TSMC has recently taken the lead in establishing a "chip alliance", which is different from the "chip4" (Quadian Alliance) that the United States wants to establish. But after reading it, I felt that it was not good news for us, and it may further widen the gap between mainland chip manufacturers and leading manufacturers.
But I have to say that this also represents a rare opportunity. If you can grasp it, it will not only not be widened, but it will also further narrow the gap and boost the mainland chip manufacturing industry. It depends on whether we can try our best to move the right direction!
What kind of alliance has TSMC formed?
According to the official announcement of TSMC, the alliance it formed is the Open Innovation Platform (OIP) 3D Fabric Alliance. The purpose of the alliance is to promote the development of 3D semiconductors. There are as many as 19 participants, and they are all well-known semiconductor companies, such as Micron , Hynix , Arm, Synopsys , etc.
3D Fabric is actually advanced packaging technology. As we all know, Moore's Law is about to come to an end. If the chip wants to continue to improve its performance, it is already a dead end to rely on the improvement of 's process technology. Therefore, wafer manufacturers must prepare for the future and start from other directions to maintain competitiveness.
encapsulation is one of the important directions. More advanced packaging technology can help the chip improve performance and reduce power consumption. TSMC's 3D Fabric technology includes front-section 3D chip stacking, TSMC-SoIC (system integration chip), back-end CoWoS and other packaging technologies.
3D packaging and Chiplet
There is a particularly important part in the field of 3D packaging technology today, which is related to the core of chip competition for a long time in the future, that is, Chiplet, that is, chip stacking technology. After Huawei
After being cut off, Huawei tried to use chip stacking technology to save the insufficient performance caused by low process technology. Stacking multiple small chips or core particles together breaks the tradition of only a single chip in the past and can effectively improve the performance of the chip.
However, it is not easy to stack two or even multiple chips together. How to connect and if the system is integrated, it is a problem that needs to be overcome. At this time, advanced 3D packaging technology is needed.
It can be said that without 3D encapsulation, there is no Chiplet.
Why is it bad news
TSMC set up 3D Fabric to pave the way for its own interests, but most of the companies it cooperates with are American companies and some Korean companies, which is why the author says that the news is not very good. Obviously, this is another small group that doesn't bring us.
Originally, the domestic semiconductor industry has a huge gap with leading companies in terms of process and is also facing the problem of supply cutoff. If the TSMC alliance makes some technological progress or forms a closer alliance, the domestic chip process industry will inevitably lag relatively behind and lose some market.
The more serious problem is that if the American companies in this alliance achieve a breakthrough, then the United States can use the supply cutoff to cut off us, causing us to suffer heavy losses.
We want to set up our own alliance
Then why do you say this is an opportunity? In fact, the opportunity mentioned here mainly refers to advanced packaging technology. In the field of traditional lithography technology, we have a big gap and it is difficult to catch up. However, in the field of advanced packaging, the gap is not big. We still have many excellent advanced packaging companies, such as Tongfu Microelectronics , Huatian Technology , etc.
is more advanced than the packaging. We are almost on the same starting line, so we have the opportunity to catch up, or even overtake on the curve. Therefore, we cannot watch TSMC integrate its forces to make breakthroughs. Our upstream and downstream companies in semiconductor must also unite and form their own alliances.
advanced packaging is very likely to represent the direction of the future. We must react quickly and take action.
