SMIC is restricted, TSMC benefits, how to deal with domestic chips?
The development of today's society, from smartphones to trains and airplanes, is inseparable from tablets. There is also fierce competition in the field of tablets.
As far as competition in the tablet space is concerned, we cannot fail to mention SMIC and TSMC.
SMIC has been inextricably linked to TSMC since its inception in April 2000, and since then the two companies have been fiercely competitive, even going to court.
So, apart from being chip foundries and competitors, what grievances are there between SMIC and TSMC?
SMIC and TSMC.
The dispute between SMIC and TSMC began between Shida Semiconductor and TSMC.
Zhang Rujing, the founder of Shida Semiconductor, was born in Nanjing, and came to Taiwan with his parents when he was one year old, so it can be said that Taiwan is his hometown.
After graduating from National Taiwan University, Chang went to the United States to pursue a master's degree in engineering from the University of California and a Ph.D. in electronics from Southern Methodist University.
After graduating with a Ph.D., he worked at Texas Instruments and worked with Zhongmou Zhang, but the two did not intersect.
At Texas Instruments, Zhang Rujing learned a lot of semiconductor knowledge, and once built ten integrated circuit factories in Europe, the United States, Asia and other countries, so he is called"Master builder"。
It is not for nothing that Zhang Rujing has this nickname, and his most powerful thing is that he has built the largest and best quality chip factory with limited resources and time.
In 1997, Zhang Rujing left Texas Instruments, paving the way for entrepreneurship. He created the first company in the true sense of the word -"Shida Semiconductor"。
Under the leadership of Zhang Rujing, Shida Semiconductor and TSMC are both chip foundry companies, and the company jumped to the third place in Taiwan in only three years, even threatening TSMC.
So Zhang Zhongmou joined forces with Taiwan ** to initiate the acquisition of the world's largest semiconductor company and the world's largest semiconductor shareholder, and was moved in the face of the sky-high price of 5 billion US dollars. In this way, the world's largest semiconductor became a subsidiary of TSMC.
Zhang Rujing was angry, but helpless. So, he made an appointment with Zhang Zhongmou, and the two sides reached an agreement - to build a high-end chip factory in Chinese mainland.
However, this agreement has not been implemented, and Zhang Rujing left TSMC in a fit of rage, not even wanting shares and home.
Patent dispute between SMIC and TSMC.
In August 2000, SMIC was established in Pudong, Shanghai. SMIC was established in Pudong, Shanghai"5 years of tax exemption, 5 years of halved tax, preferential land policy"Let SMIC grow rapidly.
In 2002, SMIC established a subsidiary in Japan and went public in the United States in 2004. This speed has once again alarmed TSMC.
Immediately afterward, SMIC received a notice of litigation"TSMC sues SMIC in California for patent infringement and trade secret theft"。
In August 2004, TSMC filed another lawsuit against SMIC, claiming that SMIC had infringed three of TSMC's patents and that the United States use tariff laws to prohibit SMIC's products from entering the United States.
The two sides finally reached an agreement in 2009: SMIC compensated TSMC 1For $7.5 billion, SMIC CEO Zhang Rujing resigned, and TSMC acquired an 8% stake in SMIC.
This result can be used"Fiasco"to describe, but Zhang Rujing said:"This is not a failure in life, don't be discouraged by it, SMIC must continue to move forward bravely. "
Because in his opinion, maintaining the leading position of mainland chips is more important than winning or losing a person, with one, there will be two, three, or even thousands.
After Zhang's departure, SMIC fell into a brief period of turmoil, with many engineers and executives leaving. With the intervention of state-owned capital, SMIC was able to stabilize.
TSMC develops advanced processes to defend against SMIC.
With the support of American capital and technology, TSMC acquired half of the EUV lithography machines and began to work in the field of advanced processes"Staking the land"。
7nm is the biggest difference between SMIC and TSMC, because manufacturing 7nm chips requires the use of EUV lithography machines, while SMIC is hindered from purchasing EUV lithography machines and can only stop at 14nm.
However, the 14nm process is sufficient to meet the needs of aerospace, industrial, and most consumer chips, and SMIC still performs well with its mature process.
Therefore, TSMC plans to push smartphone chips to 3nm on the one hand, and autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit chips to 5nm on the other.
Therefore, more and more scenarios are beginning to use advanced process chips, and the use of mature chips is gradually decreasing. As it continues to grow, SMIC's market will shrink significantly.
If there is no market, there will be no income, there will be no R&D funds, and it will fall into"Dead end"。
This has also been proven by the facts, and in 2022, TSMC's market share continued to rise, reaching 60%;SMIC's market share fell to 5%, and the gap between the two widened further.
The competition between SMIC and TSMC also reflects the current situation of domestic plug-ins and imported plug-ins: domestic plug-ins are developing rapidly, but there is still a big gap between them and advanced plug-ins in terms of scale and technology, and technology, equipment and patents are the biggest weakness of domestic plug-ins.
SMIC is restricted.
On December 18, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce added SMIC to its list of entities that restrict its access to critical U.S. technologies. The U.S. Secretary of Commerce said bluntly:"We will not allow the advanced technology of the United States to help the adversary build up the army"。
So, what exactly will SMIC be prevented?Mainly basic equipment, as it is often called:"Four major equipment"。
Lithography, etching, PVD CVD, and ion implanters are known in the field of wafer fabrication"Four major pieces", the United States controls most of these technologies and patents.
