Introduction: Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article saying that China is losing its bet on chip manufacturing, and has strong doubts about China's technological self-reliance and self-reliance, and listed some so-called reasons why Chinese chips are difficult to succeed. At the end of the article, even introduced geopolitical factors bluntly and absurdly, claiming that if the self-reliance plan fails and the Biden administration continues to ban chips to the mainland, the mainland military will be anxious because it cannot obtain chips below 10 nanometers, and then consider whether to send troops to control Taiwan's chip production capacity. Observer.com translated this article for readers' reference only; this article does not represent the website's views. At the same time, Observer.com invited Tie Liu, a science worker, to write an article to analyze the fallacies in response to the article in the Wall Street Journal. Interested readers can check out "The Chinese military is anxious about the US chip ban?" Wall Street Journal is bullshit again.
[Text/Andy Kosler Translated/Observer Network By Guanqun]
For the first time since 2005, Apple has started manufacturing Mac computers without Intel chip. The company announced last week that the Mac will use Apple's own M1 chip, which is made by TSMC. Hey Intel, this is not for you - now the industry knows that you haven't successfully produced chips below 10nm, and you're still very behind. The impact of this incident is far from being limited to the computer industry.
If Intel is lagging behind for a few years, then China may be lagging behind for nearly 10 years. When formulating its 14th Five-Year Plan, Beijing issued an official communiqué (I like this word!), previewing that China will fight a "protracted war" with the United States, and that "technology self-reliance and self-improvement provide strategic support for national development." Even mainland China still counted Taiwan when it was deploying troops, and Apple's chips were obtained from Taiwan. We also saw a title in the Asia Times: "If mainland China 'occupies' Taiwan region, then the American technology giants will be in danger." What do you think? Let's have a deeper analysis.
First of all, please note that last year, the semiconductor produced in China only accounted for 16% of its domestic consumption. In 2014, China announced the " National Integrated Circuit Industry Development Promotion Outline ", promising to spend US$150 billion to develop local semiconductor manufacturing industry. But this is useless because you can't solve all problems by spending money. There are many companies (ATT, General Motors) and countries (France, Italy, Russia) around the world who have tried to produce semiconductors, but they all failed. To produce semiconductors, you need to have advanced equipment and master your own technology.
China has made significant progress in the chip manufacturing industry. Image source: Xinhuanet
Second, to produce extremely fast chips for smartphones, 5G products and the most advanced precision weapons, you need to have production facilities, or microchip production plants, which need to be able to produce 7nm or even 5nm chips, which is not easy. According to Mike Brown, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Division, “50% of high-end semiconductors are produced in Taiwan”, while the rest are produced in the United States, South Korea and Israel.
Third, the Trump administration cut off Huawei's channels for purchasing high-end chips, making it unable to buy advanced chips produced by TSMC again. In addition to chips produced by Intel and Samsung, most companies around the world use chips produced by TSMC, including American companies Nvidia and AMD.
Fourth, for about five years, Intel's technology has been stuck in the production of 14-nanometer chips. This confused me: In my early career, I spent most of my time tracking the development of the chip industry, but it was still difficult for me to figure out the internal operations of the chip industry. Regarding the 14-nanometer chips mentioned by Intel, TSMC calls them 10-nanometer chips. To produce chips below 10 nanometers, you need to use extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) to etch tiny lines on the chip. Intel said it will not start producing 10-nanometer chips (equivalent to TSMC's 7-nanometer chips) until the end of 2021.Intel may even want to buy chips from TSMC!
Fifth, China has many state-owned semiconductor companies, such as SMIC, but none of them can catch up with TSMC. This is because the impact of another company, AsML, needs to be considered. Asmer is a Dutch equipment manufacturing company, and it is the only one in the world that produces EUV lithography machine . Here's the message from Asmer: "EUV lithography uses light with a wavelength of only 13.5 nanometers (near the level of x ray ), which is nearly 14 times shorter than DUV (deep ultraviolet) lithography technology (using 193 nanometers of light), another lithography solution that makes advanced chips. "Oh, Asmer is not allowed to sell their products to China for defense reasons. So now China cannot produce chips below 10 nanometers. Of course, China can invent its own EUV technology, but it may take ten years.
Finally, geopolitical intervention also triggered many variables. If mainland China's self-reliance plan fails and the Biden administration continues to ban the sale of advanced chips to mainland China (he should continue to do so), the mainland will be in trouble, just as the US oil embargo on Japan forced Japan to take action in 1941. Mainland China is in an arms race with the United States at this time, and the mainland military will be anxious about not being able to obtain chips below 10 nanometers. Mainland China is likely to weigh the pros and cons and consider whether to control the chip production capacity in Taiwan, while the United States is also considering whether to "defend" Taiwan: TSMC has five microchip manufacturers in one park in Hsinchu Science and Technology Park.
But even if China takes this bold step, it is likely to fall immediately. Manufacturing chips is not like doing production in assembly lines or refineries, and it is not static. The manufacturing formula may be written down, but in reality it only exists in the minds of TSMC engineers and is adjusting almost every day. An engineer from Silicon Valley once accidentally poured ink into the water supply system of a microchip manufacturer, and the output actually increased! Even if mainland China "snatches" Taiwan's engineers sent to the mainland by force, the chip production in Taiwan will still be reduced. Chip production is more an art than a science.
In addition to this, there is another seemingly possible risk. Several just-in-one missiles in mainland China destroyed half of the world's advanced chip production capacity, and of course it also hit the global economy hard. The resulting shock wave will even damage China's economy more than the damage caused by the epidemic. But even so, I still hope that TSMC's factory can be protected by the Patriot missile . I also hope to put some Patriot missiles in the Dutch factory in Asmer.
Intel may take years to catch up. The same may be true in China. It is wise not to make advanced chips in one place. The Trump administration has forced TSMC to agree to build a factory in Arizona, and TSMC will invest $12 billion from now until 2029. This is just the beginning.
(Observer.com is translated by Guanqun from the US "Wall Street Journal")
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