According to statistics, the number of mainland chip imports in 2022 will be as high as 538.4 billion, and the investment in imported chips has exceeded the expenditure on imported crude oil and iron ore. Some people may have questions: since you have to spend a huge amount of money on chip imports every year, why use more domestic chips?
In fact, in recent years, the mainland has not given up the independent research and development of chips, and the dependence on imported chips is gradually decreasing, and the number of imported chips will shrink by about 97 billion in 2022 alone, which is the result of the mainland's insistence on chip autonomy.
So why is the mainland chip market so dependent on imports? Some people say that it is because the mainland chip semiconductor industry started late and the technical level is relatively backward; Some people say that because of the suppression and sanctions imposed on the mainland by Western countries represented by the United States, we cannot obtain advanced technical support. In fact, what the People's Daily said before is very reasonable: core technology cannot be bought, or obtained.
So the core problem is exposed, that is, we do not have core technology, most of the mainland enterprises maintain the "trade and technology" business philosophy, always feel that the chip "is better to buy than to buy", over time for imported chips to form a sense of dependence, so in the face of US sanctions, many mainland companies will be "stuck in the neck" on the chip.
The most typical is Huawei, because the United States feels the threat posed by Huawei in the field of 5G technology and chips, it has imposed sanctions on Huawei by repeatedly modifying rules such as chips, resulting in Huawei's slump. Since then, most domestic semiconductor companies have deeply realized the importance of mastering core technologies, and have begun to invest a lot of manpower and material resources in the research and development of chip technology, and have made breakthroughs one after another.
Some time ago, Primarius officially announced that it had broken through the node of the 3nm process in its core products. Perhaps many people are a little unfamiliar with Primarius, as a semiconductor company mainly engaged in the independent design and research and development of EAD tools, it has released some relatively mature EDA products.
EDA products are indispensable tools in chip design, and without advanced EDA tools, it is impossible to design chips with advanced processes. Primarius broke through the 3nm node and also provided technical support for Primarius' EDA tool for the 3nm process.
In addition, in the field of chip packaging, Changjian Technology has also achieved 4nm technology breakthroughs. It is reported that Changjian Technology said that the mobile phone chip packaging that realizes the 4nm process can help customers inherit advanced packaging such as 2.5D and 3.0D to smart devices such as mobile phones.
I believe that many people are no strangers to the 4nm process, such as Apple's A16 chip, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ series chip, using advanced 4nm process technology. This also means that Changjian Technology has the full strength to package 4nm chips such as A16 chips.
Here comes a strange phenomenon
At present, with Primarius and Changdian Technology respectively achieving technological breakthroughs in the EDA tool of 3nm chip design and the packaging technology of 4nm chips, a strange phenomenon has come.
I have to admit that up to now, the mainland mature chip process is still stuck in SMIC's 28nm process technology, not to mention 3nm, 4nm chips, and even 12nm chips we have not been able to achieve mass production.
So some people said, since the mainland has achieved a breakthrough in 3nm chip design and 4nm chip packaging technology, why can't it reach the corresponding chip manufacturing level? This strange phenomenon is incomprehensible.
In fact, the chip industry chain can be basically divided into four links: design, manufacturing, packaging and testing. Primarius has only made a breakthrough in the design of 3nm chips, EDA tools are only helpful for chip design, as for chip manufacturing, EDA tools are not much use.
As for chip packaging, it is also different from chip manufacturing, chip packaging is only to put a shell on the produced chip, which plays the role of fixing, sealing and enhancing electrothermal performance.
So in other words, the mainland has only made breakthroughs in chip design and chip packaging, as for advanced chip manufacturing technology, with the level of the mainland chip industry, there is still a big gap compared with advanced chip manufacturers such as TSMC.
This article is reproduced from Step Boy