As the only manufacturer in the Western world that can produce the most advanced EUV lithography machines, AS-ML has mastered the core lithography machines for extremely advanced semiconductor processes such as 5 nanometers or even 3 nanometers. But in the process of its development

, but it was not all smooth sailing.

From a historical perspective, it is somewhat magical that before 2006, the world’s semiconductor overlord was still a company called Nikon.

Neon's Nikon Company launched the lithography machine NSR-1010g and the commercial stepper lithography machine Stepper in the 1980s, becoming the leader in the semiconductor lithography machine industry in the 1980s. For a time, Neon had a significant presence in the technology industry.

Become a star of tomorrow.

"Very coincidental" is that in the same era, the Dutch company Philips established a joint venture with a Dutch chip equipment agent as-ml.

At the beginning of its establishment, as-ml only had a few dozen employees on its books, and its office was located in a legendary simple factory.

Then this little-known company was able to miraculously develop the first-generation stepping scanning lithography machine pas2000 in the first year of its establishment, and successfully won market orders with this.

In the 1990s, as-ml was directly listed on the Nasdaq in North America and the Amsterdam Exchange in the Netherlands simultaneously, and it was successful.

And after the successful listing, as-ml not only made a lot of money, but also decisively repurchased all the shares from Philips, achieving complete independence in the true sense.

Then in 2004, as-ml developed the first immersion lithography machine prototype, and successfully won orders from major international customers such as IBM and TSMC.

After becoming the world's top lithography machine giant, AS-ML was once again "very lucky" to receive the EUV legacy.

This matter started in 1997 when Intel and the U.S. Department of Energy took the lead in establishing the EUV LLC Alliance.

At that time, the development of EUV technology was slow and required too many resources. Therefore, in the "fair and open" competition, the United States finally chose AS-ML, which did not have strong technical reserves at the time, to join the EUV Alliance.

Asml has thus obtained the priority to use the most advanced semiconductor technology, materials science, optics, precision manufacturing and other related technologies in the United States and even the world. At the same time, asml also "understands the rules" and accepts supervision of its production.

authority was given to Uncle Sam's government.

Over the past few years, researchers from the EUV LLC Alliance have published hundreds of papers, significantly advancing the research progress of EUV technology and proving the feasibility of EUV lithography technology.

But just when the fruit was about to mature, the EUV LLC alliance miraculously disbanded.

The achievements of the alliance were divided between Intel and as-ml. From the beginning of the century when the alliance was disbanded, to 2010, as-ml absorbed the alliance's legacy and successfully succeeded with the strong help of American capital and the government.

Produced the first EUV lithography machine, the nxe3100 EUV lithography machine, and delivered it to TSMC for chip OEM production.

At this point, the world's silicon-based semiconductors have followed AS-ML's lead, and the photolithography machines it produces every year are treasures sought after by major semiconductor companies.

The United States has also successfully achieved its goal of controlling the semiconductor field.

On the left hand is the obedient and considerate AS-ML, which can easily control any semiconductor chip foundry company in the world. On the right hand is the capital-led Intel, which controls the core CPU of every computer.

Even if there is a newcomer like AMD later, tracing back to the roots, the technology mastered by AMD is also the fruit of the United States, so it is also a family.

Even in order to cut off the development path of latecomers, as-ml also proposed a "customer joint investment plan" in 2012, ip.

To put it simply, it means accepting capital injection from customers. When customers become shareholders, they also have priority ordering rights.

This not only allows as-ml to have a large amount of funds for research and development, but also ensures customers' priority use of advanced photolithography technology.

The three major leaders in the semiconductor industry at that time: Intel, TSMC, and Korean Star naturally responded one after another and did not dare to disobey.

Intel spent US$4.1 billion to acquire a 15% stake in Dutch chip equipment manufacturer ASML, and invested another US$1 billion to support ASML in accelerating the development of expensive chip manufacturing technology. TSMC invested 838 million euros to acquire ASML.

About 5% equity. Korean Star spent 503 million euros to acquire 3% equity and injected an additional 275 million euros to cooperate in the research and development of new technologies.

In the end, ASML not only obtained 5.3 billion euros in funding with 23% of its useless equity, but also directly tied up the world's top three semiconductor leaders.

This is the history of the rise of the as-ml semiconductor empire. Judging from reports from all sides, it is full of magic, inspiration, American capital, and the Dutch founders are so righteous in promoting the development of science and technology, even "without asking for anything in return."

Semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel, TSMC, and Korean Star, in order to enable their equipment providers to develop better, have "shaked hands and made peace" with them by providing them with money and resources.

It's just that the core of this story, wrapped in beautiful narrative vocabulary, is the hegemony of the United States.

Companies such as Intel, TSMC, and Korean Star, even if there is commercial competition, even if each of the three parties wants the other party to go bankrupt and die, under the pressure of hegemony, they have to "generously donate money", almost as a tribute to as-

ml makes money.

October 23rd, early morning.

On the outskirts of Enhofen, the fifth largest city in the Netherlands, is the headquarters of as-ml, the world's largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

In a huge factory building that is tightly protected by security and the military, countless employees wearing dust-free work clothes are working in the workshop.

Even though it is 3:30 in the morning, this is not the working time that the "humanitarian West" should have at all.

