Compared with the unprecedented grand exhibition areas of manufacturers such as the United States and Japan, the European exhibition area was much quieter.
Although there are many manufacturers, Wan Feng can only name a few of them, and he has never even heard of many of them.
This way he has no purpose.
Wan Feng wandered around aimlessly. Judging from the information he saw through his eyes, he would not stay in this exhibition area for more than two hours.
Maybe he'll be out in an hour.
Most of the manufacturers' booths here are quite ordinary, with few being decorated in fancy ways, no beautiful models, and nothing eye-catching.
He never stopped walking since he entered the exhibition area.
In other exhibition areas, he almost just walked and stopped to look around, but here he just walked and looked around without stopping at all.
So we quickly reached the final corner area.
The manufacturers here are more like making up the numbers than exhibiting.
Wan Feng felt that the products on display were handmade in a family workshop.
Maybe they can't afford to rent a good booth, so they can only make do in a place like this.
Maybe they think that signing a deal is a good deal, and not losing much if they fail to sign it.
After all, the booth prices in this place probably aren't much different from giving them away for free.
At this time, a booth of a manufacturer attracted Wan Feng's attention.
The manufacturer's booth was empty, with only a computer and a box on it.
There were also two middle-aged men who looked a little haggard, sitting there listlessly, not talking to each other.
The computer was obviously not new, so it was certain that the other party was not selling computers.
Who would buy a computer if it is placed in a corner like this?
So what the hell is this manufacturer doing here?
Even if other manufacturers’ booths are shabby, they at least have a few products. What are they doing here?
Selling people?
If these were two beautiful girls, it would be possible, but who would buy these two bald men?
Wan Feng subconsciously looked up at the manufacturer's name: ASMI.
The name of this manufacturer, Wan Feng, sounds familiar, but I couldn’t remember who it was after thinking for a long time.
If you can’t remember, just forget about it.
This is almost the end of the exhibition area, and there seems to be a manufacturer's booth in front.
Wan Feng turned around and prepared to take Han Guangjia out to find a Chinese restaurant for a meal.
European food is so fucking terrible.
Wan Feng suspected that foreigners' digestive systems were still in their original state. How did they eat and digest things that only animals could eat?
The people from the embassy told them that there were several good Chinese restaurants run by overseas Chinese on such-and-such street.
"Let's go! Let's go find a restaurant owned by overseas Chinese and have a good meal. I've felt like my intestines are in knots these past two days."
"Not watching anymore?"
"It's boring. If you don't understand what you're reading or what you're listening to, it's useless to watch it."
The two men started walking out, and when they were about to leave the west exhibition area, they saw Mi Guangnan and his group.
"Xiao Wan! Have you finished looking at this area?" Mi Guangnan asked in surprise.
"I took a quick look around, but it wasn't very interesting. Do you want to go in and take a look?"
"We plan to spend half a day looking around here, and tomorrow we will mainly visit the East Exhibition Area."
It turns out that they stayed in the middle exhibition area for more than half a day.
"Then you guys go in. We'll go out and find two restaurants run by people from our country. Once we find one, I'll treat you to a good meal."
"Okay! That's a great idea. We can't eat the foreigners' food anymore. We can finally find one and have a good meal tonight."
Wan Feng waved goodbye to them, and after walking a few steps, he turned back and called out to Mi Guangnan, "Mr. Mi, what does ASMI mean?"
"Asmi or Asmai."
Wan Feng nodded to indicate that he remembered it, then turned around and walked outside again, thinking about Asmi as he walked.
ASMI? ASML?
When he was about to walk out of the hall, Wan Feng suddenly remembered what Asmi did for a living.
Isn’t this the factory where He Lan later became famous for making photolithography machines?
The most critical lithography equipment for chip making.
One machine sold for 120 million yuan, which made them a lot of money.
Wan Feng stopped and his head began to spin rapidly.
He was recalling an article he had read.
Before he was reborn, ZTE had just been strangled by the United States. At that time, he became interested in chips and read countless articles on chips, one of which mentioned the development of lithography machines.
The second most important step in chip production is development, which is to engrave geometric structures on the photoresist layer.
In the 1970s, the technology used in this process was a lens-type developing device.
Feilipu began developing lens-type non-contact lithography equipment in the early 1970s and launched a new type of lithography equipment around 1973.
Although it has achieved success in overall performance, it is expensive and has a series of technical problems, making it difficult to promote commercially.
At the same time, some manufacturers in the United States and Japan solved a series of problems with contact lithography machines.
Feilipu believed that this lithography machine had no future and closed the team.
At this time, Asmi appeared.
At that time, ASMI was initially just a semiconductor equipment agent. Later, it entered the chip packaging field and has now expanded to front-end equipment.
When they learned about Feilipu's plan, they thought Feilipu's research was very valuable and came here excitedly.
Feilipu was originally determined to close this project, but could not resist Asmi's constant persuasion and transferred the project to Asmi at a very low price around 1984.
Asmi thought he could develop the technology successfully, so he invested money in research.
But ideals are beautiful, and reality is cruel.
As soon as Asmi took over, it faced several problems. The first was backward technology. After all, Feilipu developed this technology more than ten years ago. It had become outdated during the long wait and could no longer meet market demand.
The second reason is market saturation. At that time, there were several competing lithography machines in the market, including Japan's Nikon and Canon, and the United States' GCA, ASET, Eaton, Ultratch, and a company from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
They all sell contact lithography machines and have almost divided up all the market share.
The last problem is of course lack of money.
After several years of struggle, ASML is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
After finishing his recollections, a question came to Wan Feng's mind: What are they doing here?
It looked like they were not here to sell products, as they didn't have any products with them.
Since he's not here to sell products, it looks like he's planning to trade these technologies for some money?
Wan Feng's heart started beating for no reason.
He took a deep breath and calmed himself down.
"Go back!" Wan Feng suddenly said this, turned around and walked towards the West District Exhibition Hall again.
Han Guangjia was stunned for a moment and shook his head helplessly.
What's going on in this guy's head?
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