Some people may ask why not put the R&D centers in both China and Amerikan?
In the future, ASML will have R&D centers all over the world, including R&D centers in Shenhai, Wanwan, Europe and Amerikan.
This is because the new core lithography machine is in its infancy. After the experimental model in the initial stage comes out, it needs to conduct a lot of testing, communication and verification with the manufacturer to iteratively optimize the experimental model and launch it as soon as possible to intervene in the formal production process. machine.
At this stage, all R&D efforts need to be concentrated and invested in solving problems for the company's survival.
After achieving break-even or close to break-even in the future, we will consider the next step and establish R&D centers overseas.
"Also, what do you think of the semiconductor agreement signed between American and Neon since 1986?" Zhou Xin changed the topic.
Guan Jianying immediately understood what Zhou Xin meant: "The two parties signed a five-year semiconductor agreement starting in 1986, requiring Neon to limit the export share of semiconductor products to American and increase the import of American semiconductors.
It is clearly stated that the share of foreign semiconductor products in the neon market is at least 20%.
In addition, American also interfered with Neon's internal industrial policy. In order to promote the sales of American's semiconductor products in the Neon market, Neon agreed to take measures to improve market transparency and simplify procurement procedures to facilitate American's supply. Businesses can enter the neon market more easily.
What is even more egregious is that the Neon government encourages technical cooperation and exchanges between Neon Semiconductor companies and Amerikan Semiconductor companies.
Neon Semiconductor has been a leader in the 1980s and now its market share has been squeezed out by Wanwan and Gaoli. The most fundamental reason is that this series of self-restraining strategies prevent them from executing it. "
Neon suffered the same suppression that China later faced as early as the late 1980s.
Later, there are many high-sounding explanations for why Gao Li and Wanwan achieved overtaking in the semiconductor field:
Global competition has intensified, and the semiconductor industries of America, Korea, and Wanwan have developed rapidly, creating huge competitive pressure on Neon.
Americen has made significant progress in process technology, product innovation and intellectual property protection, while Gaoli and Wanwan have rapidly expanded their market share through low-cost production and government support.
During this period, semiconductor technology underwent major changes, with storage technology shifting from DRAM to higher-performance SRAM and flash memory. Neon Comfort's competitiveness in these emerging markets has gradually weakened, and it is unable to keep up with market changes and demands.
Some neon semiconductor companies have problems in management and strategy, such as over-reliance on specific product lines, lack of diversification and blind pursuit of scale expansion. These problems limit the development of Neon Semiconductor companies and their ability to respond to market changes.
In the early 1990s, the neon economic bubble burst, causing a domestic economic recession. This has had a serious negative impact on Neon's semiconductor industry, leading to reduced capital expenditures, overcapacity and declining corporate efficiency.
These are all obvious reasons. There are countless reasons on the surface. The fundamental reason behind them is that Amerikan cannot accept that semiconductor companies are not in its own hands. Most of Neon’s semiconductor companies are in the hands of Neon’s local capital. inside.
Wall Street capital participation is too low.
Gaoli and Wanwan are different. Their semiconductor industries absorbed a large amount of Americen capital during the development stage. Later, Americen's technology and capital made a lot of contributions to the development of semiconductors in these two regions.
To put it bluntly, America provides money and technology, while Neon and Korea provide land and engineers.
In the 1980s, Neon Semiconductor only relied on Amerikan for its technology, and the degree of dependence was not high.
Zhou Xin saw that Guan Jianying understood what he meant, and continued: "Yes, Amerikan cannot yet accept Neon as his ally, and there are advanced semiconductor companies.
How can America accept China's development of its own semiconductor companies?
When we were making photolithography machines, we were fine when we lagged behind in manufacturing processes. We were willing to pay TSMC or Samsung Electronics, and they would help us test the effects of the experimental machines.
But when we catch up with the current international advanced manufacturing process, what they will do to hinder our R&D progress is a completely uncontrollable risk. "
The competition in semiconductors is no less brutal than that of the Internet, or even more brutal than the Internet.
Because in a sense, semiconductors are a much more cruel zero-sum game than the Internet. There is a pool of chip demand. If you produce one more chip, it means I have to sell one less chip.
In the Internet industry, everyone is competing for user time. If you make a good enough product that can expand the increment of user usage time, then you can obtain the user increment time without affecting the user's stock time occupied by my application.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the average time users used the Internet was about three hours. By the second decade of the 21st century, the average time users used the Internet exceeded 8 hours.
This extra time is the increment brought by mobile Internet.
