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| SAN FRANCISCO — President Biden and many lawmakers in Washington are worried these days about computer chips and China’s ambitions with the foundational technology. |
| 旧金山——电脑芯片和中国在基础技术上的野心如今是让拜登总统和多位华盛顿立法者倍感忧心的事。 |
| But a massive machine sold by a Dutch company has emerged as a key lever for policymakers — and illustrates how any country’s hopes of building a completely self-sufficient supply chain in semiconductor technology are unrealistic. |
| 然而，一家荷兰公司出售的一种巨型机器已经成为政策制定者们的有力手段——由此也能看到，任何国家要想建起一套完全自足的半导体技术供应链都是天方夜谭。 |
| The machine is made by ASML Holding, based in Veldhoven. Its system uses a different kind of light to define ultrasmall circuitry on chips, packing more performance into the small slices of silicon. The tool, which took decades to develop and was introduced for high-volume manufacturing in 2017, costs more than $150 million. Shipping it to customers requires 40 shipping containers, 20 trucks and three Boeing 747s. |
| 这种机器是由位于费尔德霍芬的ASML控股公司制造的。它的系统使用了一种不同的光来界定芯片上的极微小电路，从而让一片小小的硅片拥有更强大的性能。这种机床的研发耗时数十年，于2017年开始量产，价格超过1.5亿美元。机器的运送需要使用40个集装箱、20辆卡车和三架波音747飞机。 |
| The complex machine is widely acknowledged as necessary for making the most advanced chips, an ability with geopolitical implications. The Trump administration successfully lobbied the Dutch government to block shipments of such a machine to China in 2019, and the Biden administration has shown no signs of reversing that stance. |
| 这种复杂的机器被普遍认为是生产最先进的芯片——一种有地缘政治意义的能力——所必需的。特朗普政府在2019年成功游说荷兰政府阻止向中国出售这一设备，没有任何迹象表明拜登政府会改变这一立场。 |
| Manufacturers can’t produce leading-edge chips without the system, and “it is only made by the Dutch firm ASML,” said Will Hunt, a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, which has concluded that it would take China at least a decade to build its own similar equipment. “From China’s perspective, that is a frustrating thing.” |
| 没有这个系统，生产商就无法制造尖端芯片，而且“只有荷兰公司ASML能制造，”乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心(Center for Security and Emerging Technology)研究分析师威尔·亨特(Will Hunt)说，该机构判断中国至少需要10年才能自主制造类似的机器。“从中国的角度来讲，这是件很烦人的事。” |
| ASML’s machine has effectively turned into a choke point in the supply chain for chips, which act as the brains of computers and other digital devices. The tool’s three-continent development and production — using expertise and parts from Japan, the United States and Germany — is also a reminder of just how global that supply chain is, providing a reality check for any country that wants to leap ahead in semiconductors by itself. |
| ASML的机器实际上已经成为芯片供应链的一个瓶颈，而这些芯片被认为是电脑和其他数字设备的大脑。它的开发和生产涉及三大洲——使用了来自日本、美国和德国的专门技术与零件——从中也可以看到供应链的全球化程度，这是任何一个想独自在半导体领域取得大幅进步的国家都需要面对的现实。 |
| That includes not only China but the United States, where Congress is debating plans to spend more than $50 billion to reduce reliance on foreign chip manufacturers. Many branches of the federal government, particularly the Pentagon, have been worried about the U.S. dependence on Taiwan’s leading chip manufacturer and the island’s proximity to China. |
| 不只是中国，美国也是如此。国会正在讨论斥资500亿美元以减少对外国芯片生产商的依赖。许多联邦政府部门——尤其是五角大楼——担心美国对台湾顶尖芯片生产商的依赖，以及该岛靠近中国的地理位置。 |
| A study this spring by Boston Consulting Group and the Semiconductor Industry Association estimated that creating a self-sufficient chip supply chain would take at least $1 trillion and sharply increase prices for chips and products made with them. |
| 波士顿咨询集团(Boston Consulting Group)和半导体产业协会(Semiconductor Industry Association)在今年春天发布的一项研究估计，建立自给自足的芯片供应链需要至少1万亿美元，芯片以及使用芯片的产品会有大幅涨价。 |
| That goal is “completely unrealistic” for anybody, said Willy Shih, a management professor at Harvard Business School who studies supply chains. ASML’s technology “is a great example of why you have global trade.” |
