Chips are the core of the modern technology industry and have become an important part of today's society. With the rapid development of technologies such as intelligence and the Internet of Things, the demand for chips is also rising. In the chip manufacturing process, the role of the lithography machine is equally important. Since the lithography machine has an irreplaceable role in manufacturing high-precision chips, the precision and speed of the lithography machine are the key factors for the entire manufacturing process.
The United States is an important country in chip manufacturing and has a certain monopoly advantage. Its crackdown on foreign companies is commonplace.
According to Bloomberg, the United States has released the latest chip restrictions to American companies, which are expected to be officially launched next month. It is reported that the three major semiconductor suppliers in the United States, including Applied Materials, Kelei and Lam Research, will be the first to respond to the policy. If ASML in the Netherlands and Tokyo Electron in Japan join them, the number of restricted devices will increase further.
Currently, these five companies dominate the global semiconductor equipment market. Without access to equipment from these companies, it will become very difficult to manufacture advanced chips, including logic chips at 16/14nm and below, NAND flash memory chips at 128 layers and above, and memory chips at 18nm and below.
This move will have an impact on many enterprises, including Huawei's Kirin chips, 5G base station chips, Loongson 3A series and Yangtze River memory chips. Therefore, this chip restriction measure is considered to be an extreme suppression.
Although domestic chip companies are also facing great pressure, in fact, semiconductor equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials and Kelei in the United States are the most troublesome. In addition, Chinese chip companies have achieved phased success in the mature chip field, which may be a bright spot in this Sino-US chip dispute.
The rise of domestic chips
First, we need to acknowledge that the United States has been leading the way in the global semiconductor industry, especially in the field of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. As a result, U.S. restrictions on chips have had a profound impact on the global semiconductor industry.
In terms of manufacturing processes and equipment, China has begun to research and produce chips with 7nm and 5nm processes, which is already very close to the international level. For example, Huawei's HiSilicon Semiconductor's Kirin 9000 chip is manufactured using the 5nm process. At the same time, China is also strengthening the research and development and production of key equipment, such as lithography machines, ion implanters and other aspects of investment are increasing.
In terms of international cooperation, China is also actively cooperating with international manufacturers to obtain more advanced technology and experience. For example, Huawei and Samsung signed a semiconductor chip supply agreement to provide Huawei with some chip components and chip processing services. Such cooperation will help China accelerate the development of the chip industry.
Secondly, in terms of technical talents, China's chip talents have achieved a lot of achievements. For example, the "Tianhe" series of computers at Tsinghua University uses domestic Loongson processors, proving the ability of domestic processors in the field of high-performance computing. In addition, many domestic universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises are also strengthening the training and introduction of talents in the field of chips.
However, China has accelerated the pace of independent research and development of semiconductor chips in recent years and has made significant progress in some areas. For example, Chinese chipmakers have made important progress in areas such as mobile processors, communication chips, graphics processors and artificial intelligence chips.
In addition, China has also increased its investment and support for the semiconductor industry. Driven by national strategies such as "Made in China 2025" and "Chip Self-Sufficiency", the overall strength of China's semiconductor industry has been significantly improved.
Although China still relies on imports in some key areas, it has achieved certain independent capabilities in chip manufacturing, packaging and testing, which has laid a solid foundation for the development of China's chip industry.
Export restrictions on the world's largest semiconductor market will naturally cause great harm to US chip companies, at least losing part of the Chinese market. In this way, the collapse of the US chip industry has become inevitable.
For China, although chip sanctions have brought us certain pains, we have survived.
High-end chips are still missing, but we are catching up, increasing research and development, and constantly looking for some high-end products internationally. South Korea's chips have not imposed export restrictions on China, after all, China is also the largest market for South Korean chip exports.
On the whole, China's development potential in the semiconductor industry is huge. Despite the current restrictions on chips by the United States, China has begun to accelerate its own research and development and production, and has made some significant progress. In the future, with the continuous growth of China's semiconductor industry, its status and influence in the global semiconductor industry will continue to increase.
In the context of globalization, the competition between enterprises is becoming increasingly fierce, and many enterprises are willing to sell the interests of the country and employees for their own selfish interests, but there are more enterprises like White Elephant, who adhere to their own principles and are unwilling to compromise, and this refusal is not only a defense of national interests, but also a manifestation of corporate social responsibility. Enterprises should not only pursue short-term interests, but also focus on the long term and make more contributions to employees and the country.
However, in order to make domestic chips truly move towards comprehensive development, some difficulties need to be overcome. First, breakthroughs in manufacturing processes and equipment are needed to produce more advanced chips. Second, the level and number of technical talents need to be improved to cope with the growing demand of the chip industry. Finally, cooperation with international manufacturers needs to be strengthened in order to obtain advanced technology and experience.
In short, the progress made by domestic chips in the past few years is remarkable, but it still needs continuous efforts and breakthroughs to truly move towards comprehensive development. In the future development, domestic chips need to give full play to their own advantages, strengthen cooperation with international manufacturers, and promote the development of the chip industry.