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where we follow the latest science and technology developments in China.
Today we are talking about why China may win the chip game with USA via EUV tech? Chips are at
the heart of many high-tech products in this day and age. Because of chip shortages, tech products
around the world have cut capacity. At the same time, the United States regards the chip industry
as a key weapon in the trade war with China, and the two countries are secretly developing
technology in this area. We can even say that whoever masters more powerful chip technology
will hold the key to the future era of artificial intelligence. The chip field has become a core
area of competition between China and the United States. Small chips have also become a core factor
limiting the development of global technology. It is unclear how long Chinese companies will be
allowed to import cheap American manufacturing equipment and cheap design software. Therefore,
developing the China own chip even EUV lithography machine is becoming more and more vital!
In this world, a place where latecomers have a better chance of catching up with
the current leaders, because semiconductor technology is moving more slowly today and
transistor miniaturization is approaching its limits in terms of physics and optics.
The long-term prospects for China to develop its own silicon manufacturing technology and technical
capabilities to supply cheap manufacturing materials, equipment and software at home. History
tells us that shifts in technology paradigms can create opportunities for emerging players.
This trend developing in today's semiconductor field, and more slowly still in the books.The
number of transistors on IC ships doubles every 18 to 24 months, the report said.Gordon Moore,
the founder of Interco, predicted this in the 1960s. Until the mid-2000s, the industry was
keeping pace with the law by shrinking transistors and circuits built on the surface of filamentous
molds.But miniaturization hit a snag 15 years ago. The size of the transistor has shrunk by about 39
meters, or 30 billionths of a meter (measured in the width of the central electrode called
the gate).As a result, miniaturization has slowed down.Still, cheap manufacturers are
reducing the number of logos. Their latest generation of cheap products went from 32
nanometers to 22 nanometers to 40 nanometers, 5 nanometers, 7 nanometers, and now 2 nanometers.
But these numbers no longer represent actual transistor gate sizes in the 21st century,
becoming something akin to brand labels.For example, the actual gate length of the
transistors on TSMC's 7-nanometer logic spacecraft is about 18 nanometers.
According to Toshio Hiramoto, a professor at the University of Tokyo,
this is aviation starting with a 30-nanometre chip whose gate length is actually 32 nanometres
or less.Because of the increased difficulty and rising cost of miniaturization, chip makers are
turning to so-called THREE-DIMENSIONAL technology that uses traditional surface waves to load
more transistors into the space above chips, such as the most advanced non-Flash member,
N AMD Flash Member, commonly used for data and image storage in smartphones and PCS,
Transistors are made up of 96 to 28 layers of integrated circuits.In the world of flash memory.
Today, typical flash memory chips have transistors between 22 and 32 nanometers in size,
larger than the 4-nanometre transistors used in flash memory a few years ago.This shift in
importance from miniaturisation to 3D technology could have implications for the industry,
according to industry experts.This is the most difficult part of the cheap manufacturing process,
the photography. Photography is a process
in which circuit plans are printed on a photosensitive surface of a silk waveguide,
and images of circuit plans are drawn on the glass plate by shooting light at the waveguide
through a glass plate called a photo mask.This is like a traditional photo development process,
in which the image captured on transparent non-film is printed on paper by projecting
light onto sensitive paper on the negative.As the circuit becomes further miniaturized,
the process requires shorter wavelengths for better resolution.The most advanced
miniaturization requires invisible light in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrum.
