Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 760: Escalating pursuit and interception, photoresist’s big move

"Mr. Cao, if someone really comes to us to buy equipment for producing 14-nanometer chips, should we sell it or not?"

Pan Jinxing thought of a problem he would face immediately after the official announcement.

Although European and American chip giants such as Intel and Infineon will not easily buy chip production equipment from Nanshan Equipment, that is the past.

Now that Nanshan equipment can produce the most advanced equipment in the world, the situation is naturally different.

Maybe someone will change their mind.

"Sell!"

"Why not sell it?"

"Sell it if you can afford it!"

Cao Yang gave his opinion again without any hesitation.

Intel has always regarded AMD as its biggest competitor, and its main products are computer CPUs.

Samsung, for example, also designs its own CPUs and then produces and processes them for its own use.

What I hope to hear is that the Chinese company has really committed fraud, and to cite some suspicious aspects.

"Even if we just rest on our laurels, we can last for several years."

When Pat said this, Otellini was immediately dissatisfied.

"Pat, how true do you think this news is?"

This time, it was like dropping an atomic bomb on the semiconductor industry!

"They are not a public company and do not need to rely on these good news to push up their stock prices."

You must not do things that harm yourself and benefit others.

Otherwise, only Nanshan Equipment itself would suffer losses, and it would be a wedding dress for Asmai.

"When will our 14nm chip technology be successfully developed?"

Intel has always relied on its leading technology to maintain its number one position in the market.

Soon, after Cao Yang and others discussed it, Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Semiconductor jointly announced that they had mastered 16-nanometer chip technology.

Otellini took a deep breath and felt that since others had already broken through, Intel had to break through as soon as possible, otherwise it would be troublesome in the future.

"According to the target progress, it is expected that a breakthrough will be achieved in the year after next, and then large-scale mass production will be possible in 2015."

"They don't have much performance pressure and don't need to use this program to promote their products."

Zhang Jing also supported Cao Yang's decision and felt that the equipment could still be sold externally.

Now China is quietly saying that it has done it. Isn’t this scary?

Not only did he ruin his reputation, he also missed the best opportunity to make money.

"They don't even have the pressure to do research and development, because the 28-nanometer technology mastered by Nanshan Semiconductor is already China's most advanced chip technology."

Intel was the first to explode!

Otellini walked around the office, filled with anxiety.

But now the industry is changing faster and faster.

"This matter is indeed surprising, but I can't find a reason for Nanshan Semiconductor and Nanshan Equipment to lie."

In this case, there is absolutely no need to prohibit the sale of equipment to external parties.

If Intel's chip technology is not the most powerful, then there may be fewer companies looking to Intel to buy chips in the future.

This made Otellini even more uncomfortable.

Anyway, the worst case scenario is that the delivery cycle should be delayed appropriately to prevent them from successfully surpassing Nanshan Semiconductor.

Intel estimates that it will be able to come up with similar chip technology in a year or two.

For example, Apple designs its own computer CPU and then finds TSMC and Samsung to manufacture it.

At that time, Pat directly said that the news was true.

This is definitely something Otellini cannot accept.

14 nanometers!
This is a technology that no semiconductor company in the world has yet developed.

The situation of Honor Technology in China is similar to Samsung.

These changes have had a huge impact on the computer CPU market.

For example, every computer that uses Intel chips will put the Intel label next to the keyboard, thinking that this is a behavior that can enhance the brand power of the computer.

"It can indeed be sold. Only if we sell equipment can we kill ASML's competitors."

Even companies such as Intel and Qualcomm have claimed that they are researching 14nm technology, but they have not announced that they have solved it.

Although Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Semiconductor have initially mastered the 14nm process technology, it does not mean that other manufacturers are far behind.

"Otherwise, no matter how well we develop, our impact on them will be very limited."

Pat's answer disappointed Otellini.

Nanshan Semiconductor has now broken through 14-nanometer technology and will officially start producing this high-end chip by the end of next year.

It turns out that it will indeed take another two years for our company to be ready.

For the chip industry, the day lily has gone cold in two years.

