Share the QR code < / P > < p > with wechat scanning code to friends and circle of friends < / P > < p > < / P > < p > [Wen / observer Lv Dong] "China is unlikely to replicate independently" Top notch lithography technology, because asmec relies on unremitting innovation and integration of parts that can only be obtained from non Chinese suppliers. But what I mean is not absolutely impossible, because the laws of physics in China are the same as ours. Never say never, they will try. " On January 19 local time, Peter wennick, CEO of ASML, a Dutch lithography giant, said < p > lithography machine is the core equipment of chip manufacturing and the semiconductor equipment with the greatest difficulty in research and development. ASMA currently monopolizes the world's top lithographic machine market, and is therefore regarded as a political pawn for the development of Chinese mainland chip industry. While Winpeter made the above statement, he also revealed that await had not obtained the most advanced lithography machine export license to Chinese mainland, but some production processes were not restricted. p> < p > Elvis Hsu, general manager of cinno research semiconductor division, said in an interview with observer.com that the lithography machine accounts for about 25-30% of the price of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and its R & D difficulties lie in the integration of technologies such as exposure light source, alignment system and transparent lens, as well as huge capital investment. At present, the domestic technology leading manufacturer of lithography machine is Shanghai microelectronics, which can stably produce lithography machines with 90 / 65 nm manufacturing process < p > 2021 is the year with the most serious chip shortage in the world. As a supplier of key semiconductor manufacturing equipment, asmai also showed a brilliant performance on January 19. According to the financial report, asmai's total revenue in 2021 was 18.6 billion euros (about 133.9 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 33%; The net profit was 5.9 billion euros (about 42.5 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 66%; The gross profit margin was 53%, an increase of 4 percentage points over the same period last year < p > asmax CEO Peter Wen said that 6.3 billion euros in revenue in 2021 came from 42 EUV system (extreme ultraviolet lithography) orders, 11 more than the previous year. The company has experienced many challenges in the past year, and the market demand is 40% to 50% higher than the maximum capacity. In order to improve customer support, the company chose to shorten the cycle to transport more equipment, mainly skip some factory tests through the rapid delivery process, and conduct final test and formal acceptance at the customer's site. Although this will delay revenue recognition until the formal acceptance of the customer, it can help the customer carry out wafer production ahead of time < p > increasing the number of employees has also become asmai's method to deal with the increase of demand. Wenpeter said that the company plans to increase the number of employees from 31500 to 35000 by the end of this year. He revealed that the company will have a net increase of more than 4000 new employees in 2021. By the end of 2022, the number of employees will increase by nearly 30% compared with the end of 2020. However, Mr winpeter said it might take two to three years for the company to achieve a balance between supply and demand. With the construction of new factories, the global semiconductor industry may even have "some degree of oversupply" by 2025 or 2026 < p > in the fourth quarter alone, asmai achieved a revenue of 5 billion euros, a net profit of 1.8 billion euros and a gross profit margin of 54.2%; New orders amounted to 7.1 billion euros. During the period, the company shipped 82 lithography systems, an increase of 3 over the previous quarter; Among them, there are 11 EUV lithography systems, 4 less than that in the previous quarter; In all shipments, 73% of the lithography machines are used for logic process manufacturing and 27% are used for memory chip production < p > in the past few years, asmai has been developing EUV lithography machines with high numerical aperture (0.55 Na). This EUV lithography machine adopts the latest optical design and has higher resolution (upgraded from 13nm to 8nm), which can reduce the chip area by 1.7 times and increase the transistor density by 2.9 times. Compared with the current 0.33 Na EUV lithography machine, 0.55 Na lithography machine can significantly improve the yield, reduce the cost and shorten the production cycle. Of course, the price of 0.55 Na lithography machine is also quite expensive. The price of each machine is about US $300 million (about RMB 1.9 billion), twice the price of 0.33 Na lithography machine < p > at present, TSMC and other chips producing 7nm-5nm processes use 0.33 Na EUV lithography, while the first generation of 0.55 Na lithography TWINSCAN exe: 5000 is still in the process of research and development and is expected to be on the market in 2023. As early as 2018, Intel took the lead in placing an order for the first generation 0.55 Na EUV lithography machine to asmai. The company is also expected to become the first user of 0.55 Na EUV lithography machine and use it in 3nm and below processes < p > when disclosing the financial report this time, asmai disclosed that the company received an order for TWINSCAN exe: 5000 lithography machine in the fourth quarter of 2021, with a total of 5 orders. At the same time, the company also received the first order for the next generation high numerical aperture EUV lithography TWINSCAN exe: 5200 in early 2022, and Intel placed the order. From the road map, TWINSCAN exe: 5200 is expected to be put into use by the end of 2024 at the earliest, and will be widely used in the production of advanced processes of 2nm or less in 2025. A foreign analyst once said frankly, "I bet Intel spent a lot of money for this right, because he is certainly not the only company that wants to get this machine first" < p > looking forward to the performance in the new year, asmai expects its sales revenue in the first quarter of 2022 to be about 3.3-3.5 billion euros, down 30% - 34% month on month. Peter Wen explained that due to a large number of fast shipments, the expected revenue of about 2 billion euros will be transferred from the first quarter to the subsequent quarter, which is also the reason for the company's low expected sales in the first quarter. Throughout the year, even considering that the revenue related to the rapid shipment of six EUV systems will be transferred to 2023, the company's revenue growth in 2022 will still reach about 20%

but this is questioned by Lu hang, a semiconductor analyst in Taiwan, China. He mentioned that in the fourth quarter of 2021, the revenue of lithography machine for asmai memory chip fell by 12 percentage points month on month, and the EUV of revenue confirmed in the same period was also lower than the original expectation, perhaps Samsung and Hynix of South Korea ?
2023-03-22 10:04:49