The difficulty and cost of developing EUV photography technology led all but ASML
of the Netherlands to give up the monopoly left by ASML.The EU is believed to be selling camera
equipment for between $120 million and $170 million.When a cheap manufacturer makes a deal
with ASML, it buys a machine that fits only a tiny part of the overall main manufacturing process,
resulting in only modest miniaturisation.Industry experts said the EU V Machine is currently being
tested on logic chips such as PC microprocessors on smartphone chips and graphics processors
for gaming and artificial intelligence data processing.Due to the complexity of circuit
composition, logic chip can not fully deploy 3D technology.When they do, the cost and difficulty
of using EU V may become less justified.Flash car manufacturers have virtually skipped EUV,
and DRA memory is unlikely to require EUV. As far as I know, Sacamota predicts that
he has won DRAN business from multiple companies, including Texas Instruments,
United Microelectronics, UMC of Taiwan and LPD Memory of Japan, today's Micro Technology
Japan factory.If a cheap manufacturing program starts using EUV lithography, it requires many
other processes to also be optimized for EUV lithography, which means a significant capital
investment in various advanced equipment.The more advanced the equipment, the fewer the suppliers,
making America's ban more effective. But if eu lithography can be skipped,
the available options for cheap equipment increase.Non-eu lithography processes
have more options than EUV non-EU lithography machines manufactured by Nick and Canon in Japan.
So far, their shipments to Chinese chipmakers have not been blocked by the US.Some Chinese companies,
including We Technologies itself, have been trying to develop their own photographic equipment.Among
non-EU V photography techniques, the use of deep ULTRAVIOLET Algor fluorination immersion
technology for prototype printing presses is reported to be the most advanced.In addition,
Yansam Memory, Affolate Uni Group, announced in June 2020 that it has successfully developed a
D-flash chip manufacturing capacity of 128 layers and will start commercial production
in the US before the end of the year seemingly focused on EUV efforts to prevent
China from acquiring advanced fSU technology.The US reportedly persuaded the Dutch government to
block SML from selling EU emissions to SMIC. But as Yangzi shows, China has accumulated
a wealth of cheap manufacturing know-how in 3D technology that will eventually find its way into
advanced logic chips and will help the country avoid reliance on EUV-based miniaturisation.Of
course, there is a harsh reality that most of the non-printing equipment for the processing
of items, dozens of inexpensive manufacturing stages are almost exclusively manufactured by
American and Japanese companies.The deposition process of the subject layer is critical and
pursues a multi-layer 3D chip.Manufacturing is based on American applied materials and serves KLA
inspectors.The American TENSA is indispensable, it completes every layer, no matter which three tests
are involved.A lack of access to US equipment would prevent any low-cost manufacturer from
building or expanding its manufacturing capacity. However, experts believe that in the long run,
China has the ability to improve its capabilities in all relevant fields, such as materials, optics,
chemical wave manufacturing, process control, surface inspection, functional testing,
etc. Toshiaki Icoma, former president of Texas Instruments.Based on his experience,
he believes China has a sufficient number of capable scientists and engineers to develop its
own inexpensive manufacturing equipment and inexpensive design software.Their
national strategy of sending many students to US schools and companies and torturing them like
seat turtles has been going on for decades and is crude. Kiberki Wakabayashi, a professor at
Toka University of Science, said developing cheap manufacturing equipment and materials throughout
the supply chain cannot be completed quickly, but China is likely to become a dominant country in
10 to 20 years because of its abundance of talent in all fields of science and engineering, he said.
Technology trends are a good thing for latecomers like China.Samuel Wang, vice-president of research
at Gardner, says new technologies such as new materials, advanced 3D packaging,
artificial intelligence assistance, cheap design and cloud-based manufacturing collaboration will
all create new opportunities for start-ups.James Lewis, senior vice-president at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that US purchases of
satellite components from China had led non-US companies to become alternative suppliers,
And those broad restrictions would hurt the United States more than China.
Up to now, China has the capacity to independently produce 28nm process
chips. If the production capacity is fully rolled out, China may soon become the world's
largest supplier of mid-range chips. Of course, this is only the first step in the Long March.
It is known that the process level of famous companies such as TSMC and Samsung has reached
5 nanometers, and is challenging the industry's highest level of 3 nanometers. This means that
we will keep catching up with the world's advanced chip manufacturers for a long time.
The strengthening of protection measures in the field of chips in Europe will make China lose a
lot of opportunities for reference and learning. I have to admit that this is a difficulty that China
must overcome in this regard, a problem that will inevitably be encountered on the road of growth,
and there is no room for evasion. That's all there is to it for today.
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