As is well known, in the manufacturing process of chips, the lithography machine is one of the most core devices. Among all semiconductor devices, lithography machines account for 20% of the cost, and lithography process time accounts for 30-40% of all processes.
The global lithography machines are mainly monopolized by three major manufacturers, namely ASML from the Netherlands, Nikon from Japan, and Canon. As for other manufacturers, such as Shanghai Microelectronics, there is basically no sense of existence in front of these three major manufacturers and can be ignored.
According to data from 2021, ASML alone holds 75% of the market share, while Nikon and Canon have a market share of 13% and 6% respectively, with a total of the three major manufacturers exceeding 94%.
In the EUV lithography field, ASML’s share is 100%, and in the infiltration lithography field of DUV, ASML’s share exceeds 90%. It can be seen that advanced lithography machines are mainly dominated by ASML, while Nikon and Canon are mostly in the mid to low-end markets.
It is precisely because ASML is too powerful, especially in monopolizing the EUV lithography machine market, and can be said to have monopolized the infiltration lithography machine market, that ASML’s lithography machines are difficult to obtain. For example, EUV lithography machines are even more sought after by TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Meguiar, and SK Hynix.
In the past few years, there has been a global shortage of chips, and wafer fabs have also been aggressively expanding production. As a result, ASML’s lithography machine orders have exploded, and global wafer fabs have gone to ASML to book lithography machines, resulting in ASML’s production capacity falling far short of demand and owing many orders.
According to the latest data released by ASML, the company currently has a backlog of orders exceeding 38.9 billion euros (approximately 293.306 billion yuan), which means that ASML still owes around 300 billion euros to global wafer fabs for undelivered lithography machines. As a reference, ASML’s revenue in 2022 was 21.2 billion euros, which is equivalent to over a year and a half of revenue not yet delivered.
Among the 300 billion yuan of undelivered orders, the orders from Chinese Mainland still account for more than 20% of the undelivered orders. As a result, there are 7.78 billion euros (nearly 60 billion yuan) of photolithography machines still owed by ASML to Chinese Mainland.
How many lithography machines can I buy for 60 billion yuan? In 2022, ASML achieved a revenue of 2.16 billion euros from the Chinese market and sold approximately 100 DUV lithography machines.
And 7.78 billion euros, which is equivalent to 3.6 times of the 2022 revenue, means that ASML’s revenue in Chinese Mainland will remain unchanged for three and a half years even if there is no increase in orders in Chinese Mainland.
If we follow the average price of lithography machines purchased in 2022, it is equivalent to ASML still owing more than 360 DUV lithography machines in China. How large is this quantity? I don’t need to say much.
It can be seen that as long as we have real core technology and can achieve global integration, we really don’t have to worry about orders, and even the world has to demand that we sell to each other. Therefore, as a company, we should be like ASML, do you think?
Original title: How great is ASML? We owe 293.3 billion yuan to the world for photolithography machines and 60 billion yuan to Chinese Mainland for orders