| 这个目标对任何人都是“完全不切实际的”，哈佛商学院(Harvard Business School)管理学教授史兆威(Willy Shih)表示。ASML的技术“极好地说明了为什么我们需要全球贸易”。 |
| The situation underscores the crucial role played by ASML, a once obscure company whose market value now exceeds $285 billion. It is “the most important company you never heard of,” said C.J. Muse, an analyst at Evercore ISI. |
| 此事彰显ASML所扮演的关键角色，这家曾经不为人知的公司如今市值已超2850亿美元。它是“你没听说过的最重要的公司了”，Evercore ISI公司分析师C·J·缪斯(C.J. Muse)说。 |
| Created in 1984 by the electronics giant Philips and another toolmaker, Advanced Semiconductor Materials International, ASML became an independent company and by far the biggest supplier of chip-manufacturing equipment that involves a process called lithography. |
| ASML由电子巨头飞利浦(Philips)和另一家机床生产商先进半导体材料国际(Advanced Semiconductor Materials International)于1984年联合创办，此后它已经成为一家独立公司，也是使用所谓光刻工艺的芯片制造设备的头号供应商，大幅领先于其他对手。 |
| Using lithography, manufacturers repeatedly project patterns of chip circuitry onto silicon wafers. The more tiny transistors and other components that can be added to an individual chip, the more powerful it becomes and the more data it can store. The pace of that miniaturization is known as Moore’s Law, named after Gordon Moore, a co-founder of the chip giant Intel. |
| 生产商使用光刻技术不断把芯片电路的图形投射到晶圆上。在一个芯片上可以放入越小的晶体管等元件，它的性能就越强，可以存储越多的数据。这种缩小的过程成为摩尔定律，得名于芯片巨头英特尔(Intel)的创始人之一戈登·摩尔(Gordon Moore)。 |
| In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, light. Such light has ultrasmall wavelengths that can create much tinier circuitry than is possible with conventional lithography. The company later decided to make machines based on the technology, an effort that has cost $8 billion since the late 1990s. |
| 1997年，ASML考虑转向使用极紫外光(EUV)。这样的光波长极小，可以创造出比传统光刻小得多的电路。公司后来决定生产使用该技术的机器，这个始于1990年代末的项目共耗资80亿美元。 |
| The development process quickly went global. ASML now assembles the advanced machines using mirrors from Germany and hardware developed in San Diego that generates light by blasting tin droplets with a laser. Key chemicals and components come from Japan. |
| 开发过程迅速全球化。现在，ASML在这种先进设备的组装中要用到来自德国的反射镜，以及在圣地亚哥开发的硬件，这种硬件通过用激光喷射锡滴来产生光。重要化学品和元件则来自日本。 |
| Peter Wennink, ASML’s chief executive, said a lack of money in the company’s early years had led it to integrate inventions from specialty suppliers, creating what he calls a “collaborative knowledge network” that innovates quickly. |
| ASML首席执行官彼得·温宁克(Peter Wennink)表示，公司早期资金短缺，导致它整合了来自专业供应商的发明，创建了他所谓的“协作知识网络”，得以迅速创新。 |
| “We were forced to not do ourselves what other people do better,” he said. |
| “我们只好不让自己去做别人做得更好的事情，”他说。 |
| ASML built on other international cooperation. In the early 1980s, researchers in the United States, Japan and Europe began considering the radical shift in light sources. The concept was taken up by a consortium that included Intel and two other U.S. chip makers, as well as Department of Energy labs. |
| ASML的发展建立在与其他国家合作的基础上。80年代初，美国、日本和欧洲的研究人员开始考虑彻底转变光源。这个概念被一个包括英特尔和另外两家美国芯片制造商以及能源部实验室在内的联盟采纳。 |
| ASML joined in 1999 after more than a year of negotiations, said Martin van den Brink, ASML’s president and chief technology officer. Other partners of the company included the Imec research center in Belgium and another U.S. consortium, Sematech. ASML later attracted big investments from Intel, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to help fund development. |
| ASML总裁兼首席技术官马丁·范登布林克(Martin van den Brink)表示，经过一年多的谈判，ASML于1999年加入合作。该公司的其他合作伙伴包括比利时的微电子研究中心(IMEC)和另一个美国联盟半导体制造技术联盟(Sematech)。ASML后来吸引了英特尔、三星电子(Samsung Electronics)和台积电的巨额投资，以帮助其发展。 |
