As a Chinese mobile phone company once again released a 5G mobile phone, foreign media dismantling confirmed that the mobile phone was produced using China's own 7-nanometer process, which means that China's immersion lithography machine has entered the production line, which is the world's largest lithography machine. Enterprise ASML is undoubtedly shocked.
ASML is the world's largest lithography machine company. Although its most advanced lithography machine is already an EUV lithography machine, the largest proportion of lithography machines sold is DUV lithography machine. It had previously expected that in the next few years It will increase the production capacity of DUV lithography machines to 600 units, while EUV lithography machines will only increase to 90 units. It can be seen that DUV lithography machines are still its largest source of revenue.
DUV lithography machines can actually produce 7-nanometer processes. TSMC's first-generation 7-nanometer process was produced with the DUV lithography machine 2000i. It can be seen that DUV lithography machines are actually still quite advanced equipment. So far, TSMC is the only one in the world. , Samsung and Chinese chip manufacturing companies have produced 7 nanometers, while most other chip companies have stopped at 14 nanometers and above.
With the oversupply of global chips, most chip manufacturing companies have stopped expanding the production capacity of 14nm and above processes. After all, this part of the chip market has gradually stabilized. Only China has aggressively expanded the production capacity of this part of the process in order to increase its chip self-sufficiency rate. Now that China has successfully mass-produced 7nm, it is expected to further expand its 7nm process production capacity.
China's chip production capacity expansion will have an important impact on the global chip market. China is the world's largest chip purchasing country, purchasing nearly 70% of the chips. However, as China continues to increase its chip self-sufficiency rate, China's global purchases of chips will will gradually decline. Since the beginning of this year, China's reduced chip purchases have reached 60 billion.
China's reduction in chip purchases will further aggravate the global oversupply of chips, making it even more unnecessary for global chip companies to expand chip production capacity. Recently, the American chip giant Intel pointed out that if American chips are not sold to China, who else can the American chips be sold to? , we can see the huge influence that China, the world's largest chip purchasing country, has on the global chip market.
In this way, China's influence on global chip equipment will gradually become apparent. For ASML, he will face the problem that if he does not sell his DUV lithography machines to China, no one will buy his DUV lithography machines. After all, with the As China expands its chip production capacity, it will be good if many chip companies can maintain the existing market.
It can be seen from China's mass production of 7 nanometers that China's lithography machines have made major breakthroughs. Industry insiders pointed out that immersion lithography technology can be used from 28 nanometers to 7 nanometers. Now China may only adopt the first batch of immersion lithography It is generally believed that this is achieved through multiple exposure technology. This technology may still lag behind ASML for the time being, which will become ASML's time window.
No wonder that after the Chinese mobile phone company released 5G mobile phones, ASML quickly stated that it had obtained a license from the Netherlands to sell 2000i lithography machines to China, which is more advanced than the previous 1980Di. It shows that ASML has also realized that if it does not sell this type of machine, it will be more advanced. The DUV lithography machine was given to China, and the previous 1980Di was unable to capture the market from China.
This time window will not be too long. Industry insiders believe that China’s 7-nanometer DUV lithography machine will also be put into production in two or three years at most. By then, ASML will really have nothing to do with it.
Facts have proved that China can always quickly catch up with latecomers in scientific and technological research and development. Now, even if it faces such great difficulties, China can quickly develop an immersion lithography machine, accelerating the development of lithography machine technology and showing the resistance of the United States. It has stimulated the potential of China's chip industry and quickly narrowed the gap of nearly 20 years in a few years. Faced with such a situation, I am afraid that the European and American chip equipment industries will regret it, right?