Reborn 80s

"ASML recently announced that it has officially acquired Cymer, which is extremely beneficial for accelerating the development of EUV lithography machines."

For many people, Cymer is a little-known company.

In fact, this company is quite powerful and is the world's leading excimer laser manufacturer.

ASML has completed two heavyweight acquisitions in the past.

In 2001, it acquired the American lithography giant SVGL, quickly acquiring reflective technology and rapidly increasing its market share.

In 2007, it acquired Brion, a company specializing in computational lithography integrated circuits.

Until now, the Cymer company has been acquired.

These three companies are all American companies.

EUV LLC Alliance, for many people, they don’t know the existence of this alliance at all.

It was established specifically for the development of EUV lithography machine technology.

This EUV LLC alliance excludes Neon semiconductor companies.

The United States regards EUV as its core technology to revitalize the semiconductor industry, so naturally it will not allow its rival Neon to join it.

Chen Huaiqing pinched his chin. He still had some understanding of Asmer's development history.

It is certain that the entire research and development of EUV lithography machines is difficult.

However, as a commercial company, too much technical cooperation actually slows down efficiency.

Let’s put it this way!

For Cymer, it is not cost-effective to specialize in light sources for ASML.

When conducting research and development on a certain technology, you must first consider one thing, which is the market demand for this technology.

It is obvious that the demand for ASML's light sources is not high.

ASML's annual shipments are right there.

In the last life, the rise of ASML was due to the opportunity of immersive lithography machines.

Then, with the support of Itel, ASML shipped a large number of products.

Connie's dry lithography 157nm technology was half a step late, and it took another year to catch up on immersion lithography technology. After all, it was still too late.

Semiconductor companies simply no longer purchase Connie products.

From then on, Connie completely began to decline.

But the situation in this life has become different. Mota Microelectronics took the lead in developing an immersive lithography machine.

Although Itel also purchased Motta Microelectronics' products, when Connie's products came out, Itel still gave the order to Connie.

When ASML's products came out, they were given to ASML again.

Itel's support for Asmai is well known to everyone.

Glancing at the people in the conference room, Chen Huaiqing said to himself: "ASML's acquisition of Cymer has been brought forward. I remember it was acquired in 2013, and now it's two years ahead of schedule."

It’s early, it doesn’t seem to be a strange thing!

So, what is the development progress of ASML’s EUV lithography machine?

Cymer Company has become ASML's, so ASML can naturally let Cymer Company develop the light sources it needs at any cost.

It doesn’t mean that many technologies cannot be implemented.

But because of what it is made for?

It is easy to simply create technology, but it is difficult to monetize the technology and apply it commercially.

Generally speaking, it is the market that drives technology research and development.

Research and develop whatever the market needs.

This kind of R&D model is a healthy R&D model that can continue to circulate.

No company can afford to simply invest in R&D funds and develop a lot of technologies that cannot be commercialized.

Of course, the shareholders behind the company are obviously not willing to do this.

When investing in a company, shareholders want to gain profits.

If you mess around like this, you will get a hammer profit, but you might go bankrupt tomorrow.

Use your own money to waste money...

Money is brought by strong winds, so you won’t spend it like this!

Chen Huaiqing: "How is the research and development of our EUV lithography machine?"

For the research and development of EUV lithography machines, Mota Microelectronics simply cannot purchase parts overseas and they simply don’t sell them.

As a result, Mota Microelectronics can only carry out research and development with a little bit of technology.

ASML relies on the mature and cutting-edge industrial systems of Europe and the United States.

Since Mota Microelectronics does not have such a mature and cutting-edge industrial system, it can only be said that it has improved itself bit by bit.

One technology after another to make breakthroughs!

When a technological breakthrough occurs, we quickly find ways to apply the technology to a certain product.

New technologies don’t just sit on the shelf, just say you have them.

When a new technology appears, it must be put into production, problems must be discovered during actual use, and the technology must be improved.

Of course, when a new technology is put into production, it cannot be said that it will be applied immediately as soon as it comes out.

This won't work.

At Mota Holdings, a major technological upgrade will be carried out every once in a while.

A major technological upgrade is to apply new technologies that have emerged in the past period to production or products.

Different industries have different times for the cycle of major technological upgrades.

For example, in the case of consumer electronics, technology updates rapidly, and new technologies must be constantly used in products.

For consumers, new technologies stimulate their desire to buy.

In terms of time, you also need to control it.

Generally, one generation of products is launched a year.

If the speed is too fast, consumers will not be able to afford it.

Consumers' wallets are only so big. If they are empty today, it will take some time for their wallets to be bulging again.

Even before their wallets are full, a new product is being released. How can consumers have the money to buy it?

If consumers have no money to buy, product sales will naturally be greatly affected.

"It is estimated that it will take at least three to five years before formal production can be completed."

Three to five years!

How many years has passed since Mota Microelectronics started developing EUV lithography machines?

The babies that were born have grown up.

It does take quite a long time.

What are the technical difficulties of EUV lithography machines?

The reason why it can be launched in three to five years is because in the photolithography machine industry, Mota Microelectronics, a leading company, has been driving the development of the entire industry.

In the manufacturing of industrial products, the existence of a leading company is extremely important.

As long as there is one leading company, it can bring about a series of companies.

Why was Neon so strong back then?

A very important reason is that Neon's products are selling like hotcakes all over the world.

Behind these hot-selling products are supporting the development of neon-related industries.

For example, like a TV!

How many parts does a television require?

Shell, picture tube, plate, power supply, tuner, image amplifier, video amplifier, decoding, brightness signal, line field, CPU, high voltage, etc.

How many parts are these?

One part can support an enterprise.

The number of photolithography machines produced by Mota Microelectronics every year is indeed very small compared to the tens of millions of industrial products.

However, Mota Microelectronics has high technical requirements for parts!

For supporting companies, they can produce parts for Mota Microelectronics and apply the technology to other products.

Currently, among the suppliers of Mota Microelectronics, domestic companies account for 90%, and the remaining 10% are foreign companies.

Even these 10% of foreign companies are relatively low-risk.

As for the core components, Mota Microelectronics’ photolithography machines are all domestically produced.