htmlOn May 7th, while the Nasdaq index, which is composed of the most NB technology listed companies in the United States, continued to move towards a record high, the ChiNext, which represents the quality of Chinese technology companies, fell by more than 3%, driven by the collective plunge in domestic chip stocks. . China's top chip companies such as
Weir Shares, Silan Micro and so on have fallen to the limit or close to the limit. The "culprit" that caused all this is because of a piece of news: it is reported that the United States and Japan, the two powerhouses in the global chip industry, are considering seeking to get rid of their dependence on China in obtaining important products and components, especially In terms of semiconductors .
According to Japanese media reports, Japan and the United States will set up an official working group to share the responsibilities of chip development and production. The U.S. also urged Japan to impose export controls on semiconductors to China.
For domestic chip companies that are more dependent on technology from Western countries, they have long been accustomed to "listening to the wind is rain", but whenever there is some news from abroad, they must wait for it to plummet, which has led to the tragic decline of domestic chip stocks.
What is more noteworthy than the Western countries' joint ban on the supply chain of domestic chip companies in recent years is that the United States now not only does not want Chinese chip companies to rise, but also begins to pay attention to its slow pace in the chip field, especially manufacturing Aspects .
htmlOn April 12, US President Biden even held a wafer at the White House Semiconductor Conference, "threatening" the world's leading chip companies under the stage, must invest in the chip industry in the United States, and integrate the complete chip industry chain stay in the US.
With the strong encouragement of the US official, Intel , which had already been beaten by Asian companies such as TSMC, Samsung and other companies in the chip manufacturing field, announced that it would make a comeback, revive the glory of American chip manufacturing, and It is said that it will invest about 20 billion US dollars to build two manufacturing plants in the United States, and even put down the rhetoric that in the future, Apple's chip foundry may not necessarily be TSMC, and we have to grab a share.
At the same time, IBM, which is half buried in the ground and waiting to be cremated in the eyes of a group of cutting-edge technology companies, also said: IBM officially released the world's first nm chip manufacturing technology on May 7. To draw a key point for everyone, it is the chip manufacturing technology , TSMC will be silent, and Samsung will cry.
Upon hearing this news, many people's first reaction was: Didn't IBM build computers? Isn't IBM's computer business sold to Lenovo ? When will IBM still make chips?
In order to smooth the history of IBM's core making, we must start with the growth history of IBM.
IBM was founded in 1911. It must be known that the Qing Dynasty died in 1912. Therefore, when IBM was established, my country was still in the Qing Dynasty. Isn't it very magical. Therefore, in the eyes of Apple, Microsoft , Intel and other technology companies, IBM is definitely a grandfather or even a great-grandfather.
IBM was not an IT enterprise (nonsense) at the beginning of its establishment. At that time, its main business was to manufacture mechanical tabulators, typewriters, etc. In fact, it was the office software and keyboard before the birth of computer .
Therefore, in the age when information technology gradually matured, IBM naturally became the first wave of trendsetters in the computer field. In the 1950s, IBM used transistor technology to manufacture and sell more than 10,000 computers. From the 1960s to the 1980s, IBM was the most prosperous period. With the maturity of integrated circuit technology, IBM launched the world's first personal computer - IBM5150 on August 12, 1981.
You must know that TSMC, which used the chip foundry model to change the global chip industry chain, was established in 1987.
Therefore, IBM and other established IT companies, in addition to using products from Intel and other chip companies, design and manufacture their own chips in many cases. This chip production mode is called IDM, Integrated Device Manufacture, which is a Enterprises have taken care of many industrial chain links such as chip design, chip manufacturing, chip packaging and testing by themselves. In 1988, IBM built the world's first 200mm wafer production line. Then in 2002, IBM built the world's most advanced 300mm production line.
In addition to IBM, most IT companies in ancient times adopted this model, such as Intel, Texas Instruments , etc. Now, with the rise of chip foundries such as TSMC and Samsung, there are not many IDM companies left in the world.
Although IBM's personal computer business gradually weakened and the related business was gradually sold to the Chinese company Lenovo, but IBM has since devoted itself to the enterprise service market, occupying a large market share in enterprise software, servers, data centers and other fields. Therefore, , for the development of its own business, IBM has always retained the design and manufacturing business of chips, and is still one of the world's leading chip manufacturers.
However, although IBM has its own chip manufacturing production line, its manufacturing capacity has fallen far behind the rising stars TSMC and Samsung. Although the IBM Power processor, the flagship product of IBM chips, is designed by itself, it can only be handed over to TSMC and Samsung for OEM production. For example, its Power10 processor is manufactured by Samsung's 7nm process, which is quite confusing. The dog is bullying.
However, under the upsurge of vigorously developing chip manufacturing in the United States, IBM seems to have returned to light. According to IBM, compared to the current mainstream 7nm chip, the performance of IBM 2nm chip is expected to increase by 45% and energy consumption is reduced by 75%. The reason why the above breakthrough can be achieved is because of IBM's 2nm chip manufacturing technology, can accumulate more transistors on a chip with an inch of land. The chip using the 2nm process can accommodate 1.333 billion transistors per square millimeter, which can increase the transistor capacity by 10% compared to the previous TSMC's leading 3nm technology.
Moreover, the chip manufacturing technology is indeed developed by IBM itself. The GAA (Gate Around Transistor) technology that realizes 2nm process chips was born at IBM's chip manufacturing R&D center in Albany, New York.
Gordon Moore , one of Intel's founders, once proposed the famous Moore's Law . Through statistical analysis of the integration of integrated circuits in his old age, he believed that the number of transistors that can be accommodated on an integrated circuit (the performance of the processor) ) at about doubles every 18 months to .Half a century has passed since
, and the global chip performance has gradually increased almost in accordance with the curve of Moore's Law. However, as the chip manufacturing process enters single-digit nanometers, the problem arises. The material for making the chip is silicon (silicon-based chip). When the silicon-based chip process is lower than 10nm, there will be a quantum tunneling effect. The electrons traveling through the chip are out of control.
The way to solve the problem is to use the chip manufacturing technology of GAA, which is also the key research area of TSMC and Samsung.
However, although IBM used three-stack GAA to create a 2nm process chip in the laboratory this time, it is impossible for to mass-produce . IBM eventually needs to cooperate with Samsung and Intel to use the chip manufacturing technology developed by IBM's laboratory to realize the commercialization of 2nm chips in the future.
On the one hand, the big chip manufacturers in developed countries are chasing after me to push the chip manufacturing technology to the peak and limit ; They were being kicked every day, half-dead, and at this moment, my mood was so cold.