Therefore, later generations of TSMC used various legal actions to hinder the development of SMIC, from SMIC infringing on many of their semiconductor manufacturing technology patents to SMIC poaching its employees to obtain its trade secrets.
Later, in 2009, Zhang Rujing resigned from SMIC. It was said that it was due to personal reasons. In fact, it was TSMC's request that Zhang Rujing resigned before they were willing to reach a settlement agreement.
Why is TSMC suing SMIC? Because the better SMIC develops, the more market share TSMC will lose.
As for whether SMIC has used TSMC's technology, it should have. In the early days, from the establishment of SMIC in 2000 to 2002, SMIC poached more than 100 engineers from TSMC.
Around June 2002, TSMC found Americen, an analog IC design company that placed orders with both SMIC and TSMC, to implant latent graphics on the photomask produced by TSMC's Silicon Intellectual Property Platform.
By November 2003, TSMC obtained the chips sold by SMIC to this company, and used electron microscope backstripping and restoration engineering to find TSMC's special hidden patterns.
Why does SMIC want to use TSMC's technology? It can't be through purchasing patent licenses. To put it bluntly, it still has no money.
As a latecomer in the field of chip foundry, SMIC needs to win the market by grabbing orders at low prices.
Grabbing orders at low prices means they don't have much room for profit, and they don't have much money to buy patents from official channels.
The first round was only US$630 million, and a total of 7 chip processing plants were built. There was no money to buy patents.
Moreover, TSMC acquired Shida Semiconductor at a high price of US$5 billion. To put it bluntly, it hopes to monopolize this market as much as possible and then raise the price to obtain excess profits.
They are also unwilling to sell patents to SMIC.
Zhou Xin continued: “If there were no new core lithography machines, ASML would have a high probability of winning in the semiconductor field in the future.
Nikon and Canon, which do not have much Americen capital behind them, will gradually fall behind. As long as ASML achieves a little bit of technological leadership, from Intel to Samsung to TSMC, the use of ASML lithography machines will be greatly increased.
Help ASML form a positive cycle of research and development-technology leadership-re-development. "
Zhou Xin knew that this was not a high probability, but an absolute.
From the 1980s to the early 21st century, Nikon lithography machines, which had always occupied more than 50% of the market share, had a market share of less than 5% in 2020, while ASML held 90% of the market share.
EUV lithography machines are even monopolized by ASML.
Zhou Xin knows that if he wants to survive, especially in the current environment, he must form a whole industry chain.
Otherwise, even if they make a photolithography machine with the same accuracy as mainstream products on the market, the foundry will still not choose you.
You can't enter the production process and never know what the produced lithography machine will look like.
Accuracy and yield are two concepts. Once the accuracy is achieved, there may be a huge difference in yield.
Unless Zhou Xin is willing to continuously contribute to the research and development of lithography machines, he will rely on the money earned from other places to fund the development of lithography machines.
Wait until Americen begins to ban the sale of advanced semiconductor chips to China.
Then the new core lithography machine has the opportunity to enter the production process.
It’s too long and there are a lot of uncontrollable variables.
“So we need to form an in-depth cooperative relationship with the chip foundry that Zhang Rujing wants to establish.
They are also short of money recently, and the last thing I am short of is money.
I should talk to Zhang Rujing, I will give him funds, and then let us start a lot of testing as soon as our photolithography machine is built. "
From consumer electronics brands to chip foundry to photolithography machines and analog IC design, these most important nodes must form a joint force.
Only in this way can we drive the development of the entire industrial chain.
After listening, Guan Jianying said: "Newman, I understand what you mean.
Although your money is earned from Wall Street, it is not Wall Street's money, it is your money.
Therefore, there is no Wall Street capital behind the semiconductor company you established. We must either accept the entry of Wall Street capital or build a separate system.
But it is too difficult to build a system alone. "
Zhou Xin waved his hand: "First of all, I never said that we should build a separate system.
We just make our own photolithography machines and analog IC design.
In addition, it is not necessary to build a system by ourselves. Neon Semiconductor is half-dead. We can form a cooperation with Neon.
We can all use the technology, experience and talents that Neon has accumulated in the semiconductor field.
And I have never objected to cooperation with semiconductor companies in places like Amerikan, Korea, and Wanwan. "
Guan Jianying is a Chinese born in mainland China, not a curvy person, so Zhou Xin can speak more straightforwardly.
"When our products are competitive enough, we can sell them to them, and their technology and products can also be sold to us."
I updated a chapter for 3k in the morning, and now I’m updating another chapter for 3k. I’ve been adjusting my work schedule recently.
(End of chapter)