Otellini definitely couldn't accept this result and said: "We must speed up the research and development progress. We must make a breakthrough next year and enter large-scale mass production the year after that."

"At the same time, we need to join forces with TI and other chip companies to find ways to delay the mass production of Nanshan Semiconductor's 14nm chips."

Intel is definitely not willing to let a Chinese company break through its 14nm chip technology first. This is simply a disaster.

This is something Otellini absolutely cannot accept, and it is also a situation that Intel's board of directors does not want to see.

"This really needs to be communicated with other colleagues. I believe everyone does not want Nanshan Semiconductor to put 14nm chips into mass production so soon."

When it comes to suppressing Chinese semiconductor companies, Pat and Otellini's views are definitely highly consistent.

Other American companies have similar ideas.

So soon, Intel, the chip giant, took the initiative to contact various companies to discuss good ways to deal with Nanshan Semiconductor.

At the same time, as a chip equipment giant, ASML is also extremely anxious.

The chip industry alliance created by Nanshan Equipment has already made ASML uncomfortable before.

But at least ASML's technology is not lagging behind. At most, the cost is higher.

Whether TSMC, Samsung, or Intel are building new factories, they continue to purchase lithography machines from ASML.

But this time the situation is different.

Nanshan Equipment actually jointly announced with Nanshan Semiconductor that it had mastered 14nm chip technology. Is this amazing?

This means that Nanshan Equipment’s technology in lithography machines has surpassed that of ASML, which is definitely a disaster.

In the past few years, ASML has been living a very prosperous life relying on the world's highest level of photolithography machine technology.

Especially through various technological iterations, ASML has successfully eliminated several Japanese photolithography machine manufacturers.

It is almost monopolizing the advanced lithography machine market.

As a result, since Nanshan Equipment started to develop photolithography machines, this newly formed monopoly was immediately broken.

This made Asuma very angry.

So they were jumping up and down before, pushing the United States to sanction Nanshan Equipment, and they were indeed successful.

But who knew that even in this case, Nanshan Equipment could actually produce a more advanced photolithography machine.

This is a nightmare.

"Peter, now the company has reached a critical moment of life and death."

“Nanshan Equipment not only has a much lower production cost of lithography machines than us, but now even the lithography machine technology has surpassed ours.”

"We have to find a solution immediately."

After Christopher saw the official Weibo account released by Nanshan Equipment, he felt that the sky was about to fall.

How did Nanshan Equipment master 14nm technology so quickly?

Normally, this breakthrough is not that fast.

Although the semiconductor industry follows Moore's Law, the development speed becomes slower as we get further into the future.

For example, the evolution from 28 nanometer to 14 nanometer is because the threshold is relatively high, so many companies have chosen 22 nanometer or 20 nanometer as the transition.

As a result, Nanshan Equipment produced 14-nanometer chip equipment in one go.

It really doesn't follow common sense.

"Christopher, I believe we, Asma, are definitely not the only ones who are surprised by this news."

"Whether it's Infineon, STMicroelectronics, Intel, AMD and other companies, they don't want to see this situation happen."

"The semiconductor industry is one of the most advantageous industries in the West, and there is absolutely no room for failure."

"To a certain extent, Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Semiconductor have achieved the world's number one position, and the road has come to an end."

As the R&D director of ASML, Peter is not so anxious now.

Because he found that he could no longer roll up the Nanshan equipment.

In the past year, he also made careful inquiries about the working style of the people at Nanshan Equipment.

As soon as it was time to get off work at Asmai, everyone didn't want to wait for more than a minute and immediately shut down their phones and got off work.

But at Nanshan Equipment, it seems that getting off work is the beginning of the second half of the day.

On a 955 day, there are two hours of rest time in between.

How is it possible to beat 996? Even when the project was tense, some people at Nanshan Equipment simply slept on camp beds in the company.

This kind of approach is absolutely impossible on Asmai's side.

Therefore, Peter felt that he should not be anxious at this time, but should think of ways to deal with Nanshan equipment from another dimension.

To a certain extent, his ideas are basically the same as those of Intel.

“Whether it’s Nanshan Equipment or Nanshan Semiconductor, they are already sanctioned companies.”

