The unveiling of the first domestic lithography machine marks a major progress in the technology of domestic lithography machine
Recently, a Chinese semiconductor company released an artificial intelligence chip manufactured in the 12 nm process, but its performance is directly catching up with the 7 nm process, proving that the wafer stacking process can increase the performance of the chip several times, and EUV lithography will not become the main bottleneck limiting China's process to the 7 nm process in the future.
It is reported that the "White Bear" is the latest to launch"Qiming 930"AI chips, based on the RISC-V architecture of China's semiconductor industry, are independently developed by domestic chip manufacturers and use 12 nm processes, which can be described as completely independent research and development, and do not rely on imported chips at all.
The most special thing about this chip is that its computing power has reached 20 tops, and it uses the same 7 nm process as the 7 nm process, that is, this is a domestic semiconductor chip, which has achieved mass production for the first time, and can greatly improve the performance of the already mature chip. It can be said that this is the first chip in China to use the integrated circuit process for mass production, and it has been confirmed that it has a great role in promoting the performance of existing integrated circuits.
Chinese semiconductor manufacturers have two main development routes, one is to use the 14 nm process to manufacture two 14 nm processes, one is to improve their performance by integrating multi-functional chips, and the other is to combine the chips of the two processes to improve their performance, so as to achieve the purpose of several times the increase.
The launch of this artificial intelligence chip proves that China's application in the 7 nm process is feasible, and the 7 nm process can completely solve more than 90% of the chip demand in the Chinese market, which is a huge improvement for the United States, ASML and other countries, because they want to restrict China's development in the 7 nm process by blocking China's acquisition of EUV lithography machines.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) lithography is considered to be the core technology for the development of processes above 7 nm, but a Chinese semiconductor company spent $120 million to buy an EUV lithography machine in 2018, but the shipment has not been delayed, which makes people worry about whether China will have more advanced process technology, but China has not found a way to develop a higher process in recent years.
The chips mentioned above are all high-end lithography products that China is currently working on, and they are also the most likely high-end lithography products to be developed in China, and the release of this 7 nm AI chip means that China has a new way to break through the restrictions of EUV lithography.
Due to the difficulties and costs brought about by the process above 3 nm, the American semiconductor giant Intel vigorously promoted, TSMC also vigorously promoted, the British AI company launched the 7 nm process, and the efficiency of the 7 nm process was increased to 5 nm. Now, China has also completed this task, showing China's leading position in chip technology.
In fact, China can go further in chip technology. JCET's 4 nm process, Tongfu MSI's 5 nm process, and AMD's high affirmation of the 5 nm process mean that China has reached a level with TSMC at the 5 nm process level. This means that China's progress in chip technology has caught up with large companies like TSMC.
However, chipset technology also has its limitations, that is, the power consumption of the chip is too large, so most of the chips now are AI chips and the like, which can be used on servers, while on mobile phones, such technology has not yet been seen. However, the application of this new technology to automobiles, computers, servers and other fields is also a good thing for the domestic semiconductor industry.
In addition, China's wafer industry is currently struggling to obtain EUV lithography machines, partly because the semiconductor industry may break through the technical bottleneck of the 7 nm process by the end of this year, which is also to cater to the needs of the local wafer industry, and has made significant progress.