ASML owes 293.3 billion orders, and China's 60 billion cores are waiting to be repaid.
In the field of science and technology some time ago, there was a name that shone like a star, Dutch ASML. This low-key and mysterious lithography machine giant, which controls the entire world's chip industry, is known as the brightest pearl in modern industry and has a pivotal position in the world. According to statistics, ASML has issued orders of up to 293.3 billion yuan to global lithography customers, of which about 60 billion yuan has not been delivered to the Chinese mainland market.
The story begins in an obscure startup in a small country in the Netherlands. After decades of honing and innovation, ASML has become the world's largest lithography machine manufacturer, with a market share of more than 80%, and occupies an absolute advantage in the high-end lithography machine market such as high-end EUV and deep ultraviolet lithography machines. ASML delivered 27 lithography machines to customers in Chinese mainland in the second quarter of this year. Behind this number are countless domestic chip manufacturers, full of expectations for the future.
But on September 1, the Netherlands** announced a ban on the export of deep ultraviolet lithography machines, which undoubtedly cast a shadow on the close cooperation between ASML and Chinese mainland. Despite this, ASML has not given up, announcing that it will continue to ship to the Chinese market in the second half of this year as a way to offset the potential impact of the ban.
For Chinese mainland, the order scale of 600 billion yuan is huge, which has both pressure and motivation. This shows that China's semiconductor industry is at a historic turning point, facing independent innovation and breakthroughs from external technical barriers. The current predicament faced by ASML reflects the increasingly urgent strategic needs of China's self-restraint and independent innovation.
China's semiconductor industry is continuing to research key technologies such as lithography with unprecedented determination and courage in the global semiconductor industry competition. We have reason to believe that in the future, domestic lithography machines will move from the laboratory to the production line, break the technical barriers of international giants, and truly become the world leader.