Video Game Empire

Semiconductor manufacturing equipment has always been one of the key export items controlled by the U.S. government. Every export contract of Fanlin Company needs to be reviewed by the Export Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Although the United States and China are still in the honeymoon period under the strategy of "Uniting China to control the Soviet Union". However, under the U.S. Department of Commerce's Export Administration, there is an ad hoc China Section that handles license applications for exporting technology and goods to China.

For example, the reason why Fanlin Company was able to successfully obtain a license to export 5-inch wafers and 3-micron process technology to China this time is due to the good relationship between the Oriental Group and the White House, and also because the federal government has just passed the The Comprehensive Trade and Competition Law has been passed, and unilateral export controls have been moderately relaxed.

With the gradual development of Fanlin in the field of semiconductor equipment, there will definitely be more and more time to deal with the US government and Congress in the future. Therefore, Lin Jieping, as the CEO of Fanlin Company, needs to actively expand his contacts in the US political circles in addition to the daily operation and management of the company.

This is also the real reason why Li Xuan invited him to watch the game together, hoping to introduce him to the "future American president" beside him. Regardless of whether Bush Jr. can eventually enter the White House like another time and space, the influence of the Bush family in American politics is beyond doubt.

And the reason why Lin Jieping arrived late is also because he was not in Dallas, but flew in from Houston, which is 400 kilometers away, w○ww. Houston is the largest industrial base in the southwestern United States. Relying on the rich petroleum resources in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, Houston has established a strong petrochemical industry since the 1920s.

But in recent years. The city of Houston began to devote itself to changing the single economic pattern that was overly dependent on the oil industry, and began to actively develop high-tech industries such as semiconductors, aerospace, and biopharmaceuticals. The Pan-Lin Company just recently merged a new company in the field of cleaning equipment.

This company is located in Houston, which is in line with Houston's development strategy of supporting high-tech in recent years. in this election. One of Texas' two Senate seats is up for re-election. The candidate representing the Republican Party is the former mayor of Houston.

Lin Jieping had been in contact with the mayor before, and this time, as Li Xuan's special representative, he went to communicate with the former Houston mayor. Because the constituency the opponent is running for happens to include Houston, Austin and other areas in southern Texas.

The Oriental Group has just decided to make a large-scale investment in Austin. If the candidate can have a relationship with the Oriental Group at this time. Undoubtedly can improve his approval rating in the city of Austin. So tomorrow, when the Eastern Group and the city of Austin formally sign the agreement, the former mayor will also be there.

Later, when the former mayor held a campaign fundraising dinner in Austin, Li Xuan, a non-American, was inconvenient to attend directly. But the Oriental Group will definitely express its supportive attitude.

The development of integrated circuits to the ultra-large-scale stage, the manufacturing process is already a very sophisticated and complex system engineering. There are hundreds of types of equipment used in fabs. The three most critical equipment are undoubtedly lithography machines, etching machines and chemical precipitation equipment.

Fanlin started out with etching equipment. Even without the intervention of the butterfly Li Xuan. In another time and space, it could eventually develop into one of the top five semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the world, with leading shares in markets such as plasma etching and single-wafer cleaning technologies.

However, Li Xuan's intervention allowed Fanlin Company to have a large amount of research funds in the early stage of development. It does not need to specialize in one, but has the ability to fully blossom. Among the lithography machine, etching machine and chemical precipitation equipment, the most sophisticated and expensive lithography machine is none other than the most sophisticated one.

Before Li Xuan's rebirth, there were companies in the world that could provide commercial lithography machines. There are only three companies left: asml, Nikon and Canon. Among them, the asml company in the Netherlands occupies nearly 60% of the market share. In particular, it completely dominates the mid-to-high-end market.

The reason why this equipment manufacturing company split from Philips was able to catch up with latecomers after 2000, surpassing Japan's Nikon and Canon, once seized 60% of the global lithography machine market, the biggest confidence came from Intel. strong support. You must know that Intel in its previous life has always been one of the largest and most profitable semiconductor companies in the world by virtue of its monopoly position in the computer chip market.

In order to maintain the performance lead of its own processors, Intel has made improvements to the fab process technology regardless of cost. Intel has held shares in asml company for a long time. Officially, due to the support of Intel's continuous funds and orders, asml can gradually dominate the entire mid-to-high-end lithography machine market.

And Li Xuan also hopes that Fanlin Company and Dongfang Semiconductor Company can form a tacit understanding like Intel and asml in the previous life. The lithography machine, as the entire Fanlin company, was relatively backward in lithography technology. It is impossible for Dongfang Semiconductor to slow down its pace and stop and wait for the other party.

