Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Chen Jin repeated, “Xing Hai Technologies can provide the lens that you need.”
“This is impossible!”
Zhang Yuming shook his head fiercely, “It’s impossible to produce this kind of lens with the current industrial processing technologies. The level of difficulty in their processing is legendary.”
Chen Jin said with a confident yet mysterious air, “Give me the design plan for the lens. Whether it can be done; whether it’s passable, you can judge for yourself when you receive it.”
That was right.
With the current standard of Earth’s industrial processing technologies, it was pretty much impossible to produce a photolithography lens that was integrated with 10,000 micro lenses.
Hence, he decided to use his “cheat code”.
He would manufacture it in Haierfa and “import” it to Earth.
He had to become a porter again and carry a few hundred photolithography lenses to Earth.
In order to pull the wool over people’s eyes and provide a reasonable explanation of the source, Chen Jin had to set up a “photolithography lens project team” and recruit a group of personnel. He also had to provide technical guides and routes to enable these people to make replacement products in a short period of time in order to avoid suspicion… with the help of ” Virtual Factory 2.0″ technology, there would be a way to make that photolithography lens in a year or two.
Chen Jin held 100% of the shares in Xing Hai Technologies so there was no need for him to announce the company’s business operations to the public. Moreover, Xinghai Technologies had diverse projects in the R&D field. It would not be suspicious to suddenly produce a photolithography lens.
This was definitely a benefit of a 100% individual shareholding.
He would get the people from Shanghai Microelectronics do a good job of keeping it secret. With Chen Jin acting as the transporter, producing a lithography lens would be easy.
In any case, they must immediately break the isolationist blockade by ASML on the photolithography machine!
Seeing the determined expression on Chen Jin’s face.
A trace of anticipation bloomed in Zhang Yuming’s heart. He nodded. “Ok, President Chen! The blueprint of the lens will be given to you immediately. If your company can really make the lens, our super-resolution photolithography machine will definitely be able to make a big impact in the field of chips! ”
Once the problem of the lens was solved, the advantages of the super-resolution photolithography machine would be massive. First, the cost must be reduced. Then, etching on a larger wafer would be simultaneously done by one hundred sets of lenses and one million beams of light. The efficiency of the super resolution photolithography machine would be more than 10 times of the conventional photolithography machine.
The yield would also be higher (basically a 100% increase).
As integrated circuit was directly “drawn”, the level of flexibility would be greatly improved. The production process of the chip could even be simplified.
The production efficiency of the chip would also be significantly improved.
The price of the final chip from the production line would be unimaginably cheap.
However…..
Even though the super-resolution photolithography technology was good, and it could be combined with multiple exposure technology, it could only produce chips of 10 or 9 nanometer in the end. It would be difficult to further reduce the size of the chips using this type of machine.
The most advanced chips on the market today were still 7 and 5 nanometer chips produced by the traditional EUV photolithography machines.
Although the 10 nanometer chips produced via super-resolution photolithography was cheaper, its performance would still be much poorer than the 7 and 5 nanometer chips.
For users who were looking for excellent performance and experience in their devices, they would still care much more about the user experience rather than the price.
Therefore, Zhongxin International must still get their on hands on the EUV photolithography machine!
It was still necessary to use this type of photolithography machine to produce the high-end 7 and 5 nanometer chips. They must not give up on this market.
The problem was that AMSL was not selling the EUV photolithography machine!
What should Zhongxin International do?
They could only produce the EUV photolithography machine themselves.
This was the purpose of Zhang Wei Jin’s acquisition of Shanghai Microelectronics. He wanted to use their own EUV photolithography machines and break the malicious sales ban of ASML.
Eh, what about intellectual property? Were they simply ignoring the barrier presented by the patents?
What if they infringed on ASML’s patents of the photolithography machine?
“This kind of action cannot be considered as illegal.”
Zhang Wei Jin explained, “The government had amended the ‘Patent Protection Law’ 2 years ago by adding a special clause. If certain advanced equipment are unreasonably prohibited from being sold to us by foreign powers, companies that are on the receiving end of this malicious ban can ignore the patent barriers of the other party. They can copy the other’s equipment to break the supply monopoly. If the other party file a lawsuit, we can present them with this law. Their complaint will become invalid.”
