As the development of the global technology field enters the fast lane, the electronics industry continues to heat up, and the demand for chips ushers in a new round of surge, as a result, the semiconductor industry has entered a white-hot stage.
Global chips are in a tight stage due to the shortage of supply in the market, and the mainland is certainly no exception. As the core of the operation of electronic devices, chips can be described as the top priority, and the development of all walks of life is inseparable from electronic devices. Especially in the computer and IT fields that are now gaining momentum.
How important is the lithography machine
One of the world's largest manufacturers of semiconductor equipment, the vast majority of chip manufacturers use lithography machines from ASML. Such as Intel, TSMC, Samsung, SMIC and so on.
As we all know, the production of high-end chips is very dependent on lithography machines. At present, there are two kinds of lithography machines on the market, one is DUV (deep ultraviolet light) lithography machine, and the other is EUV (extreme ultraviolet light) lithography machine. The difference between them is that the chip process that can be produced is different.
Under normal circumstances, the DUV lithography machine can only produce chips with a 10nm process, while the EUV lithography machine can produce chips with a 7nm process.
The minimum requirement for chips like our smartphones is 7nm, which is why Huawei's mobile phone market will be hit so hard after being cut off from the chip supply chain.
Obtaining a lithography machine is not easy
The current lithography market is basically monopolized by ASML, and it is more difficult to make a lithography device than imagined. ASML's supply chain has more than 5,000 processing plants, and the merchants are all over the world, so the strong integration ability is not achieved by ordinary enterprises.
In addition, the parts used in lithography equipment are quite numerous, and there are as many as hundreds of thousands of important parts alone, which is why the mainland has not been able to build our own lithography machine so far.
After lao Mei revised the "chip rules", because some of the lithography equipment used US technology, ASML could not freely ship to China, and even the chip shipments with TSMC were also affected, and the supply of high-end chips on the mainland was also cut off.
But in recent days, there is a news that ASML advanced lithography machine has entered the field of Chinese enterprises, is ASML free shipping to the mainland, or ASML itself figured it out?
ASML advanced lithography machine officially entered the field of Geke Micro
According to the weChat public account of Geke Microelectronics, on March 24, Geke Micro held a ceremony for the asML advanced ArF lithography machine to move in. The device will be used in R&D and industrialization projects for the 12-inch CIS integrated circuit process, which is expected to reach mass production by the end of the year.
Geke Microelectronics has also invested 15.5 billion yuan in the construction of a 12-inch fab, and is expected to build a 12-inch wafer CMOS image sensing chip special process manufacturing line in 2024, with a monthly output of 60,000 pieces.
In terms of CMOS image sensors, Geke Micro has cooperated with many enterprises at home and abroad, and is expected to obtain customer orders for 16 million pixel products in the second half of this year; DDI display chips have also made orders from many well-known mobile phone manufacturers.
Although the more advanced process of EUV lithography machine still failed to land in the mainland, this ArF lithography machine also said that ASML still wants to enter the Chinese market, and in early January, ASML renewed the purchase agreement for DUV lithography machine with SMIC.
In this way, in addition to the EUV lithography machine, other lithography equipment can still be freely shipped in the mainland, and ASML does not want to give up the mainland market.
New packaging technology
Since we can't get it, we'll do it ourselves. Just as Mr. Qian Xuesen said: Foreigners can do it, but we can't do it Chinese?
A number of domestic high-tech enterprises and scientific research institutions have invested in the research and development and manufacture of lithography equipment, in addition, the independent research and development of high-precision chips is also being carried out simultaneously.
TSMC has independently developed advanced 3D chip packaging technology, the two low-process chips are superimposed and packaged by a special process, and the chip performance is enhanced by increasing the number of transistors, which has proved that this method is feasible, and TSMC has been able to use chip packaging technology to produce chips for the 5nm process.
However, at present, the yield rate of 4nm and 3nm process chips is not high, in any case, this is a major breakthrough in the mainland field, representing the mainland to achieve high-precision chips self-produced and self-developed, no longer limited to the high-end equipment of foreign companies, which greatly reduces the dependence of the mainland chip market on ASML lithography equipment.
In addition, Apple also came up with the M1 Ultra chip by stitching the two M1 Max chips together, and after testing, the performance of the M1 Ultra chip is indeed much stronger than that of the M1 Max.
Not only the mainland, but also many high-tech enterprises around the world are developing "small chip" technology. This will also become a new trend in the future.
Regardless of whether ASML can freely ship to the mainland, we should be prepared for danger and take precautions. According to the current trend, the development of the mainland high-tech field is too fast, has begun to make the old United States jealous, EUV lithography machine is not available in a short period of time.
Four years ago, The mainland ordered an EVU lithography machine from ASML for a billion DOLLARs, but until now, the lithography machine has not been able to enter the mainland. That speaks volumes.
Although there is no high-end lithography equipment, our small chip packaging technology will become more and more mature in the future, and eventually catch up with the quality of chips produced by EUV.
Do you think that the chips produced by chip packaging technology can be comparable to the chips produced by relying on lithography equipment? Welcome to exchange and discuss together.