Chapter 1149 Empire Group Develops the First Commercial Lithography Machine

Chapter 1149 The Empire Group has developed the first commercial lithography machine!

Empire Group Building.

Empire Group headquarters conference room.

Oriental Daily, Ming Pao, Sing Tao Daily, Hong Kong Business News, etc., major Hong Kong media newspapers, as well as Hong Kong TVB, Hong Kong Asia Television, Hong Kong Radio, Hong Kong Commercial Radio, and major global reporters stationed in Hong Kong, were all invited to attend the press conference of the Empire Group's acquisition of Huifeng Bank.

In addition, Governor-General MacLeod did not attend the Governor's Office, but several important figures such as Chief Secretary Zhong Yijie and Financial Secretary Pierce attended.

On the Empire Group side, in addition to MacLeod, Ma Shimin, Wei Li, Li Caixin and others, there were also people like Shen Yi from Huifeng Bank, Zheng Weijian, Xu Shixun, Deng Lianru, Shi Youdi from Swire and others from Huifeng Bank's board of directors.

18:00 in the evening.

Sitting in the front, led by MacLeod, Shen Yi and others.

Mai Lisi announced that he would officially announce the acquisition of Huifeng Bank on behalf of Sir Yang, Chairman of the Empire Group, the Empire Group Cabinet, and the Empire Group Secretariat.

The Empire Group will acquire Huifeng Bank at a total market value of 40 billion Hong Kong dollars.

At this time, in the world, the acquisition of Huifeng Bank at a total market value of 40 billion Hong Kong dollars is indeed not low.

In addition to these.

Mai Lisi also announced new personnel appointments for Huifeng Bank.

Shen Yi is still the head of Huifeng Bank, but now he has become the new general manager of Huifeng Bank and is directly responsible to Yang Ming.

In addition, Shen Yi is also a director of Huifeng Bank and a member of the Empire Group's cabinet.

In other words, Shen Yi has become a new cabinet member of the Empire Group.

However, Shen Yi is now 60 years old. Under normal circumstances, he can only serve one more term, that is, when he is 65 years old, he must resign from the position of head of Huifeng Bank.

The reason why Yang Ming let Shen Yi continue to be the head of Huifeng Bank was that, in addition to Shen Yi's own ability, the internal stability of Huifeng Bank still had to be handled by Shen Yi.

In other words, it was equivalent to Huifeng Bank changing a new boss, and nothing else seemed to have changed.

When the press conference ended.

Some people were happy.

Some people looked ugly.

. . .

When the press conference ended.

Shen Yi, Mai Lisi and others were interviewed by reporters.

Afterwards, Shen Yi, Mai Lisi and others took a car to the Repulse Bay Mid-Levels Villa to meet Yang Ming.

. . .

Rest for a night.

Early the next morning.

Yang Ming got up for a walk. When he finished his walk and had breakfast, he learned from the newspapers that it was all about the press conference jointly held by the Empire Group and Huifeng Bank last night, in which the Empire Group had officially swallowed up Huifeng Bank.

In other words, the two largest banks in Hong Kong.

Huifeng Bank and Zada ​​Bank are now both in the hands of the Empire Group.

In addition to these two banks, Hengtie Bank, a subsidiary of Huifeng Bank, has also indirectly become a part of the Empire Group's financial bank.

In other words, from now on, as long as the Empire Group does not let these banks move out of Hong Kong, Hong Kong's finance will still be very stable.

Now these newspapers have various reports and comments. It can be seen that the sudden acquisition of Huifeng Bank by the Empire Group still caused a great sensation.

The news after the acquisition of Huifeng Bank by the Empire Group is still continuing to stir.

Yang Ming has already turned his attention to other aspects.

February 17, 1987.

Thursday.

Early this morning, Yang Ming just got up. Although it was drizzling outside, Yang Ming was very happy today.

Yesterday, he had already received a piece of news that made him excited.

A technology company of the Empire Group in Hong Kong Science and Technology City officially developed a commercial lithography machine.

What does this mean?

It is conceivable.

Since the early 1980s, Yang Ming has established a science and technology city in the north of Hong Kong to lay out the semiconductor industry chain, in addition to establishing the Hong Kong integrated circuit manufacturing company.

For things like photolithography machines, Yang Ming had already established them.

In recent years, in addition to talents from Japan, Europe, the United States, and Hong Kong, talents from the Soviet Union have also joined in the past two years.

Now, after a few years, the first photolithography machine has finally been developed.

Of course, the current photolithography machine is much simpler than the photolithography machine in the next thirty or forty years.

As far as the domestic aspect is concerned, as early as 1965, the Z Academy of Sciences developed the 65-type contact photolithography machine.