"Even if we can work with Intel and other companies to further upgrade sanctions, there is no way to change the current passive situation."

Christopher was a little confused where Pete got his confidence.

Even though he was already on edge, he was still so calm.

Does he think what Nanshan Equipment said on its official WeChat account is false?
impossible!

"Yes, if we further impose sanctions on Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Semiconductor, they may not have much impact on their development."

"After all, their most important market is in China."

"But if we can start from some of the raw materials used in the chip processing process and find out the weaknesses of Nanshan Semiconductor, then it is hard to say whether Nanshan Semiconductor can successfully produce 14-nanometer chips in the end."

When Peter said this, Christopher immediately became interested.

"Can you tell me more specifically, do you have any good plans?"

"As long as it is feasible, I will communicate with people from various chip companies later, and we will work together to find ways to deal with Nanshan Equipment and Nanshan Semiconductor, and work together to protect our chip industry from being invaded by barbaric forces."

Although Pete is a person engaged in research and development, he has more twists and turns in his stomach than Christopher, the president.

Many instances in the past have made Christopher aware of this.

So he didn't seem embarrassed at all when asking the other party questions.

"Photoresist!"

"In the process of producing chips, photoresist needs to be used."

"As far as I know, the photoresists used by various semiconductor companies in China are mainly imported."

"The global photoresist market is basically monopolized by Japanese and American companies."

"As long as Nanshan Semiconductor bans the sale of photoresist, not only will their latest 14-nanometer chips not be able to be mass-produced smoothly, but even the chips that are currently in production may be stopped."

Peter immediately mentioned an area that Christopher had not considered before.

Photoresist sales ban?
This is indeed a very good starting point.

Although photoresist is far less famous than photolithography machines, the threshold for research and development is not low at all.

Before producing photoresist samples, photoresist manufacturers need to purchase a photolithography machine for internal formula testing and adjust the formula based on the verification results.

The price of lithography machines, especially EUV lithography machines, is very high.

This has led to a very high equipment threshold for photoresist research and development.

"There should be companies in China that can produce photoresist, right?"

Although Christopher hopes that Peter's proposal will have good results, he is also worried that the higher his expectations, the greater his disappointment.

"There are indeed some companies in China that have started researching photoresists very early, but there are many types of photoresists, and they have only mastered some relatively low-end models."

"Most high-end models will continue to rely on imports."

"Although I'm not sure how many types of photoresist Nanshan Semiconductor needs to import, I believe they must not have achieved 100% localization."

Pete gave his judgment very definitely.

"Photoresist has many performance indicators and is very difficult to develop, such as resolution, adhesion, contrast, sensitivity, corrosion resistance, surface tension, exposure speed, pinhole density, step coverage, etc., all of which are developed Factors that need to be considered at the time.”

"The selection of photoresist and the research and development of photoresist technology are a long and complicated process. Tokyo Yinghua, JSR and Sumitomo Chemical of Japan, plus DuPont of the United States, basically account for more than 70% of the photoresist market. The engraving market is over.”

In order to further enhance Christopher's confidence, Peter continued to add his own analysis.

He even explained to Christopher the specific application of photoresist in chip processing and production, so that he could start taking action as soon as possible and find relevant parties to jointly promote the ban on the sale of photoresist.

After figuring out the situation, Christopher was naturally very positive.

Soon, ASML’s ideas coincided with those of Intel and other manufacturers.

Driven by a number of European and American semiconductor manufacturers and equipment manufacturers, coupled with the United States and Japan, they did not expect China's semiconductor industry to develop so fast.

In their view, China should just make shoes and clothing.

Leave the high-end stuff to them to produce.

Therefore, even though Christmas is coming soon, they are still working on this matter.

In order to achieve the best results, the same measures were announced simultaneously.

It can be said that compared with the previous ban, this time the intensity has become greater.

So as soon as this ban came out, China immediately went into trouble.

"Mr. Cao, the Americans have gone too far. In order to restrict the development of our semiconductor industry, they will do anything they can."

Zhang Jing came to Cao Yang's office immediately to discuss a solution.

