Start with buying a house

Chapter 191 Facing difficulties and changing history (Please subscribe! Please ask for a monthly pass!)

(This chapter is a big chapter, a transitional chapter, if you don’t like it, you can skip it, lest some people think it is too watery, but I think it is necessary to tell the story clearly, after all, if you want to change the course of history, you must first understand the previous history Ah, otherwise, how do you know which histories have changed?)
The Helan people who advocate enjoying life and getting off work on time are obviously not as hardworking as the Chinese people. After the New Year in January 2500, the assembly of the PAS [-] was still not completed, and it was expected that the research and development would not be completed until May.

But this would perfectly miss the two important dates mentioned above.

Smit was furious, and directly fired the head of the PAS 2500 project R&D team and replaced it with two young people, one of whom had only [-] months of service.

These two talented young people finally made ASML deliver two PAS 2500s within the stipulated time limit.

The PAS 2500 also made a name for itself at the Citigroup SEMICON West exhibition in May. Not only did it win four orders for the PAS 2500, but it was also recognized by peers.

At the exhibition, an engineer from ASMAN ran around the competitor's booth, and got a unanimous answer from the participants: "The best lithography machine product is ours, and ASMAN is the second best."

Although he has a little reputation in the lithography machine market, Asi's slow life has not become easier because of it.

The reason is too poor.

During the three years from [-] to [-], the entire lithography machine industry was undergoing a reshuffle.In [-], three of the ten lithography machine companies withdrew from the market, and the remaining seven suppliers will also be eliminated in the next few years.

GCA, the former lithography machine leader, is on the verge of bankruptcy, and it has reached the point where it needs to use its Zeiss shares to pay for Zeiss lens fees.

Zeiss is the best optical instrument manufacturer in Germany, and GCA's lithography machines use Zeiss lenses.In the future, Zeiss will become the exclusive supplier of ASMAN.

Industry turmoil has affected Aspen.

In 400, AMD, a Citigroup semiconductor company that had booked half of Aspen's order, tore up the contract at the last minute, causing Aspen to record a loss of more than [-] million dollars.

In the following year, the lithography machine industry was dumped at low prices and overcapacity. Asman had to sell products at a lower price, and profits were affected again.

During the same period, the parent company ASM also encountered a crisis, with losses of US$500 million and US$300 million in [-] and [-], respectively.

Del Prado, the CEO of ASM, is struggling with the financial situation, but Schmidt, who is slow in Aspen, does not take it seriously that the expenditure exceeds expectations, and feels that this is what Aschina has to bear to become the number one in the industry.

The conflict between the payer and the spender is getting bigger and bigger. Prado repeatedly said "I am the one who writes the check and pays the money", and Smit replied "This is my strategy, accept it or not is up to you".

In the end, Smith left Asman after his tenure ended in 500, and the parent company ASM withdrew from the ranks of shareholders of Asman due to its financial situation, and its investment of more than [-] million dollars was also in vain. .

Philips took over ASM's shares and liabilities in the joint venture.

As for Asman, in the spring of 500, he used up his entire credit line of 130 million dollars, and he didn't even have any money to pay his salary.At one time, when the salary was about to be paid for three consecutive months, Asman's financial director would go to Philips to beg for [-] million US dollars in employee wages.

At this time, Asman was only a hair away from death.

Although Smith has injected the company with the dream of becoming the number one in the industry and the gene of pursuing product iteration regardless of cost, but he can burn too much money. People who are on the right track.

That's how Trost was tricked into becoming CEO.In [-], he planned to embark on a long-distance trip with his wife, but was coaxed by his old boss at Philips to come over and become the acting CEO. The old boss kept saying: "The new CEO will be here soon," but the successor was far away. No deadline.

Trost, who found out that he had been cheated, asked for a promotion for the first time in his life in anger and became the CEO of ASML.

Trost's tenure is only one and a half years. For Asman, he is an important transitional person.

He changed Aspen's habit of spending money slowly during Schmidt's time, saved all available costs, lowered the company's production plan, and adjusted the expected production of [-] machines in [-] to [-].

During his tenure, Asman turned profitable for the first time, although this was only an accident.

At the end of [-], the factory of Taikyu Electric Co., Ltd., which was established less than two years ago, was burned down. Taikyu Electric had to order [-] more photolithography machines from Asman, which brought a lot of revenue to Asman.

Another major contribution of Trost to Asman is that he led Aspen to develop a new product, PAS 5500.