If the performance gap is not considered, the first contact photolithography machine in the United States was manufactured by GCA in 1961, only 4 years apart.

At that time, the Z people were full of ambition to "surpass Britain and catch up with the United States" and never gave up. Supported by this belief, the photolithography machine technology in Z entered a period of vigorous and brilliant independent development.

In the early 1970s, the Z Academy of Sciences began to study computer-assisted photolithography mask technology;

In 1977, my country successfully developed the GK-3 semi-automatic photolithography machine.

In 1980, Qinghua University succeeded in the research of the fourth-generation step-by-step projection lithography technology, with a lithography accuracy of 3 microns, close to the international mainstream level.

In 1982, the 109th Factory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the first KHA-75-1 lithography machine, shortening the gap with the world's cutting-edge level to within 5 years.

In 1985, the domestic new step-by-step lithography machine test machine passed the acceptance, and after expert appraisal, its performance was close to the level of the 4800DSW lithography machine of GCA, the giant lithography machine company in the United States.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first step-by-step projection lithography machine in the country of Z. Although it is not as "leading the world" as described in some materials, it has allowed the country to keep up with the pace of the world's first echelon in the field of lithography, and the gap with the top is only seven or eight years at most.

So far, the history of the development of lithography technology in the country of Z has reached its peak, but who would have thought that it would also become the end of a glorious era?

With the deepening of the great opening up, the country of Z has actively integrated into the world, and the huge opportunities that are coming are also mixed with many "sweet poisons".

In the 1970s and 1980s, the country of Z and the country of M had a "honeymoon period". From advanced weapons to various civilian products, as long as the money is in place, they are no longer an unattainable luxury.

Western countries have also been quite "generous" and are willing to sell even cutting-edge products such as lithography machines.

It can be said that whether the West's "generosity" to China is a temporary goodwill or a sinister conspiracy, the interests involved are really meaningful.

On the other hand, the development of domestic lithography machines happened to encounter a bottleneck and has been stuck at the 193nm light source for nearly 20 years.

Since it can be easily obtained, why bother to develop it? At that time, Country Z was far from being rich. In contrast, the "comprador mentality" quickly dominated the mainstream.

If you don't move forward, you will retreat. The distance between Country Z and the first echelon is getting bigger and bigger, and soon it is completely out of touch.

In fact, in this field, compared with the gap between China and the United States, Japan, and Europe, the struggle within the first echelon is much more tragic and cruel.

The principle of lithography is actually not complicated. Even in the early stage of development, its complexity is not even as complicated as that of a camera; some companies that need lithography machines do not buy them from professional manufacturers, but buy parts and assemble them themselves, such as Intel.

The earliest trend of lithography machine development was led by the M country.

The GCA company of the United States developed the first contact lithography machine and became a giant in the lithography machine industry.

With the support of the US Air Force, PerkinElmer Instruments launched the world's first projection lithography machine Micralign100, which increased the chip yield by 7 times overnight.

In 1978, GCA launched the stepper lithography machine DSW4800 with a resolution of up to 1 micron.

Although the unit price of this type of lithography machine is as high as 450,000 US dollars, major companies are still flocking to it and have no worries about sales. So far, GCA has entered its heyday. Under its leadership, the US lithography machine industry is booming, but it is not known that raising a tiger will bring disaster. The "industrial heyday" created by the US people has entered the countdown.

In the 1970s, major semiconductor manufacturers increasingly chose Japanese companies to match the optical lenses of lithography machines, such as Nikon and Canon.

In this process, Japanese companies have a clear understanding of the uncomplicated lithography machine technology and began their own attempts.

With the continuous advancement of lithography technology, the chip process is getting smaller and smaller, and the lithography machine technology is becoming more and more dependent on the optical system. In this process, Japanese companies, which excel in optical components, gradually rose and quickly took market share from the M countrymen. GCA declined and was acquired, and eventually, the Japanese became the new leader in the field of lithography machines.

Historically, in 1984, when the pursuit of independent research and development of lithography machines in China was gradually being eaten away by the "comprador mentality", the Dutch Philips Company temporarily built a row of simple factory buildings on the open space in front of the headquarters building as the office space for a newly established joint venture with 31 employees. This inconspicuous small company was the Dutch ASML company, which later controlled more than 60% of the lithography machine market and had an unshakable position. If you want to produce chips below 10nm, you can only buy cutting-edge lithography machines from this company. There is no other choice; such a lithography machine costs $120 million per unit, and you may not be able to buy it even if you have money.

Later, they even ordered an advanced lithography machine from ASML and paid a deposit. However, a fire broke out in an industrial park in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, affecting an important supplier of ASML. As a result, many years later, the goods were not received in China.

In 2007, ASML's market share exceeded Nikon for the first time, and the world's top spot officially changed hands.