Ignoring the US ban, Korean companies have placed orders with Chinese factories and advanced into the field of EUV lithography machines!
*China factory? The South Korean company buys 8 EUV lithography machines despite the US ban.
There is no doubt that the chip policy of the United States has a great impact on South Korean companies, more than 50% of their products are Chinese products, and now they are even more precarious, in this case, South Korean companies no longer have the concessions of the past, but decide to cooperate with the United States"Fight to the end"。
For a long time, South Korea's high land prices and high labor costs have led South Korean companies to look to China. Samsung and SK hynix are heavily dependent on China, which accounts for more than 40% of their total production.
The Biden team has urged South Korean companies to withdraw from the Chinese market, but South Korea has taken a tough stance and adopted a neutral stance, which has kept Chinese companies in the Chinese market share, but also brought many difficulties.
Due to the new ban, the South Korean company is unable to import advanced EUV lithography machines to its factories in China. It was a nightmare for SK Hynix, which was in dire need of a transformation, but SK Hynix did not back down.
SK announced some time ago that its Wuxi plant will be commissioned with the latest EUV lithography machine in 2024. This time, there will be more people to see how their technology can be upgraded if they can't bring the latest equipment to China.
On the other hand, SK hynix has developed its own"card", according to this one"card"The semi-finished products are sent to South Korea, where they are returned to Wuxi after completing the initial process at the Wuxi factory.
Although it cost a little more money, it finally got rid of the blockade of the United States, and compared with the previous debt, the upgrading of the Wuxi factory is a certainty, but no one would have thought that SK hynix would actually start producing lithography machines again.
According to market reports, SK hynix has placed an order with ASML for eight EUV lithography machines, indicating that the upgrade of the Wuxi plant means that these state-of-the-art machines will be used in the Wuxi production line.
Wuxi SK Hynix is SK Hynix's largest plant, with a production capacity of about 40% of the world's total production. The inability to increase production capacity will inevitably affect the production of high-end chips in the future, and now the Japanese armor company is trying to merge with Western Digital to enter the memory market.
Although the market share of the two companies is not high, if the merger is successful, their combined market share will reach more than 31%, and even the market that focuses on low-end products will have a big impact on Korean companies, so SK hynix will have to hold on to the Chinese market in the final stage.
in elimination"Next card"At the same time, it also indirectly shows the United States that even without EUV lithography equipment, they will not be able to cut off the ** with China, not to mention that the South Korean system is still the most advanced in the world in terms of memory chips, and even American semiconductor companies cannot compete with it.
The United States did not take any action against South Korean companies, apparently the American ban on chips was ineffective, and then they insisted on slowly eliminating the last advantage. Treasure hunting.