Semiconductor manufacturing equipment has always been one of the key export items controlled by the U.S. government, and every export contract of Lam Research needs to be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Export Administration.

Although under the guidance of the strategy of "uniting China to contain the Soviet Union," the United States and China are still in a honeymoon period. However, under the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Export Administration, there is a special China Section that deals with license applications for the export of technology and goods to China.

For example, the reason why Lam Research was able to successfully obtain a license to export 5-inch wafer and 3-micron process technology to China is partly due to the good relationship between the Eastern Bloc and the White House, and on the other hand, because the federal government has just passed the "Comprehensive Trade Competition Act" and has begun to moderately relax unilateral export controls.

And with Lam's gradual development in the field of semiconductor equipment, it will definitely spend more and more time dealing with the U.S. government and Congress in the future. Therefore, as the CEO of Lam, Lin Jieping needs to actively expand his contacts in American politics 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 ball game together, that is, he hopes to introduce him to the "future president of the United States" next to him. Regardless of whether Bush Jr. will eventually enter the White House in the same time and space as he will in the future, there is no doubt about the influence of the Bush family in US political circles.

And the reason why Lin Jieping arrived late was also because he was not in Dallas, but flew from Houston, 400 kilometers away. Houston is the largest industrial base in the southwestern United States, relying on the rich oil resources of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, Houston has built a strong petrochemical industry since the twenties.

But in recent years. The city of Houston began to work to change the monolithic economic structure that was too dependent on the oil industry, and began to actively develop high-tech industries such as semiconductors, aerospace, and biopharmaceuticals. Lam Research recently acquired a new company in the field of cleaning equipment.

The company is located in Houston and is in line with the City of Houston's growth strategy to support high technology in recent years. In this election. One of Texas' two Senate seats will be up for election. The candidate representing the Republican Party is the former mayor of Houston.

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

The Eastern Bloc has just decided to invest heavily in Austin, and the candidate can get involved with the Eastern Bloc at this time. It can undoubtedly improve his own approval rating in the city of Austin. So tomorrow when the agreement between the Eastern Bloc and the city of Austin is formally signed, the former mayor will also be in attendance.

Later, when the former mayor held a campaign fundraising dinner in Austin, Li Xuan, a non-American, was not convenient to attend directly. But the Eastern bloc will certainly express its support.

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

Lam Research started out with etching equipment. Even without the intervention of Li Xuan's butterfly. In another space, it could eventually become one of the world's top five semiconductor equipment manufacturers, with a leading share of markets such as plasma etching and single-wafer cleaning technologies.

However, Li Xuan's intervention allowed Lam Research to have a large amount of research funds in the early stage of development, and it did not need to specialize in one item, but had the ability to fully blossom. Among the three lithography machines, etching machines and chemical precipitation equipment, the most sophisticated and expensive lithography machines are the same.

Before Li Xuan's rebirth, companies around the world were able to provide commercial lithography machines. Only three companies remain: ASML, Nikon and Canon. Among them, ASML in the Netherlands alone 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 spun off from Philips was able to overtake the latecomers after 2000, surpassing Japan's Nikon and Canon, and once seized 60% of the global lithography machine market, the biggest confidence comes from the strong support of Intel. You must know that Intel in the previous life, with its monopoly position in the computer chip market, has always been one of the world's largest and most profitable semiconductor companies.

In order to maintain the performance leadership of its own processors, Intel has improved the fab process regardless of the cost. Intel has long held shares in ASML, and officially thanks to the support of Intel's continuous funds and orders, ASML has been able to gradually dominate the entire mid-to-high-end lithography machine market.

And Li Xuan also hopes that Lam Research and Oriental Semiconductor can form a tacit understanding like Intel and ASML in the previous life. As the entire Lam Research Company, the lithography machine was relatively backward in terms of lithography machine technology, and it was impossible for Dongfang Semiconductor Company to slow down its pace and stop and wait for the other party.

