In order to regain industrial advantages, the United States is currently planning to urge ASML to cut off supply of DUV lithography machines. Although it was rejected strongly, it inevitably caused market concerns and launched alternative solutions one after another. There are many solutions. Foreign media also bluntly said: "The status of EUV lithography machines will be replaced!"
EUV lithography machines will be replaced?
After research and development, design, manufacturing, and packaging, and after hundreds of complex processes, a chip can be formed. Although each link is crucial, the most complex one is definitely the manufacturing link. Just the lithography machine device has stumped many "heroes". It is because of the lack of EUV lithography machine that SMIC has never been able to achieve mass production of the 7nm process.
An EUV lithography machine is priced at over 100 million US dollars, so it is laid out for a production line below 7nm, and an investment of billions of dollars is destined to be affordable by not many companies. Currently, more than half of the production capacity of EUV lithography machines is occupied by TSMC, with a total of more than 80 units, which is beyond the reach of Samsung, so it has a dominant advantage in market position.
However, under the forced intervention of the US in the market, TSMC's status is gradually declining. From the moment of building a factory in the United States, it has completely lost its initiative and cannot get rid of the technology containing the US. A large number of orders from the US companies have poured in and were forced to give up cooperation in the international market. It is precisely because of this that the technology independence of various countries has been accelerated.
After taking control of TSMC, the United States became lazy. After "embezzled technology" failed, it began to develop a 2nm process with Japanese companies and excluded Samsung, TSMC and other companies. It is obvious that they are trying to replace their positions. The practice of inviting factories in the United States is just a "bait" to limit the development of international semiconductors.
Currently, Japanese company Kioxia has made breakthroughs in chip manufacturing technology, directly bypassing the most complex light source technology of EUV lithography machines, and successfully manufactured advanced process chips using nanoimprint technology for the reason, simplifying the core making process in a similar way to "stamping" and achieving a significant reduction in costs. Canon and Nikon are also restoring the research and development of lithography machines and moving towards the 5nm process. SMIC, which cannot obtain EUV lithography machines at the same time, also gave corresponding solutions. After joining Liang Mengsong , SMIC has grown from a "small workshop" to the top five chip manufacturers in the world for three years, and has successfully mastered the mass production of 14nm chips, which is no less than TSMC in terms of yield.
There is definitely no hope of obtaining EUV lithography machines in the short term. In order to meet the demand for high-end chips, we thought of using multiple exposures of DUV lithography machines, and developed N+1, N+2 and other processes, which can achieve chips with performance of no less than 7nm, and then use the stacking process of Huawei , which is hopeful to solve the needs of high-end chips.
new technology continues to break through
Advanced packaging technology. Even TSMC is working in this direction. The chip stacking process has been verified on Apple 's M1 chip , and it is confirmed that it can achieve the effect of 1+1+n>2. Therefore, Huawei's R&D direction is correct. After completing the complete independence of 14nm production capacity in China, the demand for high-end chips can be restored.
According to the latest news, the price of a 3nm wafer single chip exceeded US$20,000, and the 5nm, which has been priced many times, was only US$16,000. The gap between this is very large, and the performance improvement is not obvious. No wonder Apple is unwilling to adopt it.
Currently, Huawei has made very good progress in the research and development of photonic chips and superconducting quantum chips, and has mastered a large number of core technology patents. The first domestic optical quantum chip production line is already being laid out, indicating that this technology has moved from theory to commercial use, and is not far from the final breakthrough.
. Under the limitations of Moore's Law, the development of EUV lithography machines is about to come to an end. The new generation of NA EUV lithography machines are likely to be the last generation product. Although they can support the manufacturing of two-nano chips, there is currently no field that requires such high-end chips.
has become a fact that the demand for advanced chips has declined. Faced with the rise of smart cars and the Internet of Things layout, the demand for mid- and low-end chips will continue to rise. This situation will last for at least five years. These five years are enough to change a lot. Once the new technology achieves a breakthrough, the utilization rate of EUV lithography machines will definitely decline.
Therefore, foreign media's speculation is correct. No matter how advanced the technology is "scattered", it will eventually face the fate of being eliminated. The same is true for EUV lithography machines. If market cooperation cannot be restored in the future, it will be destined to be difficult to align with the times. What do you think about this?
