With the successful advent of Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip, the progress of chip manufacturing in China has attracted widespread attention. Although domestic companies are facing huge difficulties under the sanctions and blockade of the United States, Huawei, SMIC and other companies are still trying to break through the technical bottleneck and promote the development of China's chip industry. However, just when people are just beginning to rejoice about the optimistic future of the domestic chip manufacturing industry, the news that ASML has launched a 2NMEUV lithography machine has thrown the entire industry into shock and unease. Among American companies, Intel alone has obtained 6 2NMEUV lithography machines, which makes them expected to achieve local high-end chip manufacturing in the case of surpassing TSMC and Samsung, thereby reducing the risk of being controlled by others. However, due to ASML's restrictions, these 2NMEUV lithography machines are likely to fail to enter the Chinese mainland market in the next few years, which will further widen the gap between domestic and US chip manufacturing levels and negatively impact the market competitiveness of domestic technology companies. Therefore, in order to break through this bottleneck, China's chip industry urgently needs to overcome core equipment such as lithography machines and completely break the chip blockade in the United States.
The chip blockade in the United States and the sanctions against Huawei have had a huge impact on the domestic chip industry. Although China has many excellent chip design companies, such as Huawei HiSilicon and SMIC, the latter even has world-class chip manufacturing process technology, domestic companies cannot manufacture high-performance chips because they cannot purchase high-end EUV lithography machines. This blockade has allowed the United States to control the "**** of suppressing domestic technology companies, which has caused serious obstacles to the development of the domestic chip industry."
However, the successful advent of Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip has injected a shot in the arm for the domestic chip industry. As a product comparable to the performance of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 chips, the mass production of Kirin 9000s chips has successfully solved the development pressure caused by the chip blockade in the United States for domestic enterprises. However, there are still some voices who claim that "as long as it is well optimized, the performance of 7nm chips is definitely not inferior to that of 3nm and 5nm chips". However, is this statement true?
For those who know semiconductors, this view is nothing more than self-deception. The space of the chip is limited, and if you want to improve the performance of the chip, you must optimize it with a limited transistor density. The chip manufacturing process directly determines the density of the chip transistor, and on the same size of silicon wafer, the transistor density of the 3nm chip is hundreds of times that of the 7nm chip, and the performance has obvious advantages over the 7nm chip.
Therefore, improving the chip manufacturing process is of great significance to domestic semiconductor companies such as SMIC. However, the 2NMEUV lithography machine launched by ASML has brought new challenges to domestic enterprises. According to reports, ASML plans to launch 10 2NMEUV lithography machines next year, while Intel alone occupies six. This makes Intel expected to achieve the goal of high-end chip manufacturing in the United States while surpassing TSMC and Samsung. However, due to ASML's restrictions on the Chinese market, these 2nmeuv lithography machines are likely to fail to enter the Chinese mainland market in the next few years, further widening the gap between domestic and US chip manufacturing levels, and adversely affecting the market competitiveness of domestic technology companies.
The severe impact of the chip blockade in the United States has made China's chip industry face huge difficulties and challenges. In order to cope with this situation, China has vigorously promoted the development of semiconductor-related enterprises and provided a large number of preferential policies and infrastructure construction support. All kinds of semiconductor companies have poured into the market, forming a wave of development of "China Chip". At the same time, however, some companies have taken advantage of this opportunity to act dishonestly and create a large number of short-lived enterprises for the purpose of defrauding relevant subsidies. In 2023 alone, the number of semiconductor companies that have disappeared in China will be as high as 1090,000 companies, most of which are newly established. These "moths" not only seriously affected the development of "China Chip", but also had a negative impact on the entire industry.
Under the current situation, the rise of China's chip industry is still inseparable from the efforts of Huawei, SMIC and other companies that do practical things. Only if they can successfully break through the core technology and break the monopoly of the United States and Western countries on chip manufacturing, can they realize the development and rise of "Chinese chips".
In the context of drastic changes in the pattern of the global chip industry, China's chip industry is actively exploring its own development path while facing the blockade and sanctions of the United States. The efforts of companies such as Huawei and SMIC have promoted the development of the domestic chip industry and made certain breakthroughs, however, the news of the 2NMEUV lithography machine launched by ASML has brought new challenges to China's chip industry.
Therefore, China's chip industry urgently needs to overcome the bottleneck of key equipment such as lithography machines and realize the improvement of chip manufacturing processes. Only through independent innovation and technological breakthroughs can China truly get rid of its dependence on foreign technology and achieve independent development of the chip industry. At the same time, in order to better respond to market competition and challenges, China should also increase support for enterprises, strengthen the supervision of enterprises, and ensure the healthy development of the industry.
In short, China's chip industry is moving forward in difficulties and challenges, and it needs to work together with enterprises, enterprises and research institutions to strengthen cooperation and innovation, and create a more favorable environment and conditions for the rise of Chinese chips. Only in this way can China gradually get rid of its dependence on foreign technology, realize chip manufacturing with independent intellectual property rights, and make important contributions to the further development of China's science and technology industry and the country's independence.