The lithography machine is manufactured by ASML in the Netherlands, with a market share of more than 80%, and it is heavily dependent on the United States in terms of technology
The engraving machines are mainly controlled by Lam Research, Applied Materials, and Tokyo Electron, with the first two being American companies and the latter being Japanese companies;
PVD is primarily monopolized by Applied, Evatec and Advantech, with Applied Materials accounting for 85%;The CVD is primarily controlled by Applied, Tokyo Electron and Lam Research, with Applied Materials accounting for 30 percent
Ion implantation, Applied Materials, and Axcelis control most of the global market share, both of which are U.S. companies.
As can be seen, while ASML is a Dutch company, it relies heavily on U.S. technology, while Applied Materials and Lam Research are clearly U.S. companies, and these three companies have a firm grip on the major wafer fabrication equipment.
Invest in a plug-in production line, equipment accounts for 75% of the total investment, since the equipment is controlled, the production line is impossible.
It can be seen that the loss of equipment overseas has a great impact on SMIC, which is why SMIC has been unable to overcome the backlog of 7nm chips.
Does SMIC have 7nm manufacturing technology?
Liang Mengsong, CEO of SMIC, has publicly stated that the company has mass-produced 28nm and 14nm chips, 7nm technology has been surpassed, and the research and development of 5nm and 4nm technology has been put on the agenda.
The 7nm technology has been overcome, which is absolutely surprising, because there are only two companies in the world that can produce 7nm chips: TSMC and Samsung, and even Intel is in the tentative stage.
If SMIC has surpassed 7nm technology, it must rely on Liang Mengsong.
Liang Mengsong is an electrical engineer and scholar from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a former AMD engineer, senior director of TSMC R&D, vice president of R&D at Samsung Electronics, and currently an executive director of SMIC.
During his Ph.D. studies at the University of California, his mentor was C., the famous inventor of FinFETm.hu。He has also obtained a number of patents related to integrated circuits.
According to the statistics of the United States Patent Office, Liang Mengsong has 181 patents for semiconductor technology, almost all of which are the most advanced, professional and important technology research and development.
During the TSMC period, Liang Mengsong cooperated with Jiang Shanyi to defeat IBM on the 130nm processDuring the Samsung period, Liang Mengsong led the team to defeat TSMC on the 14nm process.
This proves that Liang Mengsong has strong technical and leadership skills in the field of chip manufacturing, so he is likely to lead SMIC's team to conquer 7nm technology, which of course needs to be verified by EUV lithography machines.
However, due to the U.S. embargo, SMIC was unable to purchase EUV lithography machines, and technical verification was impossible.
In other words, in order for SMIC to mass produce 7nm chips and carry out technical verification of 7nm chips, it must have several EUV lithography machines, and due to the US embargo, it can only rely on domestic production.
Progress of ultraviolet lithography technology in China.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography is the most difficult of all wafer fabrication and packaging equipment, but everyone can do extreme ultraviolet lithography, which is easy with etching machines, PVD CVD, ion implanters and other equipment.
There are several countries in the world (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, etc.) that can make atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, but none of them can independently manufacture EUV lithography machines, including the United States.
This is because you need extremely strong optoelectronics, precision instruments, mechanical engineering, and other related technologies. Optoelectronics is used in the development of extreme ultraviolet light source systems;Precision instrumentation technology is used in the development of optical lenses;Mechanical engineering technology was used to develop a two-slot system.
The EUV light system was developed by Thermo and later acquired by ASMLThe high-precision lenses are currently being developed by the German company Zeiss and represent the most advanced lens technology in the worldThe double table system was developed by the German company Thomson Express and is a typical example of precision manufacturing.
If a country wants to develop its own EUV lithography machine, it must establish ASML, Zeiss, Tonkei, and of course, thousands of large and small accessory companies.
In fact, an EUV lithography machine consists of 100,000 precision parts, 3,000 fiber optic cables, 2 kilometers of pipe, and, of course, a specific operating system.
According to the information that has been made public so far, China is gradually overcoming the relevant difficulties.
In terms of light source system, China's R&D progress is mixed, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences can develop an advanced extreme ultraviolet light source, but magnetron decontamination technology, tin liquid generation technology, laser pre-pulse technology, and high-power carbon dioxide laser technology have not yet been disclosed.
In terms of objective lenses, Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics can polish lenses with a resolution of 28 nanometers, but there is still a big gap compared with 7 nanometers and 5 nanometers.
The R&D speed of the double workbench, Tsinghua University and Huazhuo Technology is the fastest, which has surpassed the basic technology and has been supplied to Shanghai Microelectronics, but it needs to be improved in terms of accuracy and stability.
In other words, China has not surpassed the three basic technologies of EUV lithography machines, and there is still a long way to go before full mass production.
It is very painful to engage in R&D, on the one hand, you have to endure the ridicule of your opponents, saying that even if you give a design, you can't make it;On the other hand, I have to endure internal pressure, saying that it is better to buy anything.
But fortunately, with the strong support of national politics, the R&D environment has improved significantly. On the day of success, don't forget to reward the results, and don't let some people take advantage of the loopholes and steal the fruits of the workers' victories.
SMIC is stuck with chip manufacturing equipment, while TSMC has taken advantage of U.S. equipment and technology and has now switched to 3nm processes.
In the future, TSMC plans to move all automotive and industrial chips below 7nm to suppress SMIC, and it cannot be said that this plan is not toxic. Once successful, the national chip will lag significantly behind its opponents.
The only way to break this plan is to develop a domestic ultraviolet lithography machine, which is currently being worked together by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Microelectronics, Huazhuo Technology and other institutions, universities and enterprises.
It is believed that in the near future, EUV lithography machines will definitely be realized, and domestic 7nm and 5nm chips will also be realized.