This machine can meet the needs of different customers in the Citigroup market and the island country market at the same time; it can also be modularly assembled like building blocks, and can be adapted and loaded with new technologies in the next five years.

The PAS 5500 project later became Asman's first product with industry influence, but the PAS 5500 still almost dragged Aspen down.

This project requires fifty engineers to work together on research and development.In addition, the production, logistics and service departments must be transformed.

However, since its establishment in [-], Asman's bank account often only has five-figure cash in its account, and the money that needs to be spent is ten times the account balance.

Ashman needs customers and money.Maris, who took over Trost's position, appeared at this time.

When Maris first took over in early 1990, Asman employees from Philips were very worried. The new leader was known to meditate to avoid conflict.

Does he have the ability to lead ASML to win against manufacturers?

It turns out that Maris' affinity is just what Asmer needs.

For example, the beautiful battle to win the IBM order.

IBM loves the PAS 5500, and it's about to spend a billion dollars on new machines.The two companies communicated for a long time, and Asmer planned to show IBM the ten subsystems of PAS 5500, and then assemble all the modules in an unprecedented way to form a lithography machine, so as to shock IBM in one fell swoop and win the order.

In [-], due to the international situation, IBM's American employees were unable to fly to the Netherlands, and the order was about to go to waste.

Project manager Van den Kling scolded: "We are finished, those bureaucrats do not allow them to travel."

Asslow used a camera to record what he was going to show to IBM, and then cut out the video content overnight. He took a plane to IBM in Armonk, New York, early the next morning, trying to make a last-ditch effort to win the order.

The IBM people were shocked by the disassembled machine in the documentary. The "disassembled lithography machine" can save IBM a lot of money. When a part of the lithography machine breaks down, they don't need to dismantle the whole The machine was shut down for maintenance.

ASML signed the billion-dollar order as it wished.

Maris is also good at building relationships and communicating, saving ASML from a lot of friction in negotiations.He would go to Samsung, listen to the company's recently turned 25-year-old employees complain about machine problems, and try to fix them.

In addition, the relationship between Maris Let Asman and Zeiss, the supplier of its "objective lens system", developed by leaps and bounds between [-] and [-].

The "objective lens system" is one of the core components of the ASML lithography machine, and the Zeiss lens directly affects the effect of the lithography machine product.

Founded in [-], Zeiss is a German optical instrument manufacturer.When GCA, the former major customer of Zeiss, collapsed due to operational problems, Asman seized the opportunity to become a major customer of Zeiss in this field.

However, Zeiss has always used traditional manual production. With the increasing requirements of Aspen for lens precision, Zeiss lenses with unstable product quality and insufficient production capacity have gradually become the bottleneck of Aspen's lithography machine products.

In 900, the precarious Zeiss finally decided to automate the production line.In order not to let Zeiss hold back ASML, Philips, the parent company of ASML, lent Zeiss US$[-] million to renovate the production line.

Since then, Asman has formed a deep cooperative relationship with Zeiss.

Afterwards, when Zeiss showed signs of serving other companies, Maris would show his "diplomatic skills" and asked Zeiss to only supply Asslow.

Asman also took a 24.9% stake in Zeiss Semiconductor Optics.

Asman, which has established close ties with suppliers and customers, has also made great progress in product sales.

In 100, ASML made a profit of US$2000 million. By [-], its net profit exceeded US$[-] million.

In 11, ASML was finally listed on Citigroup and Helan's Capital Exchange. It took [-] years from its establishment.

Citigroup is the birthplace of semiconductors. From transistors to microprocessors, to DRAM (a semiconductor memory) and non-volatile memory, they are all products of Citigroup.

In the 60s and early 70s, Citigroup has always been the overlord of the chip market.But by the 80s, the island nation had successfully risen with DRAM.

Citigroup's lithography machine industry has been hit hard by the changes in the main semiconductor market, GCA has become lonely, and Nibra has gradually grown.

But Citigroup was not willing to give up the lithography machine market.

The staff of the Hexagon said: "This is something we cannot lose, otherwise we will find ourselves completely dependent on overseas manufacturers for guidance, which is the most sensitive thing for us."

This awareness is truly ahead of its time.

In order to keep the most advanced technology in Citigroup, in [-], Intel and the Department of Energy of Citigroup led the establishment of the EUV LLC alliance, hoping to develop EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography machine and regain the hegemony of semiconductor manufacturing .

This alliance includes the Citizen Department of Energy and its three major national laboratories, as well as technology companies such as Intel and Motorola, AMD, and IBM.

