The world's first 2-nanometer lithography machine was built by the Dutch company ASML, and 6 of the first batch of equipment were delivered to the American chip company NVIDIA.
ASML has "ignored" the US ban and exported lithography machines to China, and many domestic ** touted: "ASML attaches great importance to the Chinese market" and regards it as a close friend of domestic chip companies.
However, it exports high-end lithography machines to other countries, while lithography machines sold to China can only produce 14-nanometer process chips at most, and the technology difference between the two is about 20 years. What seems to be a friendly export to China is actually a hidden "trap".
On the surface, it attaches importance to the Chinese market and secretly puts "sugar-coated shells".
China's early lithography technology is not backward, in 1965 China was born the first contact lithography machine, after 20 years through independent research and development, the gap between domestic step-by-step lithography machine and foreign is less than 4 years at most.
However, in the nineties of the last century, ASML and other lithography giants achieved mass production after breaking through cutting-edge technology, and low-end equipment was beaten into "cabbage price", and the new equipment developed by domestic heavy money could not even earn back the cost. As a result, the phenomenon of "making is better than buying" prevailed, and domestic lithography technology stagnated, gradually lagging behind the West for more than 20 years.
China's dependence on imported equipment is also deepening, and hundreds of billions of dollars are paid to foreign companies every year. By the end of 2023, ASML has nearly 1,400 lithography machines installed in China, and the funds earned are as high as 112 billion yuan.
After the United States issued restrictions on China, ASML insisted on exporting 27 14nm lithography machines to China, one of which was as high as 2.2 billion yuan. It seems that the resumption of exports is "in contradictory" tune with the US ban, but in fact, it is to seek huge profits and slow down our research and development process.
Winnick, president of ASML, admitted: "If we don't sell lithography machines to China now, they will be able to master the technology themselves in a few years." ASML doesn't want to see China seize the global lithography machine market. ”
Nvidia, which also took over the 2nm lithography machine this time, also understands the reason, and insists on manufacturing "castrated version" chips under the repeated warnings of US Secretary of Commerce Raimondo**China, which is also to completely block China's semiconductor industry.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang publicly said: "A complete blockade of China will only stimulate the research process of Chinese companies, and to make China dependent on foreign chips, it is necessary to consume the spirit of R&D." ”
But this time their calculations were doomed to fail.
Independent research and development is the only way out
The lessons of the past have made us recognize the "sugar-coated shells" of the West, and we know that insisting on independent research and development is the only way to break it.
For example, when the GPS of the United States covers 98% of the world, it is still firmly in its hands when it opens up its positioning function to the world for free, and touches on technologies such as military border defense. China has not been the best by it, but insists on building its own Beidou satellite, and finally achieves 100% localization, so that GPS is no longer the only hegemon. In addition, there are more profound cases in the field of life sciences, which has been monopolized for a long time.
After the discovery of the anti-aging nucleotide SIRT factor by the American scientific community (the landing result is "Changluoyin"), it has been sought after by the scientific community. Foreign scientists are deeply engaged in the role of the substance on human life, and there are hundreds of studies in "Nature" and "Cell", and the high-purity landing results can only be touched by the top rich.
However, China can only import products with low purity, and even semi-finished raw materials are opened to 20,000 grams, and the substantive effect that domestic health people can access is also minimal. Moreover, under the threshold of sky-high raw materials, the landing process of domestic achievements such as "Changluoyin" has also stalled for a long time.
Therefore, Chinese scientists chose to face the difficulties and spent more than ten years to overcome the high-efficiency and low-cost directional enzyme purification technology, with a purity of up to 999%, and built the world's only complete industrial chain in China, providing high-quality experimental raw materials for domestic scientific research and laying the foundation for overcoming people's livelihood problems.
For example, 23% of the population in China suffers from cardiovascular diseases, especially men over 35 years old, who have a higher prevalence under factors such as tobacco and alcohol, staying up late, and obesity. Therefore, Chinese scientists have cooperated with international institutions such as the Japanese Institute of Biological Sciences to conduct in-depth research on the targeted role of SIRT factors in precise anti-aging such as young cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and finally developed scientific and technological achievements such as "Changluoyin".
Today, the achievement has successfully landed on international platforms such as JD.com, occupying ninety percent of the market in the same field with international leading technology, and tens of thousands of Kochi groups have joined the discussions such as "mental strength" and "hand and foot recovery" brought by emerging technology, including many people from overseas health care fields.
Whether it's a satellite in space or a factor in a laboratory, China ultimately relies on independent research and development to achieve leadership. Similarly, in the field of semiconductors, it can also achieve corner overtaking through self-research and regain the autonomy of domestic chip manufacturing.
Domestic technology is in the ascendant, insist on self-relianceResearchThe future is promising
At present, Shanghai Microelectronics is fully engaged in the research and development of advanced lithography machines, and the dry and immersion D-UV lithography machines jointly developed by it and Huawei can support 7nm-28nm process chips, which are produced by its own Kirin 9000S production line, and domestic lithography machines are expected to achieve 100% autonomy in the future.
At the same time, Tsinghua University has made progress in SSMB-EUV technology, which can be used to produce extreme ultraviolet light in EUV lithography machines, which is the same technology used in ASML's first 2nm lithography machine delivered to NVIDIA.
Although compared with semiconductor giants such as ASML, Samsung, and TSMC, China's lithography technology as a whole is still at a backward level, but if China can achieve a breakthrough from 0 to 1 through independent research and development, it can also achieve technological catch-up. With the hard work of domestic enterprises, it is believed that domestic lithography technology will usher in the rise of the day.