| That development was made trickier by the quirks of extreme ultraviolet light. Lithography machines usually focus light through lenses to project circuit patterns on wafers. But the small EUV wavelengths are absorbed by glass, so lenses won’t work. Mirrors, another common tool to direct light, have the same problem. That meant the new lithography required mirrors with complex coatings that combined to better reflect the small wavelengths. |
| 由于EUV难以捉摸，开发变得更加棘手。光刻机通常通过透镜将光聚焦，以在晶片上投射电路图案。但是EUV的短波长会被玻璃吸收，因此无法使用透镜。另一种常见的光引导工具是反射镜，也有同样的问题。这意味着新的光刻技术需要带有复杂涂层的反射镜，这些反射镜结合起来才能更好地反射短波长。 |
| So ASML turned to Zeiss Group, a 175-year-old German optics company and longtime partner. Its contributions included a two-ton projection system to handle extreme ultraviolet light, with six specially shaped mirrors that are ground, polished and coated over several months in an elaborate robotic process that uses ion beams to remove defects. |
| 因此，ASML求助于拥有175年历史的德国光学公司和长期合作伙伴蔡司集团(Zeiss Group)。蔡司提供了一个两吨重的投影系统来处理EUV，其中包括六个特殊形状的反射镜，通过使用离子束去除缺陷的复杂机器人工艺，这些反射镜需要经过数月的打磨、抛光和涂层处理。 |
| Generating sufficient light to project images quickly also caused delays, Mr. van den Brink said. But Cymer, a San Diego company that ASML bought in 2013, eventually improved a system that directs pulses from a high-powered laser to hit droplets of tin 50,000 times a second — once to flatten them and a second time to vaporize them — to create intense light. |
| 范登布林克说，为了产生足够的光以快速投射图像也导致了延迟。但是，ASML于2013年收购的圣地亚哥公司Cymer最终对一个系统做出了改进，该系统引导来自高功率激光器的脉冲以每秒五万次的频率冲击锡液滴——第一次冲击是将它们压平，第二次冲击是将它们汽化——以制造强光。 |
| The new system also required redesigned components called photomasks, which act like stencils in projecting circuit designs, as well as new chemicals deposited on wafers that generate those images when exposed to light. Japanese companies now supply most of those products. |
| 新系统还需要重新设计被称作光掩模的组件，它们在投影电路设计中就像模板一样，以及需要新化学物质，它们沉积在晶片上，当暴露在光线下时会产生这些图像。现在这些产品大部分由日本公司供应。 |
| Since ASML introduced its commercial EUV model in 2017, customers have bought about 100 of them. Buyers include Samsung and TSMC, the biggest service producing chips designed by other companies. TSMC uses the tool to make the processors designed by Apple for its latest iPhones. Intel and IBM have said EUV is crucial to their plans. |
| 自2017年ASML推出商用EUV型号以来，客户已经购买了大约100个。买家包括三星和台积电——最大的芯片代工服务商。台积电使用该机床制造苹果公司(Apple)为最新的iPhone手机设计的处理器。英特尔和IBM表示EUV对他们的计划至关重要。 |
| “It’s definitely the most complicated machine humans have built,” said Darío Gil, a senior vice president at IBM. |
| IBM高级副总裁达里奥·吉尔(Darío Gil)说：“这绝对是人类制造过的最复杂的机器。” |
| Dutch restrictions on exporting such machines to China, which have been enforced since 2019, haven’t had much financial impact on ASML since it has a backlog of orders from other countries. But about 15 percent of the company’s sales come from selling older systems in China. |
| 荷兰对向中国出口此类机器的限制自2019年开始实施，但对ASML的财务影响不大，因为它有来自其他国家的订单积压。但该公司约15%的销售额来自在中国销售旧系统。 |
| In a final report to Congress and Mr. Biden in March, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence proposed extending export controls to some other advanced ASML machines as well. The group, funded by Congress, seeks to limit artificial intelligence advances with military applications. |
| 在3月提交给国会和拜登的最终报告中，国家人工智能安全委员会(National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence)提议将出口管制扩大到其他一些先进的ASML机器。该委员会由国会资助，旨在限制人工智能在军事应用上的发展。 |
| Mr. Hunt and other policy experts argued that since China was already using those machines, blocking additional sales would hurt ASML without much strategic benefit. So does the company. |
| 亨特和其他政策专家认为，由于中国已经在使用这些机器，阻止新销售会损害ASML，而不会为美国带来太多战略利益。该公司也这样认为。 |
| “I hope common sense will prevail,” Mr. van den Brink said. |
| “我希望理性终将获胜，”范登布林克说。 |
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