The EUV light energy used by EUV lithography machines is extremely destructive, and strict lithography machines naturally require extremely sensitive and precise material equipment when controlling this light.

Even because various molecules in the air can interfere with EUV light, many workshops in this huge factory are in a vacuum environment.

Peter Wen, CEO of as-ml, was not lying on the bed at this time.

He frowned and looked at the employees and machines outside the workshop with a gloomy expression.

He put his hands behind his back and walked back and forth.

"Sir, please don't walk around outside the workshop. You should know that silence is required inside the factory."

Colson, the engineer in charge of a certain project of the as-ml lithography machine, interrupted Peter Wen's actions.

Faced with these top engineers, Peter Wen, CEO of as-ml, naturally would not sing any dissent and felt that they were offending his authority.

On the contrary, his attitude instantly changed to humility, and he apologized: "Please forgive me for being irritable. It is true that our competitors have given us too many unexpected 'surprises'."

As an engineer who can be responsible for specific projects in as-ml, Colson is naturally not a loser.

He pointed to a workshop not far away and said: "One of the most critical parts of the EUV lithography machine, the reflector produced by Zeiss in Germany, needs to be extremely flawless, and the size of the flaw can only be calculated in picometers.

CEO, you should know that a nanometer is one millionth of a centimeter, and a picometer is one thousandth of a nanometer.

What is this concept?

If the area of ​​the reflector is the size of the entire territory of Germany, then the highest protrusion of the reflector cannot be higher than one centimeter."

After saying this, the engineer sighed.

He turned his head, looked to the east, and sighed: "In distant Daxia, they have only entered the precision industry for a short time, and now they have already made a photolithography machine that is not inferior to ours.

Xinguang Technology Company, a subsidiary of Jiuzhou Technology, has manufactured the ss1mb light source developed from steady-state micro-focusing. So where did Pudong Microelectronics obtain such a flat reflector?

Also, how are the photoresist production processes, etching processes, and engineering equipment used in each link used by Kyushu Semiconductor adjusted?

This is really a mystery that is hard to solve.”

At this moment, Colson no longer had the high spirits he had when he led the project.

When he was feeling emotional, besides the young Da Xia Cai, another figure appeared frequently in his mind.

The common facial features of Asians are yellow and thin. Although they are serious about their work, they are dull, which makes people wonder whether this person's academic qualifications are fake.

"Dr. Colson, you are right. It's just that we cannot achieve results in a short period of time in terms of legal matters. Jiuzhou Technology's legal department is doing everything possible to obstruct us.

Moreover, there is currently only one SS1MB light source lithography machine produced by Pudong Microelectronics in Korea Hansung's factory. We cannot use lobbying methods to get Korea Hansung to hand over this lithography machine to us for disassembly and research.

And as far as I know, the factories that Kyushu Technology cooperates with Koryo Hansung, as long as they use Kyushu semiconductor production technology, have been controlled by Kyushu Security, and they are violently expropriating Koryo Hansung’s assets.

well……"

Faced with the "lament" of as-ml CEO Peter Wen, Colson did not object.

He also gave serious advice.

"Sir, in fact, part of the reason why Jiuzhou Technology Semiconductor has been able to develop so rapidly is because they recruit many R&D personnel and engineers from us and our partner companies, such as TSMC and Intel.

Although Jiuzhou Technology found some loopholes and recruited some people who had not signed a non-compete agreement, this also shows that these people can be lobbied.

After all, they were able to leave their original company and go to a company that had no semiconductor business at all. The main reason must be money.

As long as we can give them higher salaries and benefits, we can definitely beat Jiuzhou Technology in terms of human resources.

And as long as we recruit these people back, we can get enough information from them, and even combine it with the optical technology of Korea Hansung Factory to reversely crack the semiconductor technology of Kyushu Technology."

After hearing Colson's suggestion, CEO Peter Wen's eyes brightened for a few seconds, and then dimmed again.

He shook his head and said in denial: "Since those people entered the Jiuzhou Science and Technology Park, our company, TSMC, Intel and even Korea Star have also lobbied them, and even offered project dividends and company options, but they have all been rejected.

Even the Legal Department of Kyushu Technology sued us internationally for these actions, saying that we intended to steal company secrets, Daxia Guojia secrets.

Our company's legal department has been struggling with these cases over the years. And as far as we know, Jiuzhou Technology has signed a non-competition agreement with almost everyone participating in the project, and has paid out sufficient agreement subsidies on time.

Therefore, even though we had persuaded a few people to do so, in the end we were faced with the harsh non-compete agreement and sky-high liquidated damages. Even though we expressed our willingness to fund these people to pay the liquidated damages, no one dared to take that step.

"

"Alas..." Colson sighed.

Then someone not far away sighed simultaneously.

Then someone else started to sigh.

A small rest room outside the workshop triggered a wave of sighs.

On this day, countless people in the as-ml headquarters factory began to sigh.

Whether they are engineers who are "excellent in their skills", ordinary employees, or senior management of the company, no one looks good after reading the news.

Amidst the sighs, some Chinese people within as-ml also chose to resign.

Although they cannot enter companies such as Jiuzhou Technology and Pudong Microelectronics at this time, Xiaxin Technology is throwing olive branches around the world.

After just a few days of fermentation, the stock price of as-ml has been falling again and again, and it is impossible to watch it at all.
To be continued...