Nikon đã thua ASML trong cuộc đua quang khắc như thế nào?

Download the "Sach Tinh Gon" (Compact Books) app to listen to over 2000 book summaries: https://www.sachtinhgon.com In the early 1990s, if you wanted to get your hands on the most advanced microprocessors on the planet, there was one name you had to look for: Nikon. At that time, this Japanese camera manufacturer not only dominated the photography market but also held an almost irreplaceable position in the global semiconductor industry. Their lithography machines were so precise that people said they could see a single hair on the surface of the Moon. From Intel and AMD to the Silicon Valley giants, everyone lined up, ready to spend millions of dollars to get a chance to buy the Japanese company's machines. At that time, Nikon almost held the lifeblood of the entire global technology industry. But today, as the world enters the era of artificial intelligence, where 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer chips dominate, the name Nikon has almost disappeared from the high-end semiconductor map. Instead, a once little-known Dutch company, ASML, became the sole dominant force holding the fate of the global chip industry in its hands, through its ultra-short-throw ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines. What happened in the last three decades? How did a company that once almost completely dominated the industry become marginalized? Many believe Nikon failed because the Americans turned their backs on it, or because its competitors' technology was far superior. But the truth is more complex. Nikon didn't just lose because its competitors overtook it; it was also because overconfidence in past successes led the company's leadership to make a series of historically erroneous decisions, handing over the lead to a latecomer. This is the story of the most fierce and costly technological race on the planet, and a lesson about how the world will leave behind anyone who refuses to believe that times have changed. Why would a company possessing some of the world's leading optical minds, which once controlled a large share of the global lithography market at its peak, make such misguided decisions? The answer doesn't lie in the day ASML successfully built the EUV machine. It was predetermined long before that, even at the height of Nikon's power, when no one, not even Nikon itself, could have imagined its downfall.