Ren Zhengfei: The lithography machine got stuck in the neck
Electronic engineer Hoff once said that the transistor is "the most important invention of the 20th century." Lower consumption, smaller size, and more transistors integrated on the chip, the more powerful the performance.
With the update and iteration of the chip manufacturing process, the chip has entered the nano-era, and the number of transistors integrated on a fingernail-sized chip has reached tens of billions. Powerful performance makes chips an indispensable core component of most intelligent electronic products, and they are called "industrial food" by industry insiders.
However, what everyone did not expect was that while my country’s science and technology continued to make major breakthroughs, Western countries led by the United States began to impose chip sanctions on Chinese technology companies in an attempt to protect local companies in the industry. Right to speak.
The US chip blockade has had a great impact on the development of Chinese technology companies. For example, Huawei has been forced into a very difficult situation due to the cutting off of its chip sources.
Huawei, a domestic communications private enterprise with very strong R&D capabilities, has made great achievements in 5G, mobile phones, chip design, operating systems and other fields after more than 30 years of concentrated development. The business can compete with the veteran industry giants in the United States.
In order to strangle Huawei and consolidate its "scientific hegemony", the United States forcibly revised the rules of the world semiconductor industry in May last year and issued a "chip ban" to attack Huawei's weakest joint, "chip manufacturing."
After the "chip ban" was introduced, TSMC and SMIC announced the termination of chip foundry cooperation with Huawei. Suppliers also made it clear that they will no longer sell chips to Huawei by without the permission of the US government. In an instant, Huawei fell into an unprecedented "chip crisis".
After the Huawei chip incident, many netizens raised questions: In the 1950s and 1960s, my country was able to produce atomic bombs in such extremely difficult environments. Why are the conditions now better? There are too many people, but can't make a chip the size of a fingernail?
To this question, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei gave a very standard answer: the lithography machine was stuck!
After the "chip ban" landed,Huawei has touched the hearts of countless people in the country, and major scientific research institutions have expressed their support for Huawei. Among them, the presidents of nine major domestic colleges and universities joined Huawei and had an in-depth conversation with Ren Zhengfei. In this conversation, Ren Zhengfei talked about the status quo of domestic chips.
Ren Zhengfei said that domestic companies' chip design capabilities and chip manufacturing processes have reached the world's top ranks, but due to lithography machines and chemical materials being stuck, our companies cannot manufacture high-end chips on their own.
As Ren Zhengfei said, the overall performance of the Kirin 9000 chip designed by Huawei HiSilicon is the strongest 5nm 5G chip today, but because TSMC is restricted by the US "chip ban", it cannot help Huawei's foundry. Kirin 9000 chip, while SMIC suffers from the lack of EUV lithography machine, although it has mastered the 5nm chip process technology, it cannot help Huawei out of the chip predicament. It can be said that the US chip ban has brought my country's seemingly prosperous chip industry back to its prototype. Some domestic companies have also suffered from lack of high-end chips, and their development has been greatly restricted.
Yesterday, today’s fruit
chip can only be commercialized in my country after a series of complicated processes such as design, lithography, etching, plasma injection, packaging and testing. The shortcomings of the chip industry are lithography, a very important link.
my country has such high-quality semiconductor companies, so in order not to manufacture high-end lithography machines? In fact, this is the cause we planted yesterday,Only then has the bitter fruit of today.
Huawei Consumer CEO Yu Chengdong made it clear at last year’s domestic technology conference that domestic semiconductor companies have made a huge fatal mistake in the past few decades, too light. The investment of assets ignores the importance of heavy assets, so that a large number of high-quality talents are too concentrated in light-asset fields such as chip design, resulting in a large shortage of high-quality professionals in the field of heavy assets.
Yu Chengdong’s comment can be described as hitting the nail on the head, directly to the point.
Due to well-known reasons, my country entered the semiconductor industry late, and Western countries also signed the "Wassenberg Agreement" decades ago to prohibit exports to Chinese companies in order to curb the rise of my country's technology. High-end technology. In order to quickly seize the market and increase visibility, Chinese enterprises have focused on the asset-light industry.
In addition, there is another important reason why domestic companies dare not enter the heavy asset industry easily. They need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources, and there is an extreme lack of mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials, machinery, High-end talents in electrical appliances and other fields cannot make profits in a short period of time.
"It’s better to buy than rent". Now, after being "blocked" by others, I have to swallow this bitter pill.
Wu Hanming: With the power of a country, it is difficult to create an EUV lithography machine
If domestic companies want to break the US chip blockade and achieve chip independence, we must build EUV lithography machines. So, do we have the ability to manufacture EUV lithography machines in a few years? Academician Wu Hanming gave a standard answer to this question.
Not long ago, Academician Wu Hanming made it clear that the EUV lithography machine is the crystallization of human wisdom in the world, and it only produces what EUV lithography machine needs. As many as 100,000 devices, more than 5,000 companies from 35 countries around the world, relying on the strength of one country, it is difficult to manufacture EUV lithography machines.
ASML EUV lithography machine engineers also said Even if China obtains the EUV lithography machine drawings, it will not be built within 10 years. Now Academician Wu Hanming also makes such remarks, is it to promote others' aspirations and destroy one's own prestige? Or is it really something? I want to know this. The answer to the question, we must figure out the working principle of the lithography machine.
EUV lithography machine
The principle of the lithography machine is similar to that of developing photos.It is through the use of light source energy, shape control and other means to transmit the beam through a mask engraved with a pre-designed integrated circuit diagram, and then go through optical compensation, and finally "print" the circuit diagram on the silicon wafer .
It can be said that as long as the precision of the lithography machine is high enough, more circuit diagrams can be integrated on the chip, so as to achieve the purpose of increasing the number of transistors and improving the performance of the chip.
According to public information, Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Sciences have mastered the core technology of EUV lithography machine, and have completed two-thirds of EUV lithography machine research and development. The completion of the research and development of EUV lithography machines is just around the corner.
However, even if we have completed the development of the EUV lithography machine, it is difficult for us to manufacture the EUV lithography machine in a short time. There is no other reason, but the main reason is the cost of the EUV lithography machine. Too many devices.
Take ASML's EUV lithography machine as an example, its bearings are from Sweden, valves from France, optical equipment from Japan, objective lenses from Germany, and light sources from American companies.
So,If we want to manufacture a domestic EUV lithography machine, we must manufacture the components required by the EUV lithography machine, or find a core component that can be replaced by unfriendly companies such as the United States. It is worth mentioning that, so far, related components manufactured by domestic enterprises have not yet entered the supply chain of ASML's EUV lithography machine. It can be foreseen how difficult it is for my country to manufacture EUV lithography machines.
Written at the end
With the escalation of pressure in the United States, the localization of chips is imperative, and the country has made a series of combined punches for this, such as the establishment of a "chip university" and the creation of the "Eastern "Chigang", a large number of preferential policies have been introduced.
Under the call of the country, domestic high-quality technology companies, scientific research institutions, and universities have rushed in. According to relevant data, in 2020 alone, there will be more than 20,000 new semiconductor companies in China, and more than 78,000 related companies in the semiconductor industry, and continue to make major technological breakthroughs in the research and development of core technologies.
The author firmly believes that with the help of the country, domestic enterprises work together, scientific researchers are not afraid of difficulties, bravely tackle technical difficulties, the overall level of my country's semiconductor industry must be greatly improved in a short period of time. The US chip blockade is just around the corner.
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