inevitably increase their self-research efforts and embark on the road of self-sufficiency. The ban can't stop Chinese companies, just like the rebirth of Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip, and the United States doesn't know how Huawei did it.
But in fact, Huawei relies on the mainland industrial chain to produce Kirin 9000s chips, and not only Kirin 9000s, but also the Kirin 8000 carried by the nova12 series, and the MatePad Pro 13 released abroad2 tablets equipped with Kirin 9000w and so on.
The emergence of these Kirin chips fully shows that Huawei is gradually getting rid of the impact of the United States' restrictions on chips. In addition, SMIC is also accelerating the construction of 12-inch wafer factories in China, and the chips not provided by the United States are built by Chinese manufacturers.
At present, China is basically self-sufficient in the field of mature chips, with mature processes in the range of 28nm to 180nm, and many basic technologies and semiconductor equipment are domestic manufacturers. When one day, China breaks through the most cutting-edge lithography technology, the West may not be able to wait to ship.
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