Chen Jin said, “So you mean is that Zhongxin International can develop its own EUV photolithography machine without considering whether it infringes on ASML’s patents when ASML has banned the sale of the EUV lithography machine to Zhongxin?”
“Yes! If they implement the sales ban unreasonably, I will immediately make a copy of it! This is completely legal. If they don’t ban the sale of their product, I will not copy it. Since they aren’t acting in a reasonable manner, I am qualified to retaliate.”
“Well, I think that many foreign companies will find this law rather unacceptable?”
“They have no choice but to accept it! They’ve forcibly blocked the metaphorical road, yet other road users are supposed to quietly sit aside and take the consequences? Just because they were the first to invent that technology does not mean that they have the right to decide the life and death of others! That’s a robber’s logic! Patent protection does not give you the right to do whatever you want. If you dare to use the sales ban to harm the interests of customers, then the customers have the right to take retaliate! ”
Zhang Wei Jin brandished his fist, “Acquiring Shanghai Microelectronics and producing our own EUV photolithography machine is our most direct method of retaliation!”
Chen Jin nodded, “That’s true. Patents are not a tool for anyone to act out their whims. The victim had the right to self-defense.”
However, he immediately thought of a problem. Frowning, he said, “That bunch of foreigners are really clever. They’ve immediately lifted the ban on their sales just when you’ve achieved a breakthrough with your EUV machines. What if they find another reason to sue you? Your 8 billion plus acquisition would become ineffective in a moment.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll have a bargaining chip after we break their sales ban. If ASML wants us to give up using our domestic made EUV photolithography machine, sure, but they will have to sell their EUV photolithography machines to us at 50 million per unit when they could have originally sold it to us for 100 million. They have to sell to us at cost price! Our domestic made EUV has that same production cost. And they have to supply us with as many units as Zhongxin International wants to buy. We’ll be their priority customers. If they can’t satisfy our needs, then we have the right to purchase our own EUV photolithography machines.”
Cost price sale + right to unlimited purchase.
This was the right that ASML would enjoy if they chose to call for a truce after the ban on sales of EUV to Z country had been broken.
This was also part of the supplementary clause in the “Patent Protection Law”
So what if those foreign companies found it unacceptable? They could choke on themselves!
Nobody forced them to implement the sales ban to Z country which caused unimaginable losses to Zhongxin International. The company had lost 30 billion in their market value!
Hence, these supplementary provisions in the Patent Protection Law were also referred to as “legal counterfeits clauses.”
Its launch had effectively shocked a group of foreign technology companies and patent hooligans.
Shanghai Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Zhongxin International, had decided to copy the EUV photolithography machine of ASML. With the assistance of the “virtual factory”, it would break the sales ban of ASML within six months.
This could be summed up in one sentence. When you had the same things that others had, You would never experience a sales ban from the suppliers.
Chen Jin shook his head: “If only I had known that there was such a legal clause. Shanghai Microelectronics should have been acquired six months ago and the counterfeit produced in advance. Then, when they announced the ban, we’ll immediately take out the replacement product. It would be impossible to fall into such a trap that cost us half a year’s time.”
“It’s my fault for placing too much trust in ASML.”
Zhang Wei Jin blamed himself, “I had thought that they would never dare to implement a sales ban. In the end, they still did it. The West are backing Samsin and Mossey Electrics. I’ve underestimated the power of the capital that the West possess. Hah, how could they possibly give up on annual revenues of hundreds of billions?”
“Interrupting one’s flow of income is akin to murdering his parents. They have reason to be driven to desperate action.”
Chen Jin nodded, “It’s fine to learn your lesson from this incident. Check if there are any flaws or loopholes again. Rectify them now if there are. ”
Upon further investigation, he realised that other than the photolithography machines, there were nearly no other areas where they were restricted or controlled by external powers. For example, many domestic companies had made breakthroughs in the area of photoresists for the past two years. The monopolies of foreign countries had been broken. The etching machine was an area that they were even stronger in…..They had everything that they needed.
The foreign companies would soon find their limited abilities exhausted when it came to imposing technological blockades.
They really had few happy days left to live.