All of humanity is dependent on a company in Europe, whose proprietary technology makes both the US and China fierce competition!

It can be said that the microchip has created the entire civilized and modern life for all mankind today. Imagine a world without microchips: no refrigerator to store food, no smartphone to surf Facebook, no plane to travel.

Taiwan’s TSMC Corporation produces more than 90% of the world’s microchips. It seemed that this was the company holding the ‘survival’ of human civilization. But no, all would be meaningless without a machine worth 190 million USD built by ASML company in the Netherlands, which is the microchip manufacturing machine .

EUV . beam microchip manufacturing machine

ASML is currently the only company in the world that has built a machine capable of producing modern chips like today. The company was founded in 1984 as a joint venture between electronics maker Philips and chip maker ASM International. The manufacturing plant is located in Veldhoven, Netherlands.

ASML’s EUV lithography shrinks transistors to 5 nanometers

ASML’s chipmaking machine uses photolithography (also known as ‘lithography’, or ‘lithography’). The machine uses light to transform pattern designs from existing layers into real chips on the surface of silicon wafers with nanometer accuracy. The more transistors each chip contains, the more powerful and power efficient it is.

In particular, this machine uses EUV ( short for ‘extreme ultra violet’, or ‘ultraviolet light’ ) photolithography technology, which creates extremely small transistors that can fit even a few dozen. billion pieces into one chip. EUV rays are extremely short wavelength light, which can be used to create transistors much smaller in size than the old technology, DUV rays ( short for ‘deep ultra violet’, or ‘ultraviolet light’. deep’ )

The technology that makes ASML exclusive in the world

Currently ASML has a complete monopoly in EUV lithography, due to the extremely complex technology that makes it.

EUV rays almost do not exist naturally on Earth but can only be found in space. ASML’s microchip maker fires a _CO2 laser that fires two laser pulses at a droplet of tin, causing it to vaporize, thereby releasing streams of plasma. The plasma stream will radiate to the EUV. This process happens 50,000 times per second.

An ASML EUV machine in progress

An EUV chip-making machine must be assembled in an absolutely clean, dust-free room, with air quality 10,000 times higher than that of the outside environment. A small speck of dust on the silicon wafer will also ruin it all. Each machine is made of more than 100,000 parts, must be transported by 40 containers, 20 trucks and 3 Boeing 747s.

ASML decided to switch from DUV to EUV technology in the 90s. Although it cost several billion dollars at first, it later brought a monopoly advantage. ASML is currently valued at around $193 billion. EUV machines are sold to the world’s largest IC manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung and Intel.

The ‘jockey’ between the US and China

ASML’s EUV microchip manufacturing machine

=Like other countries in the world, China’s chip factories are all dependent on ASML’s EUV machines. But in 2019, the administration of US President Donald Trump succeeded in lobbying the Dutch government to halt the shipment of these sophisticated machines from ASML to China. To date, Biden has not seen any move to withdraw this policy.

However, ASML is not prohibited from exporting an older technology such as a DUV chip machine to China. Although it is a previous generation, DUV machines are still commonly used to create chips, although a bit less modern. In 2021, 16% of ASML’s sales will come from China, or about $2.2 billion. In 2022, the company expects to achieve similar numbers.

However, the US is still trying to hinder the progress of Chinese chip production in many ways. The CHIPS Act, signed by President Biden in August 2022, states that if TSMC or other Taiwanese chip companies want to receive billions of dollars in subsidies to build a new factory in the US, they must commit not to sell chips to Taiwan. Chinese mainland. At the same time, the US also urged ASML to stop selling old DUVs to China.

This could have a negative impact on Chinese chip maker SMIC. This company is said to be producing 7 nanometer semiconductor chips to catch up with 5 nanometer chips from TSMC and Samsung.

China can manufacture its own photolithography equipment if it does not want to depend on anyone. However, analysts say it will take at least a decade for China to create machines that can compete with ASML.

Reference from: Newsthink