Citizen people also need to choose a photolithography machine company to join the alliance, and Nifang and AMSL are both good candidates.

It is obviously impossible for Citizen people to choose the rising Japanese companies to create trouble for themselves.

As a result, the relatively weaker Ashman successfully joined the group.

In return, Asman will take the laurel crown of the lithography machine leader from the head of Ni Bran for Citigroup.

Ashun spent two battles, completely trampled Ni Kuan under his feet.

The first key technical node is that Asman cooperated with Taiji Electric engineer Ning Benjian to use the "immersion lithography technology" praised by the latter to break through the inherent process limitations.

Ning Benjian once went to the island country to publicize the technology, but manufacturers such as Nichuang did not accept his proposal.

At that time, the lithography machines on the market were all dry-type, and no one used liquid to make lithography machines.

In 132, after a year of cooperation between Asman and Taikyu, they launched the first prototype of an immersion lithography machine with a wavelength of [-]nm. Orders from major customers.

Although Nibran soon launched a dry lithography machine product, its light source can only reach 157 nanometers, which is obviously better than Asman.

By 60.00, Asman's lithography machine market share had reached [-]%, surpassing Niguan for the first time.

And it is the unique EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography machine that really makes AS slow to become a god.

The breakthrough of this technology is inseparable from powerful allies.

Hundreds of scientists in the EUV Alliance have published a large number of papers on EUV technology.

Asman, who is in it, can be the first to understand the latest EUV research and development achievements, and also has the priority to use Citigroup's most advanced semiconductor technology, materials science, optics, and precision manufacturing.

In exchange, the Citigroup government has regulatory authority over Asman's production.This is also one of the reasons why Citigroup has a huge say in Asman today.

In [-], the EUV Alliance believed that the theoretical work had been completed and disbanded that year.

All the technical achievements are mastered by Asman, but it was not until [-] that Asman achieved mass production of EUV lithography machines.

In the middle, because Cymer, Citigroup's top light source company, has been unable to handle the research and development of the light source required for EUV, Asman acquired the company in [-] and invested heavily in the research and development of the light source required for EUV.

When funds are insufficient, Aslow takes money from customers.

In 20.00, ASML proposed the "Customer Joint Investment Plan", taking out [-]% of the shares and inviting major customers to make joint investments. Shareholders will have priority in ordering.

The three companies Intel, Samsung, and Taikyu have pooled more than 52 billion euros to support the research and development of EUV lithography machines, and have won 15.00%, 5.00%, and [-]% of the shares respectively.

The most difficult part of the lithography machine is the light source, wafer exposure stage, alignment system and lens.

Domestic lithography machines involve top problems in dozens of disciplines, and it is necessary to study all of these problems.

At the same time have to find top suppliers.

90.00% of ASMAN's parts are purchased from outside, but these parts are jointly developed by ASMAN and suppliers, and the patents are in ASMAN's hands.

The objective lens system (lens) belongs to Zeiss, but the software-related patents such as temperature control and optical path correction system are owned by Aspen.

Without these patents, even if domestic manufacturers get Zeiss lenses, they will not be able to play the role of Zeiss lenses.

Over the past 30 years, Asman has formed more than 1 patents, and has continuously acquired, invested and cooperated in development, creating a core component supplier system for the entire lithography machine.

Top-level light source, high-precision lens and precision instrument manufacturing technology are the three core technologies of EUV lithography machine. The light source of ASMAN comes from the acquired subsidiary Cymer, the lens comes from deeply bound Zeiss, and the precision instrument has its own for many years. experience and patent accumulation.

In the 60s, Huaxia also studied lithography machines, but under the idea of ​​"making it better to buy", they gave up the research and development in the field of lithography machines.

Looking back at the process of ASMAN becoming the overlord, lofty top-level planning, self-persistence in adversity, the balance of the market and technology, and luck that is one in a million, these factors are indispensable.

Catching up has become a must for China. Although the technology gap is huge, with the existence of Starlight Technology Company, I believe there will be a moment to change history.

It is now [-], and Asman has not yet acquired it. Citigroup’s top light source company, Cymer, has not yet produced EUV, at least not yet entered mass production. Facing the difficulties, everything should come in time .

Shanghai Microelectronics Group is the only company in China that produces lithography machines. It was established in 90. Although it has made rapid progress, the gap with several international lithography machine manufacturers is still It is very large and can only produce some low-end lithography machines. Nano-level lithography machines will not pass the acceptance test until [-], and they are [-]-nanometer lithography machines.

(End of this chapter)