So, with the financial support of Li Xuan, at the beginning of this year, Fanlin acquired Gca, the largest lithography machine manufacturer in the United States, at a price of US$580 million. The exposure methods of lithography machines can be divided into two categories: contact/proximity and projection.

Among them, the performance of projection lithography machine is more excellent, and the world's first commercial projection lithography machine was first launched by gca company in 1978. Before 1984, gca company has been the world's largest lithography machine manufacturer, the market share has been maintained at about 20%.

But since 1985, the business situation of gca company has taken a turn for the worse. In 1985 alone, gca company lost 145 million US dollars, and even fell into a situation where even the accounts payable of raw material suppliers could not be settled.

The fall of gca company from the peak of glory is naturally not unrelated to the overall trouble of the US semiconductor industry in the 1980s. Most of the output value of the global semiconductor industry comes from the memory business, and after entering the 1980s, American memory manufacturers have almost been cornered by Japanese semiconductor companies.

The overall decline of U.S. semiconductor manufacturers has naturally severely hit gca's lithography machine sales. In contrast, the Japanese lithography machine manufacturers Nikon and Canon have risen rapidly by virtue of Japan's thriving semiconductor industry.

Since 1985, Nikon has replaced gca as the new global leader in the lithography machine market. As for the well-known asml company in later generations, it was just a little famous in the European market at this time.

After three consecutive years of losses in 1985, 1986 and 1987, the gap between GCA and Nikon has widened, which made the company's shareholders feel impatient. This finally gave the long-spying Fanlin company a chance to take the prey into the bag.

The sales of gca company last year fell to only 90 million US dollars, and one-third of the orders came from Oriental Semiconductor. In order to undertake the foundry business of the latest erm3 series processors, Dongfang Semiconductor will start construction of a super-large-scale wafer factory with a new generation of technology this year.

In fact, gca's technical reserves are not behind. Its latest generation of lithography machines are not technically behind similar products of Japanese companies. It is a pity that the memory manufacturers in the United States, although relying on the "US-Japan Semiconductor Agreement" to obtain the opportunity to survive, are not very willing to spend huge sums of money to purchase the most advanced lithography machines.

On the contrary, due to the continuous increase of foundry orders, Dongfang Semiconductor has expanded rapidly in recent years and has become the largest purchaser in the global semiconductor equipment market. Due to the requirements of upstream customers, Dongfang Semiconductor needs to constantly track the most advanced process.

However, as far as the 8-inch wafer and 1-micron process is concerned, the global lithography machine manufacturer that can meet the technical requirements is by no means only GCA. In addition to gca company in the United States, svgl company, another well-known lithography machine manufacturer, can also meet the needs of oriental semiconductor companies, not to mention Japan and Nikon and Canon are eyeing them.

Therefore, for gca company, the most effective means to win the huge order from Dongfang Semiconductor is to establish a closer relationship with it. Therefore, when Fanlin issued a general takeover offer, neither gca nor shareholders nor management had any reason to reject it.

After completing the annexation of GCA, Fanlin has finally reached the world's advanced level in the field of lithography machines. The company's main investment in Austin this time is to build a new lithography machine manufacturing plant. The total construction area of ​​this new factory will exceed 100,000 square meters, and the total planned number of employees will reach 400~www.readwn.com~ After the factory is completed and put into production, it will have an annual production capacity of 500 lithography machines of various types.

Although with the vigorous development of the computer industry, the demand for microprocessors has greatly increased. But for the entire reporting industry, the largest single market is still the memory market. In fact, more than half of Dongfang Semiconductor's current production capacity is also undertaking memory orders from various customers.

However, global processor capacity is beginning to gradually shift to Asia. Especially in East Asia, under the demonstration effect of Oriental Semiconductor, foundry companies have also begun to appear in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and other places. Especially in Taiwan, although TSMC is stillborn, in addition to Dongfang Semiconductor and UMC, there are two more foundry companies.

The biggest reason for the decline of gca in the past few years is that it neglected the development of emerging markets. So when demand in the U.S. fell, it was in immediate trouble. Naturally, Pan-Lin will not make such a mistake. In fact, it is well-versed by the strong influence of the Oriental Group in the Asian market.

Therefore, after the completion of the annexation of gca company, Fanlin company immediately began to fully compete for orders in the Asian technology market. It is precisely because of the huge demand in the Asian market that Lin Jieping dares to invest in the construction of a new factory in Austin. (To be continued.)

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