So with Li Xuan's financial support, Lam Research won 5 at the beginning of this year. At a price of $800 million, GCA, the largest lithography machine manufacturer in the United States, was in the bag. The exposure methods of lithography machines can be divided into two categories: contact/approach and projection.

Among them, the performance of projection lithography machine is even more excellent, and the world's first commercial projection lithography machine was first launched by GCA in 1978. Until 1984, GCA was the world's largest manufacturer of lithography machines, with a market share of around 20%.

But from 1985 onwards, GCA's business situation took a sharp turn for the worse. In 1985 alone, GCA lost 1. $4.5 billion, and even fell into the point where it could not even settle the accounts payable of raw material suppliers.

GCA's fall from the pinnacle of glory is naturally related to the overall difficulties of the US semiconductor industry in the 80s. The vast majority of the output value of the global semiconductor industry comes from the memory business, and the memory manufacturers in the United States have almost been forced into a desperate situation by Japanese semiconductor companies after entering the 80s.

The overall decline of U.S. semiconductor manufacturers has naturally hit GCA's lithography machine sales seriously. In contrast, two Japanese lithography machine manufacturers, Nikon and Canon, have risen rapidly thanks to Japan's thriving semiconductor industry.

Since 1985, Nikon has replaced GCA as the new global hegemon in the lithography machine market. As for the famous ASML company in the future, it was just a little famous in the European market at this time.

After three consecutive years of losses in '85, '86, and '87, the gap between GCA and Nikon has widened, which has made the company's shareholders start to feel impatient. This finally gave Lam, who had been snooping for a long time, a chance to pocket its prey.

GCA's sales for the whole of last year fell to only 90 million US dollars, and one-third of these orders came from Dongfang Semiconductor. In order to undertake the foundry business of the latest ERM-3 series processors, Dongfang Semiconductor will start construction of a new generation of process ultra-large-scale wafer fab this year.

In fact, GCA's technical reserves are not lagging behind, and its latest generation of lithography machines are not technically lagging behind similar products of Japanese companies. It's a pity that U.S. memory manufacturers, although relying on the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement to get a chance to survive, are not very willing to spend huge sums of money to buy the most advanced lithography machines.

On the contrary, due to the continuous increase in foundry orders, Dongfang Semiconductor Company 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 processes.

However, in terms of 8-inch wafer and 1-micron process technology, GCA is by no means the only lithography machine manufacturer in the world that can meet the technical requirements. In addition to GCA in the United States, SVGL, another well-known lithography machine manufacturer, can also meet the needs of Oriental Semiconductor Company, not to mention that Japan has Nikon and Canon eyeing up.

Therefore, for GCA, the most effective way to win a huge order from Dongfang Semiconductor is to establish closer ties with it. So when Lam Research made a general takeover offer, neither GCA nor management had any reason to refuse.

After the completion of the acquisition of GCA, Lam Research has finally reached the world's advanced level in the field of lithography machines. The company's main investment in Austin is the construction of a new lithography machine manufacturing facility. The new plant will have a total floor area of more than 100,000 square meters and is planned to employ a total of 400 people. After the factory is completed and put into operation, 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 increased significantly. 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 to undertake memory orders from various customers.

However, global processor production capacity is gradually shifting to Asia. Especially in East Asia, under the demonstration effect of Dongfang Semiconductor, wafer foundries have also begun to appear in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and other places. Especially in Taiwan, although TSMC has been stillborn, in addition to Dongfang Semiconductor and UMC, two more wafer foundries have emerged.

One of the biggest reasons for GCA's decline over the past few years is its neglect of emerging markets. So when demand in the U.S. drops, it immediately gets bogged down. Lam Research certainly doesn't make that mistake, and in fact it is taking advantage of the Eastern Bloc's strong presence in the Asian market.

So immediately after the acquisition of GCA, Lam Research began to compete for orders to visit 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.) )

PS: The second chapter may be late, but two chapters a day will definitely be guaranteed! Everyone votes for monthly tickets and recommended votes, although they don't expect to compete for the list, but every ticket is an encouragement to Sky! Of course, the most important thing is to subscribe to the genuine version, I thank you first!