The Pearl of the industrial crown - lithography machine

Lithography machine is known as the Pearl on the industrial crown. At present, the most high-end EUV lithography machine plays an important role in the game between domestic technology and the West. It is the core equipment of high-end chip manufacturing. However, the basic technology is mastered by the United States, which makes it difficult for us to find one machine. After the United States modifies the rules of the chip industry without authorization, the road to rely on OEM production such as TSMC and Samsung has also been blocked, This led Huawei and other domestic enterprises to fall into the situation of no high-end chips available for a time.

However, in recent years, the average annual import volume of China's chip market has exceeded 300 billion, which is the most urgent in the world. In order to solve the situation that the chip is "stuck", the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that it will lay out technical research in the field of chip manufacturing, including lithography, and domestic chip manufacturing enterprises will also start key research and development for the chip manufacturing process.

In terms of chip manufacturing, 7Nm and 5nm processes belong to high-end chips, about 14nm belongs to middle-end chips, and more than 28nm belongs to low-end chips. China's chip manufacturing industry is at the middle and low-end level as a whole. Although the best SMIC can mass produce 14nm chips, the yield is difficult to guarantee, and there is still a big gap between TSMC and Samsung, the world's most advanced.

Recognizing this deficiency, SMIC invited technology magnate Jiang Shangyi to join in. On the one hand, in order to promote the purchase agreement of EUV lithography machine related to ASML; On the other hand, it is through self research to narrow the technical gap with TSMC and Samsung.

Good news from domestic chips

With the advancement of the wave of chip localization, there is good news in China, and this time it has finally broken through.

According to insiders, SMIC has realized the manufacturing of 7Nm chips by converting packaging technology and using relatively low-end DUV lithography machine. As for the most high-end 5nm chips, they are also under research and development.

You know, the DUV lithography machine is not within the limit. ASML has also said that it will export a large number of DUV lithography machines to the Chinese market. In this way, the domestic 7Nm chip is expected to achieve mass production.

Although the research and development of 5nm chip still needs time, which can break through 7Nm, and the chip problem of most domestic science and technology enterprises can be solved. You know, although the chip iteration is very fast, the medium and low-end chips with processes above 7Nm still account for about 80% of the market.

Without EUV lithography machine, SMIC still completed the research and development of 7Nm chip, which means that it is feasible to realize high-end chip manufacturing by using the conversion of packaging technology. At present, SMIC has begun to tackle a number of scientific and technological problems involved in the manufacturing process of 5nm and 3nm wafers.

Maybe we really don't need EUV lithography machine anymore. In addition to the breakthrough of domestic chips, there is another reason, that is, the manufacturing level of traditional chip technology has approached the physical limit. According to the speed of chip iteration, new semiconductor materials or next-generation chips may appear in the near future. If they are not traditional silicon materials, EUV lithography machine will not be used.

Write at the end

Whether it is the 8-inch graphene wafer developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences or the quantum chip developed by the scientific research team of Shanghai Jiaotong University led by Jin Xianmin, it may become a turning point for domestic chip overtaking in the corner.