经济学人双语精读:面对硅谷,欧洲终于有了拿得出手的东西?

Silicon lowlands
硅低地

Does Europe at last have an answer to Silicon Valley?
面对硅谷,欧洲终于有了拿得出手的东西?

ASML, a mighty Dutch tech firm, is at the heart of a critical supply chain
强大的荷兰科技公司阿斯麦是一条关键供应链的核心

TEN TIMES a second an object shaped like a thick pizza box and holding a silicon wafer takes off three times faster than a manned rocket. For a few milliseconds it moves at a constant speed before being halted abruptly with astonishing precision—within a single atom of its target. This is not a high-energy physics experiment. It is the latest lithography machine dreamed up by ASML, a manufacturer of chipmaking tools, to project nanoscopic chip patterns onto silicon wafers. On January 5th Intel, an American semiconductor giant, became the first proud owner of this technical marvel’s initial components for assembly at its factory in Oregon.
每秒十次,一个形似厚披萨盒、装载着一个硅片的物体以比载人火箭快三倍的速度起飞。它以恒定速度移动几毫秒后,便以惊人的精确度——精确到目标中的某一个原子——突然停止。这不是高能物理实验,而是由芯片制造设备生产商阿斯麦(ASML)设计的最新型光刻机,用于将纳米级芯片图案投射到硅片上。1月5日,美国半导体巨头英特尔骄傲地拿到了这项技术奇迹的初始组件,将在其位于俄勒冈的工厂进行组装。

  • wafer 威化饼,薄脆饼(常与冰激凌同吃);圣饼、圣体、面饼;薄片
  • lithography 平版印刷术
  • marvel 表示“奇迹”或“令人惊奇的人或事”,侧重指因非凡、奇异或异乎寻常而使人大为惊奇、赞叹或感到钦佩(参见:小词详解 | marvel

Like the outwardly unassuming machine, its Dutch maker is full of surprises. The company’s market value has quadrupled in the past five years, to €260bn ($285bn), making it Europe’s most valuable technology firm (see chart 1). Between 2012 and 2022 its sales and net profit both rose roughly four-fold, to €21bn and €6bn, respectively. In late 2023 ASML’s operating margin exceeded 34%, staggering for a hardware business and more than that of Apple, the world’s biggest maker of consumer electronics (see chart 2).
就像这台外观不起眼的机器一样,它的荷兰制造商充满了惊喜。过去五年,这家公司的市值翻了两番,达到2600亿欧元(2850亿美元),成为欧洲最有价值的科技公司(见图表1)。在2012年至2022年间,其销售额和净利润均大约增长了四倍,分别达到210亿欧元和60亿欧元。2023年底,阿斯麦的营业利润率超过了34%,这对于硬件业务而言堪称惊人,而且超过了世界上最大的消费电子产品制造商苹果(见图表2)。

  • quadruple (使)变为四倍
  • stagger 表示“震惊、使大吃一惊”,主要指因意外或非常不寻常的事情而使人感到非常惊讶或深感震惊(参见:小词详解 | stagger