was sanctioned by the United States, the number of chips required by China was affected. Chips are closely related to many high-tech industries. Without this core component, many products cannot be produced at all. Faced with such a status quo, China can only seek a breakthrough on its own. After a period of hard work, China has found hope, but at this time, ridiculous voices came from overseas,
The basic tools for chip production have created everyone’s anxiety
The production of chips is inseparable from lithography machines, but because of US sanctions, China has no way to buy Dutch lithography machines. Until China developed a five-nanometer laser lithography technology, but this good news was misrepresented by the media, and eventually it became possible to produce without a lithography machine. Immediately afterwards, a variety of messy news appeared due to people’s anxiety, such as "post-95 college students made lithography machines", " Huawei spent two years in isolation to create lithography machines", etc. Wait.
People are very worried about the future of science and technology in the country, so even a little bit of news will be magnified, and some of the news is simply rumor, and after being magnified, some people will regard it as the truth. Investigating the root cause of this phenomenon is mainly caused by anxiety. And why are people anxious? Naturally, it was because China discovered its own shortcomings in chip production after being caught by the United States. China currently does not have domestic lithography machines and has always relied on imports. Now, due to the influence of international relations, there is no way to import them, and all related projects in front of them have also been forced to stop. Faced with such a situation, media professionals hope that scientists will make a breakthrough within a day, and the public also have the same anxiety. However, the time required for scientific and technological research and innovation is always long, and it has always been accompanied by failure.
give China a full set of drawings,We can't do it
Back in 2001, the Dean of the Institute of Microelectronics was doing a report on integrated circuits, analyzing the importance and necessity of my country's microelectronics and integrated circuits in the future. At that time, it was the leader of the State Council who presided over the meeting. After listening to the report, he benefited a lot and immediately took action. The leader immediately pointed out that integrated circuits are the heart of electronic products and the foundation of the future, and we must pay attention to it. Then conquering the lithography machine became our country's primary task. In the second year, the lithography machine was included in my country's major research plan. Under the coordination and cooperation of many parties, a company related to this was established. The company's name is Shanghai Microelectronics.
When the company was first established, China was also in its infancy in this regard, and there were many blind spots in knowledge. Therefore, the general manager took the technical team to visit various countries and wanted to carry out technical cooperation with these countries. The director expressed his true thoughts from the beginning, telling foreigners that China wanted to produce its own lithography machine. As a result, after foreign experts heard what we said, their eyes were surprised, and finally turned into contempt. There was even a senior expert who said that even if the full set of drawings were given to China, China would not be able to make a lithography machine. This sentence hurt our country's technical team, but also aroused the desire of the technical team to win.
Even more than 20 years have passed, the original core team still remembered this sentence. The head of the core team said that during that time everyone walked forward with anger. But then I thought about it. Although this sentence is all contempt, it is indeed a true portrayal of our country at that time. Lithography machines are not easy to produce. A machine involves tens of thousands of parts, and each part has high precision and high technology requirements. At the same time, factors such as light and humidity need to be considered. The team leader also had to admit that this is equivalent to using an airplane to engrave, and the engraved characters must not have the slightest error.
For the research and development of lithography machines, Shanghai Microelectronics has invested more than ten years.In the end, it used its strength to face the West and successfully delivered the first Chinese lithography machine. At the moment of delivery, the whole team was finally evacuated after ten years of frustration. They finally broke the predictions of overseas experts and produced a lithography machine from China. Today, Shanghai Microelectronics is a high-quality manufacturer in optical technology, and its lithography machine market accounts for up to 80%, and the world's share is as high as 40%. It is also worth noting that there are two types of lithography machines, the back path and the front path. The former is used for chip packaging, the latter is used for chip manufacturing, and the Dutch lithography machine belongs to the latter. In this regard, China Microelectronics is not outstanding, so there is still a long way to go.
Why is the manufacture of lithography machines so difficult?
In fact, there are historical factors why the development of lithography machines is difficult. Affected by the Wassenaar Agreement, the import and export of Chinese semiconductor technology by Western countries all follow the N-2 principle. The simple explanation of this principle is to sell two generations of technology to China. The most advanced technology will not Open to China. And in the approval process, most of these countries will delay the time. When we actually get the technology, it is estimated that we will be behind by more than three generations. As a technology industry, it has the characteristics of fast updating, even if it is half a year later, it will lag behind others by a lot. It is because of the influence of European and American countries that China has embarked on a road of forced backwardness.
