Go back to 1990 to start a business

Shiyun asked doubtfully: "As far as I know, Zeiss Group's business is very complex. Will our acquisition affect the performance?"

"No, we only acquired the company in Jena." Xia Chuan explained in detail: "The German Zeiss Group is a company with more than a hundred years of history. The company's name comes from the founder Carl Zeiss.

After the initial death of Carl Zeiss, in order to ensure the eternal independence and sustainability of the company, they became the Carl Zeiss Foundation and became the sole owners of the company.

However, World War II began.

The coated sniper rifle scope produced by Zeiss caused the Mi Army to suffer. His sniper scope did not reflect light in the sun, but the Mi Army's sniper scope was reflective.

Natri was defeated, and the Berlin Wall divided Germany in half.

In 1945, General Patton occupied the Jena factory and prepared to use 600 trucks to move Zeiss to West Germany.

Unfortunately, the Soviet Union's rapid advance in Germany ruined the U.S. plan.In the end, only the patents, documents and specialized production equipment of Carl Zeiss were 'expropriated', and a new Zeiss was built in Oberkochen, West Germany. This is the headquarters of Zeiss today.

In 1946, Sux dismantled all the production equipment of the Jena factory and brought scientists, engineers and professional technicians to Sux.The industrial assets of the Carl Zeiss Foundation were nationalized by the Soviet Union in 1948.

Looted.

Miraculously, the craftsmen in Jena who have been grinding glass for generations quickly rebuilt the Jena Zeiss in East Germany.

At the time of the merger of the two Germanys in 1990, Zeiss in West Germany had 15000 employees, while Zeiss in East Germany had 50000 employees.

Due to Zhengke's matchmaking, West Germany Zeiss reluctantly merged with East Germany's Zeiss, an old state-owned enterprise that was suffering losses.

At that time, Zeiss in West Germany had been beaten by the Japanese and had no time to worry about. Its own "Contax" and "Pentax" cameras had long been forced to sell to the Japanese.The mechanical shutter that Zeiss is proud of is helpless under the attack of various electronic technologies such as the Japanese electronic photometric electronic shutter.

So they are willing to sell East German Zeiss Company.

at the same time.

It was just when ASML, which had been losing money for five years, was ready to take off.

ASML's demand for dozens of sets of lithography machine lenses a year is indeed a small business for Zeiss, but for ASML, Zeiss lenses are their lifeline.

In 1990, six top Zeiss technicians could only grind out 6 sets of i-line lithography lenses a year.

After rough grinding by the machine, the laser measures the undulations on the surface of the lens.Then these craftsmen, known as "gold fingers" at Zeiss, rely entirely on their hands. While looking at the pictures, they carefully polish off the parts with a height difference of tens of nanometers to achieve a symmetrical feel.

Because of the shortage of people, Zeiss traveled all over the world to find such craftsmen, but he was still far from the forty people he needed.

To make matters worse, even the produced lenses are plagued with problems.

The craftsmen polished the lens to perfection, but during the IBM photolithography experiment, they still found distortion in the projection pattern.

After months of precise measurements, it was discovered that there were problems with the surface and design of the lens itself.

The final conclusion is that the tiny stresses present in the lens glass may be the root cause of image distortion.However, Schott, another century-old glass expert owned by Zeiss, said that it is difficult to reduce the stress to the fine level required by photolithography machines.

Technology is like the sea. It is extremely difficult to rise above the sea level alone.

More problems arise at chip factories.

Micron found that the light transmittance of the Zeiss lens would drop significantly after being used for a period of time. After careful analysis, it was found that extremely fine carbon was deposited on the surface of the lens.

This strange problem was something no one could have expected.

Zeiss lens groups are sealed with low-pressure helium because this noble gas has a refractive index six times lower than air.It was eventually discovered that the glue used to bond the lens contained carbon, which reacted under the catalysis of high-energy ultraviolet rays from the photolithography machine.

ASML experienced a near-death experience after its establishment, with various problems persisting. It had not made any money for almost 10 years.

In particular, DelPrado, the visionary founder of ASML, still suffered a loss of US$3500 million without making any mistakes, and finally sold his equity and was out.

However, ASML has really accumulated enough, especially after they changed to an open enterprise, they have not seen the results yet, because they have no money to invest and were forced to change to an open enterprise, so they have no confidence. , but this is when we pick peaches. "

Xia Chuan smiled at the end of his speech. No one in the world knows whether ASML is facing a golden avenue or a bottomless abyss.

But he knew.

Anna and the three of them felt excited at the same time.

Shiyun asked keenly: "Why doesn't Zeiss in East Germany make photolithography machines?"

Xia Chuan smiled and said: "Zeiss in East Germany made photolithography machines and used them for the Warsaw Pact camp at the time, but the number was not large.

ASML once sent three people to investigate and found that there was only one hotel with twenty rooms in Jena, and the entire valley was shrouded in smoke from coal burning.

Various backwardness make Zeiss's lithography machine uncompetitive, but its optical heritage is unquestionable.

After abandoning the lithography machine and tapping into the potential of its engineers in high-tech fields, Zeiss re-established its leadership in the field of optics.

What is foundation?Even if they disclose the drawings and give you the same equipment and parts, you still won't be able to make products with the same precision.

Zeiss is the absolute number one in the field of optical lenses. Needless to say camera lenses, the optical lenses used in ASML's lithography machines all come from Zeiss, and they also produce lenses for space telescopes.

The company consists of six independently operating divisions:

Semiconductor technology: optical components and modules of lithography technology including laser lithography and synchrotron optics.

Medical systems: surgical microscopes, visualization and imaging systems, diagnostic and therapeutic instruments.

Microscope: optical microscope, optical scanner, image processing and imaging system, laser confocal microscope, fluorescence energy spectroscopy technology.

Industrial measurement technology: This technology is always the world leader, including bridge measuring machines, cantilever measuring machines, and instruments that memorize the measurement of shapes, contours and surfaces.

Electronic optical systems: The product range includes photography and film photography optics, optical modules for digital projectors, optoelectronic products and their subsystems, and astronomical planetariums.

Consumer Optics: Carl Zeiss is the world’s second-largest manufacturer of eyeglass lenses.Zeiss not only produces spectacle lenses in the field of ophthalmic optics, but also provides spectacle consulting and dispensing systems.Another important category of consumer products are binoculars and hunting telescopes.

Although more than a century old, Zeiss is still associated with expensive and high-quality optical lenses.

Zeiss lenses are generally considered to be top-notch, well-designed, and capable of producing high-quality images.

Zeiss licenses its technology to third-party companies, including Sony. "