Introduction
At the “New Maritime Route for China’s Semiconductor Forum,” Jiang Xiaojun, co-founder of Chip Rate Intelligence, bluntly stated: China’s packaging technology is already at the forefront of the world, but the lifeblood of front-end manufacturing is still in the hands of others. Lithography machines cannot simply be assembled and expected to generate profit; the most challenging part is the subsequent “tuning” process that can last from 6 to 12 months, or even several years.
Jiang Xiaojun’s exact words: “Lithography machines cannot be used just because they are assembled; they need local customers to iterate together.”
Easy to Produce, Difficult to Mass-Produce
The completion of a lithography machine is not the end; what matters is whether it can achieve ayield rate of over 90% in a wafer fab.
Temperature differences of 0.001℃, floor vibrations of several nanometers, and variations in light source power of 0.1%… Any deviation in these parameters can result in the entire batch of chips being deemed unqualified.
These parameters cannot be calculated with formulas; they rely on real production lines running 24 hours a day, generating massive amounts of data from batches of chips being produced.
Without customers accompanying you for three to five years, even the best machines are just “laboratory toys.”
ASML’s Strength Lies in Its Ecosystem
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Samsung, and Intel all invested heavily in production lines, accompanying ASML through hair loss, financial losses, and pushing parameters to the extreme.
What China lacks today is not equipment manufacturers, but rather a leading wafer fab willing to bet billions on production lines and engage in a three-year relationship with domestic lithography machines.
Without this kind of “shared hardship” ecosystem, no matter how good the lithography machine is, it cannot enter the true7nm or 5nm production lines.
Be Aware, Don’t Be Deceived by the “20% Export Increase”
The increase is all inmature processes of 28nm and above, which have nothing to do with EUV lithography machines.
What truly determines the power of discourse isadvanced processes; even DUV lithography machines that have already arrived at the factory may slowly “go blind” due to lack of original factory service.
The bottleneck has never been the equipment, but whether there are partners willing to fight to the end with you.
The true moat of lithography machines is not the cold, hard machine itself, but the local customers on the production line who are willing to stay up late with you, willing to incur losses, and willing to push the yield from 30% to 95%.