After the United States released the so-called strictest chip export control measures last October, it has been trying to continuously spread to the global chip industry chain.
Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and other chip giants have been strict in their rhetoric from the beginning to constant submission. First, the Netherlands announced that it would jointly implement restrictions on China with the United States. Recently, Japan’s restrictions have also been officially announced, forming a technological chain that will strangle China.
Chip manufacturing technology is very complex, but the global chip industry structure is extremely simple.
The most important chip designers are in the United States, manufacturers are in Taiwan, China and South Korea, and equipment manufacturers are in the Netherlands and Japan, all of which are attracted and controlled by the chip four party alliance (Chip 4) led by the United States.
Biden breathed a sigh of relief as the technology encirclement that had lasted for five months tightened and now was finally about to be completed.
“We will not completely copy the United States in our policy towards China, but will independently make our own judgments after consultation with our allies.” This is the Dutch who once showed a tough attitude. But now there is only surrender left.
Recently, the Netherlands announced that it will soon introduce export control measures for semiconductor equipment, and will work with the United States to jointly restrict advanced chip manufacturing equipment, including the most advanced deposition equipment and immersion lithography systems.
Although the Netherlands did not specifically mention ASML and mainland China, the most advanced immersive DUV system requires an export license.
In the decisive battle for the new global order, the Netherlands chose Washington over Beijing, especially in the field of technological competition.
“I don’t see the rise of China,” said Dutch Prime Minister Lute Loyalty in an interview with American media.
The Dutch semiconductor giant ASML is actively looking back and quickly issued a statement defining the so-called “most advanced” according to its own understanding: the 2000i and subsequent immersion lithography systems.
Obviously, if mainland China is still willing to purchase the 1980 Di model with mature manufacturing process, ASML will be quite happy.
“Request China’s understanding!” When the South Korean Foreign Minister announced his accession to the Chip 4 Alliance, he was unequivocal and even dared to propose two principles to the United States: the Chip 4 Alliance should always respect the one China principle and should not restrict exports to China.
However, the White House has repeatedly upgraded restrictions on Chinese chip exports, and South Koreans can only follow suit.
After losing the Chinese market, South Korea’s semiconductor exports to China plummeted 31% year-on-year in the first month of this year, and showed a downward trend for 10 consecutive months.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo commented on this: “The US government has openly put forward ‘America First first’ and ‘protectionism’ in the economic field, forcing allies to continue to suffer losses. This time, the US intends to be a ‘semiconductor hooligan'”.
Compared to the concerns of the Netherlands and South Korea, the Japanese are simply a lot more direct – recently, they directly announced the restrictions, specifically limiting the six categories of 23 devices used in chip manufacturing.
This involves manufacturing equipment for extreme ultraviolet EUV related products, as well as etching equipment for three-dimensional stacking of storage components, including 3 cleaning tasks, 11 film deposition tasks, 1 heat treatment task, 4 photolithography tasks, 3 etching tasks, and 1 testing equipment.
Japan plans to begin implementation in July, when more than 10 semiconductor equipment manufacturers such as Tokyo Electronics and Nikon need to apply for licenses, and many of them have only participated in domestic equipment bidding in recent months.
At the press conference, Japanese Industry Minister Yasuhiro Nishimura was also heartless: “We anticipate that the impact on domestic enterprises will be limited”.
Moreover, Nishikawa Kangjun specifically did not mention the mainland region, emphasizing that export controls apply to all regions and not to any single country. “But friendly countries and regions do not need permission, which is simply to cover up”.
Currently, in the global semiconductor manufacturing equipment market, the United States accounts for 41.7%, Japan accounts for 31.1%, and the Netherlands accounts for 18.8%. A total of 90% of the market has officially been closed to China.
However, the limitations of the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands mainly focus on advanced manufacturing processes, which are the equipment necessary to manufacture cutting-edge products with line widths below 10-14 nm. However, we now focus on developing mature processes at 28 nm and above, with relatively small impact.
In the face of joint encirclement by Europe and the United States, China can only make a breakthrough on its own in order to support China’s possible counter control against the United States.
For example, in terms of storage chips, as soon as China’s Yangtze River Storage and Changxin Storage realized domestic substitution, China immediately began to review the American storage chip giant Meguiar.
China’s Cyber Security Review Office has officially announced that in order to maintain security, ensure the security of network infrastructure, and prevent risks caused by product issues, it will conduct a cyber security review of products sold in China by American company Meguiar.
Meguiar, the world’s leading semiconductor storage manufacturer, has an extraordinary position, but has never forgotten to use the authority of the White House and Capitol Hill to suppress domestic storage enterprises in China.
In order to target Chinese storage enterprises, Micron actively lobbied Capitol Hill to propose a U.S. Intellectual Property Protection Act, which was approved and signed by Biden on the eve of the establishment of the “China Committee”.
There are many vaguely defined terms in this bill: “stealing”, “significant”, “benefiting from”. In other words, whether a Chinese company is innocent or not depends entirely on the discretion of US President Biden.
After that, we should be prepared to intensify our efforts. Under the advocacy of Meguiar’s “China Threat Theory”, Capitol Hill is ready to impose more severe sanctions on Changjiang Storage and Chinese enterprises that can produce 128 layer NAND.
After repeated “dog in dog frisbee” attempts, American chip giant Meguiar has become the darling of Biden.
Last October, the official website of the White House published a congratulatory speech prepared by Biden for Meguiar Technology’s investment in New York. “Meguiar Technology Saved the Decline of Snow City” – this honor is still owned by only one company, Meguiar.
In addition to gaining fame, Meiguang also needs to profit.
Recently, Meguiar also received the highest single project subsidy from the US government in nearly a decade, with New York State providing Meguiar with incentives of up to $5.5 billion, the second highest in history, after Boeing’s $8.7 billion subsidy in Western Australia.
However, once China’s anti system arrives, the impact on Meguiar will be devastating – the Chinese market, which once contributed more than 70% of Meguiar’s profits, will now disappear!
And for the technology encirclement network laid down by Biden, this is only the beginning of a counterattack!