After all, as the person in charge of Nanshan Semiconductor, he knew that part of the company's photoresist was purchased from Japanese companies.

Although they are not purchased from the same company, Japan's JSR, Tokyo Onka, Shin-Etsu Chemical and Fuji Electronics are basically the main sources of Nanshan semiconductor photoresist.

Only part of it is purchased from Nanshan Chemical and domestic suppliers.

Now that the United States is pulling Japan to do this, it has indeed had a great impact on Nanshan Semiconductor.

“How long will our inventory of photoresist last?”

Cao Yang knew that this time the ban would have a greater impact on Nanshan Semiconductor.

So we must find a way to get Nanshan Chemical to speed up the research and development of photoresist.

Fortunately, Nanshan Chemical has been developing photoresists in recent years, and some models have been used in Nanshan Semiconductor one after another.

So if you give it a certain amount of time, it’s not impossible to do it.

Now it depends on whether there is enough time.

"It will take about three months. If there is no way to find alternative materials within three months, then all our factories will be shut down."

Zhang Jing's face suddenly became heavy.

But now it is more troublesome for the United States to start with photoresist, an auxiliary material that must be used in the production process.

"Three months should be barely enough."

Cao Yang took a deep breath and prepared to personally take the people from Nanshan Chemical to work on photoresist.

Otherwise, if Nanshan Semiconductor, which had invested so much money, collapsed like this, it would be something that the whole of China would not be able to accept.

Even for China's semiconductor industry, it is a historic setback.

"Mr. Cao, three months may not be enough."

"Not to mention other things, just the various raw materials used in photoresist have very high barriers."

"For positive photoresist, it is mainly composed of resin, photoinitiator, solvent and other additives."

"Resin is used to polymerize different materials in the photoresist to form the skeleton of the photoresist, which determines the hardness, flexibility, adhesion and other basic properties of the photoresist."

"Photoinitiators include photosensitizers and photoacid generators, which are key components of photoresist and play a decisive role in the sensitivity and resolution of photoresist."

"Solvent is the largest component of photoresist. The purpose is to keep the photoresist in a liquid state. However, the solvent itself has little impact on the chemical properties of the photoresist. On the contrary, it is a relatively easy step to solve."

"Finally, there are additives, which include monomers and other additives. The monomers regulate the photochemical reaction of the photoinitiator, and the additives are mainly used to change the specific chemical properties of the photoresist."

"Nanshan Chemical can now produce some of the raw materials, and some domestic manufacturers can also produce some of them, but some still need to be imported from abroad."

Zhang Jing obviously also knows the situation of photoresist relatively well.

It was precisely because he knew the difficulties that Nanshan Chemical had not achieved 100% localization of photoresist before, so he did not urge it so hard.

Now that the United States is using this thing as a means to deal with Nanshan Semiconductor, it has hit Zhang Jing's lifeblood.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be so nervous and angry.

"Everything is difficult at the beginning. Nanshan Chemical has already started, so things are not that complicated."

"At the worst, we will stop production for a few months. I believe we can find a solution."

Cao Yang now has no way to use too many words to convince Zhang Jing that he can solve the photoresist problem with Nanshan Chemical.

After all, China has been working on this thing for more than ten years, which means it has mastered some mid-to-low-end photoresists.

As for high-end photoresists, almost all of them still rely on imports.

To change this situation, normally it cannot be done in a few months.

"That's all we can do. I'll contact other semiconductor companies later to see if I can transfer some of the photoresist from them."

"Then we also go to various traders to snap up their stocks and delay our out-of-stock time as much as possible."

Zhang Jing knew that there was no better way at this time, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet.

At this time, it will test the attitude of various manufacturers in the industry towards Nanshan Semiconductor.

The United States and Japan have only banned sales of Nanshan Semiconductors for the time being, and have not directly banned sales of all Chinese companies.

After all, other companies still want to make money.

If you ban all sales, the company will not be happy either.

"You can give it a try. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and see who is willing to help you."

Cao Yang did not stop Zhang Jing.

There's no harm in letting him hit a wall.

(End of this chapter)