Start from 1980

Chapter 702
"Chairman, please tell me," Arthur said.

This guy's full English name is Arthur del Prado, and he is called the "father of the European equipment industry" by many people. He was born in Indonesia, which was still a Dutch colony at that time, and his father has Jewish ancestry.

When he was a teenager during World War II, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Indonesia. Fortunately, this is not the kind managed by the Communist Party.

After years of being outside, Arthur returned to the Netherlands with a small wafer and $500 to start an "advanced semiconductor materials" company.

Arthur has a good vision, accurately predicts the great prospects of the chip industry, and dreams of building Europe's Silicon Valley, but the arrogant Philips has ignored him for many years.

Later, he wrote an article in a newspaper saying that he could easily meet IBM or HP to discuss cooperation in the United States, but it was difficult to meet local giants in his hometown.

It wasn't until 1983, two years after ASM listed on Nasdaq, that a Philips executive read the newspaper and realized the guy still had some money to talk about.

Although Arthur pursued it hard, Philips still felt that ASM was too small to play with lithography machines, and was not optimistic about its future.

Just when Arthur thought the business was about to fail, Tang Wanru appeared with a huge sum of money and bought the PAS2000 lithography machine with the brilliance of Bulingbuling all over her body.

Why is Philips selling this thing?
It was not because of the radiance on Tang Wanru's body, but because neither Tang Wanru nor Arthur knew very well that because the 16 PAS2000s used hydraulic transmission units, they needed a larger power unit than the machine and had vibrations. It's hard to find customers to buy.

In addition, the stepper prototype developed by Philips in the laboratory is not mature enough.

Because the lithography market is too small, Philips can't confirm whether it has commercial value. After going to the United States to talk with P&E, GCA, Cobilt, IBM, etc., no one is willing to cooperate.

The old Jianghu Philips is very cunning, and has been looking for someone to accept this thing.

For the Philips Group, many people are familiar with this company, and they can say anything about Philips casually.

For example, the well-known Polygram Records is a subsidiary of the Philips Group, such as NXP, which was separated from the Philips Semiconductor Division, such as the relationship between CD records and the Philips Group...

Seeing Tang Wanru waving banknotes willing to buy these rags, she was too happy to be happy.

When ASML was established, it was the era when Japanese semiconductors were in full swing.

The status of NEC and Toshiba at that time was like that of Intel and Samsung later.

The yield rate of DRAM produced in Japan is much higher than that in the United States, forcing Intel to cut off its wrist two years later.

Behind the success of Japanese semiconductors is the lithography of the two optical giants Nikon and Canon, as well as the support of a series of supporting manufacturers such as Tokyo Electron, Hitachi, Dience, Sumitomo, and Toyoko.

The optical components of PAS2000 come from CERCO in Paris. Although this company is very strong, it is not enough to achieve the precision of large-scale integrated circuits.

Arthur has a strong vision, and he found CEO Jate Smit for the "infant" ASML.

Smit was good at math and science and was an engineer with a Ph.D., but Smit's ambitions were much more: to manage, to strategize, to set a course, to win.

It was also this person who became the chief architect of ASML and planted the seeds for ASML "regardless of cost and lightning speed".

When ASML was first established, talents involved in various disciplines were needed, and traditional recruitment required sending resumes for review.

However, Smit organized telephone recruitment to ensure that the first round could be directly screened in a concise and efficient manner. In the bad economic situation, they boldly hired nearly a hundred talents.

Not only the technique, Schmitt wants everything to be perfect.

He hired Bertrand, a logistics expert, to design a logistics system that can transfer "1 parts from the river to the sea", and can sort the instructions of suppliers according to the work priorities of developers.

Promoting Steve Witcock as CTO was an innovative position at the time, not only explaining the technology to customers, but also participating in PR marketing.

Gerald Weldenshot, a professional financial optimization expert, was also appointed as the chief financial officer, not only to issue documents and reports.

He seems to be able to pull off anything, opening the pockets of "every investor who doesn't want to pay."

In addition, Boomers, an organizational architect, was also asked to help the company design the system of rules and regulations.

In any field of inexperience, hiring outside experts, Schmidt never cared about the cost, he just wanted the highest level.

Schmidt wanted ASML to be a unified whole, not to play a piano or a violin, but to conduct a symphony.

But the ideal is full, the reality is very skinny.

ASML, formed by Shengshi and Arthur, except for 47 Philips employees and 1 ASM employee who "have no hope for the future because they were selected into ASML", 17 lithography machines that cannot be sold, 0% of the market Shares and empty deposits.

This new company has nothing, buys a cup of coffee and goes bankrupt.

ASML is short of money, [-] million US dollars at every turn, lack of people, no one can master high-tech, lack of customers, no one is willing to buy products, lack of opportunity, the entire semiconductor industry is in decline, lack of time, rush to deliver Hard to survive in the cargo.

Coupled with the trip from the United States, Smith's heart was completely chilled.

The atmosphere in the office is usually shrouded in gloom, and Smith knows that morale is the first thing to succeed.

So, this guy started to "paint cakes" to encourage employees.

Contact a professor who draws cartoons to turn ASML's prospect of struggle into a funny cartoon that can be demonstrated live. With the help of cartoons, Smit told employees: "Gentlemen, we are going to compete for the gold medal."

Even in reality, Schmidt had no idea what kind of technology his competitors had.

But he is good at all kinds of brainwashing, just like Teacher Ma.

"Although we don't have a product on the market yet, we will be successful."

"Have a winning mentality."

"We have to go for gold. No. 3 is not enough, we have to go for No. 1. Our only chance of winning is to develop an aggressive, innovative, focused strategy."

"No matter what happens in the future, it will attract the attention of the world."

Under the brainwashing of this guy, employees use "negative margin" to represent time crisis.

Working overtime at midnight is common, the lights in the building are kept on all night, crisis management meetings are held every day, sleeping bags are placed in the car, and they are ready to "volunteer" all night at any time.

There are many things to do, many key things, and many problems.

Some people cry when they see the to-do list getting longer and longer, and colleagues comfort "let's solve it one by one", knowing that all they can do is keep moving forward.

Although it has already gained a little reputation in the lithography machine market, the life of ASML has not become easier because of this.

because too poor...

(End of this chapter)