Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1514 Gray Transaction
That night, after Duan Yun returned to his villa at home, he walked onto the balcony alone and drank a glass of red wine.

The successful development of a one-micron process NAND flash memory chip is definitely a major news that shocks the industry and has a strong influence on the entire microelectronics industry. This also allows Tianyin Group to surpass Japan's R&D and design capabilities. In the field of storage chips, for the first time, the ceiling of the industry was touched.

Duan Yun had dreamed of this moment of success many times, but when he really came to this day, his heart began to calm down. At this time, he thought more about the pressure and crisis of competition.

Now Tianyin Group has the ability to produce chips with a micron process, but this will cause two problems. On the one hand, it may expose itself to smuggle lithography machines; Production lines, with limited capacity, may not be able to meet customer demand.

The first question means that he may be included in the list of key companies blocked by developed countries led by the United States, especially after the domestic turmoil last year, the United States has formulated a series of sanctions against mainland China at the end of last year, and this At that time, if the Americans find out that the embargoed high-tech equipment has been smuggled into mainland China, the Americans are likely to step up the blockade, and Tianyin Group will also be included in the blacklist of key sanctioned companies.

As for the second issue of chip production capacity, Duan Yun can choose to authorize patents to manufacture abroad, but the profit of this model is a bit meager, and the majority of the profits are still earned by the foundry companies, just like Duan Yun previously authorized to the United States. Micron-process flash memory chips have only received a patent fee of more than 2 million US dollars so far, which is far lower than Duan Yun's expectations.

Moreover, Duan Yun plans to develop and produce solid-state drives and other related products in the next step, which requires a large number of flash memory chips. The current two one-micron chip production lines of Tianyin Group are obviously far from enough.

In the current world, the lithography machine market is still monopolized by GCA and Nikon in the United States, but ASML has already shown signs of rising.

In 1988, a fire broke out at TSMC, and the insurance company continued the life of the two companies at the same time. The fire brought an order for 17 lithography machines to Asmer, and also allowed TSMC to inadvertently obtain more advanced lithography. Machine, and in the chip foundry technology, a higher level.

However, compared with this fire, the real master of that year was the big landslide of the semiconductor industry. In 1988, the global semiconductor market fell sharply. Companies such as Japan, NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi and Nikon, which had risen strongly in the world before, began to shrink their industries. , South Korea's Samsung, with the support of the government, used the "counter-regular cycle" to harvest the market. Simply put, it copied the bottom of the semiconductor industry around the world. The share that came out was plundered by Samsung.

Therefore, in the end, the market share did not change, and the market curve could not be released, which directly caused almost all American semiconductor companies to encounter serious financial problems, and the lithography machine company was of course one of them.

Originally, it was hard to parry by Nikon in Japan. Coupled with this wave of market decline, the American lithography machine giants GCA and P&E were both bankrupt and resold, and the era of American lithography machines officially came to an end.

In that year, there were no orders from lithography machine manufacturers all over the world. Except for Asmer, other companies could only survive, and Asmer just because of the order provided by TSMC’s fire, not only escaped this wave of cleaning, but also It can be said that it has survived a desperate situation to become the number one lithography machine company in the ranking.

In addition, ASML has also sold 4 lithography machines in Hong Kong, and the price is about half of the unit price of the 17 lithography machines supplied to TSMC. This also makes ASML start to pay attention to the Asian market. And set up a branch in Hong Kong.

In fact, a long time ago, ASML has attached great importance to the expansion of the Asian market, because in the United States, Europe and Japan, lithography machines are basically dominated by GCA in the United States and Nikon in Japan, so the company that was not established for a long time at that time In order to obtain orders, Bismarck turned their attention to the Asian market, and even the market of the former Soviet Union.

The year before last, ASML received an order for 4 lithography machines by accident in Hong Kong, which surprised ASML. However, when ASML’s company president was about to go to Hong Kong to visit his customers in person, he was rejected by the Hong Kong company that bought his own lithography machines. Outside the door, the president of ASML was a little stunned by such a result, because this practice did not comply with business rules at all.

But the leaders of ASML are not stupid. They quickly realized the tricks of Hong Kong companies importing lithography machines, because Hong Kong does not have a microelectronics industry at all, and the 4 lithography machines were never seen again after entering Hong Kong. There was no news, and the geographical location is very close to the mainland of China, so ASML quickly guessed the final destination of the four lithography machines.

However, ASML did not make this matter public. They were very tactful. Instead, they set up a branch in Hong Kong, promoted their products with great fanfare, and sent senior technical engineers to provide technical and after-sales services.

In the final analysis, ASML is a commercial company after all, and making money is always the first priority. According to the old saying in Das Kapital, if there is 1% profit, capitalists are willing to risk the gallows. As for Americans The blockade agreement is obviously not that important compared to the survival of their business.

And at this time, Asmer was not controlled by the Americans. It was not until 1997 that Asmer joined the EUV LLC alliance organized by the United States. At this time, Asmer was put under the shackles of the Americans. Before that, Asmer was just an ordinary commercial company.

In other words, as long as there is an order, ASML can choose to "pretend to be stupid" in the face of the U.S. technology blockade agreement. Moreover, there is no control and risk at all in the purchase of ASML lithography machines by Hong Kong companies, even if ASML Mai Ming knew that the Hong Kong company had "problems".

So after learning that ASML established a branch in Hong Kong, Duan Yun has been planning to introduce more one-micron process lithography machines through the "patriotic businessmen" in Hong Kong again.

Although Duan Yun has been spending a lot of money to support the production of domestic lithography machines, in the short term, domestic lithography machines cannot catch up with international advanced technology. Before that, Duan Yun wants to grasp this rare commercial breakthrough , he must take another risk...

(End of this chapter)