In mid-December, South Korea's ** Yoon Suk-yeol and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte issued a joint statement to build a "semiconductor alliance" between the two sides. The two sides agreed that the two countries have a special complementary relationship in the global semiconductor chain, and reaffirmed their determination to build a semiconductor alliance covering **, enterprises and universities. To this end, the two sides agreed to establish a new semiconductor dialogue and consultation mechanism between economic and trade departments, and at the same time promote the training of semiconductor professionals.
Yoon was accompanied by senior management teams from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, both of which are major customers of the Dutch company ASML.
In the ever-changing global semiconductor market, Yoon Suk-yeol stepped to the fore to help the Korean semiconductor industry, which is supported by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, highlighting South Korea's determination to maintain and improve its semiconductor competitiveness.
A few weeks ago, Samsung Electronics boss Lee Jae-yong went to the Netherlands to sign an important agreement with ASML. After returning to South Korea from the Netherlands, Lee Jae-yong said he was satisfied with the agreement reached with ASML. At a time when the competition for EUV is becoming more and more fierce, for the top three of Samsung, Intel and TSMC, whoever gets ASML's most advanced EUV equipment first and gets as much as possible will have the first opportunity in the future advanced process chip competition. Because of this, Lee Jae-yong and even Yoon Suk-yeol are running so actively.
It is reported that according to the agreement, ASML will provide a total of 50 sets of equipment (not only EUV lithography machines) within five years, and the unit price of each unit will be about 200 billion won (about 11.).0.2 billion yuan), with a total value of up to 10 trillion won (about 55.1 billion yuan).
The battle for the most advanced process.
Based on the plans of Samsung Electronics, TSMC and Intel, the mass production of the 3nm process will be achieved from 2022 to 2023, and the mass production of 2nm will be achieved in 2025. Among them, the competition between Samsung and TSMC is fierce, TSMC 3nm still insists on using improved Finfet transistor technology, and Samsung chooses Gaafet technology. At present, TSMC 3nm continues to maintain its leading position in the market and has received orders from most major customers around the world.
Samsung Electronics launched the second-generation 3nm process in 2023, and plans to mass-produce 2nm in 2025 and 14nm to catch up with TSMC by 2030.
In 2025, Samsung will launch the 2nm (SF2) process, which is reported to use backside power technology, which can further improve performance, as the power supply circuit is moved to the back of the chip, leaving room for more transistors to be integrated on the front.
After the 2nm process, Samsung will increase the number of nanosheets of the transistor, which can enhance the drive current and improve performance, as more nanosheets allow more current to flow through the transistor, thus enhancing its switching capability and operating speed. More nanosheets also allow for better current control, helping to reduce leakage current, which in turn reduces power consumption. Improved current control also means that the transistors generate less heat, improving power efficiency.
According to South Korea**, Samsung's wafer foundry division is integrating superior resources and rapidly advancing its 2nm production plan.
TSMC also plans to launch the 2nm process in 2025, which will also use the nanosheet process, and by then, Samsung will already have a lot of experience with GAA transistors, which will be beneficial for foundries. Therefore, Samsung has high hopes for the 2nm process, whether it is process technology or yield, it can compete with TSMC.
Recently, TSMC has started the pre-production of 2nm, and is expected to introduce the most advanced AI system to accelerate the efficiency of trial production. The goal is to test production of nearly 1,000 pieces this year, and after the trial production is successful, the follow-up construction of the Zhuke Baoshan Fab 20 factory will be introduced, and the team of the factory will relay the sprint to the risk trial production in 2024 and the mass production target in 2025.
EUV devices are becoming increasingly important.
Whether it is for Samsung Electronics, which is besieging the city, or TSMC, which is defending the city, it is necessary to fight the battle of mass production of the 2nm process. The more advanced the manufacturing process, the higher the dependence on EUV lithography equipment, and at this time, ASML occupies the stage.
It is reported that in 2024, ASML plans to produce 10 EUV devices that can produce 2nm chips, and Intel may have obtained 6 of them in advance. In this case, Samsung and TSMC will compete more fiercely in this regard.
In the field of semiconductor equipment, South Korea has made significant progress in the localization of back-end equipment such as semiconductor testing, and in terms of front-end equipment, lithography and ion implanters are still in a state of zero localization. Korea's localization rate in the top 8 semiconductor equipment is as follows: heat treatment (70%), deposition (65%), cleaning (65%), planarization (60%), etching (50%), measurement and analysis (30%), photolithography (0%), and ion implantation (0%).
As a result, Samsung needs to bring more EUV and ion implantation equipment, as well as follow-up services and technical support, to South Korea to improve the efficiency of its advanced process development and mass production. To this end, Samsung Electronics signed a letter with ASML worth 1 trillion won (7.).$5.5 billion). The two companies will invest in the construction of a semiconductor research plant in South Korea to develop EUV technology there. Kyung Kye-Hyun, Vice Chairman and Head of Device Solutions Division of Samsung Electronics, emphasized that the agreement will help it acquire the next generation of high-NA (numerical aperture) EUV lithography equipment.
At the upcoming semiconductor research plant in Dongtan, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, engineers from ASML and Samsung Electronics will work together to improve EUV technology. Of course, this is not to make lithography machines in South Korea, but to build a deeper partnership with ASML so that Samsung can better use the latest EUV devices.
Advanced memory chips are also pursuing EUVs
In addition, in recent years, advanced memory chips have also needed EUV, and in this regard, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are still big demanders, and these two are competing with Micron Technology in this regard.
In recent years, the process of memory chips, especially DRAM, has entered the 10nm and 20nm era, and is getting closer and closer to 10nm, so that the commonly used DUV lithography machine is difficult to meet the requirements of the most advanced process DRAM, and the three giants in the industry have gradually introduced EUV equipment in the production line.
In March 2020, Samsung Electronics became the first to use an EUV lithography machine to produce DRAMIn July 2021, SK hynix announced that it has mass-produced LPDDR4 memory using EUVsIn October 2021, Samsung Electronics began mass production of 14nm DRAM with EUV.
The demand for standard DRAM chips is much greater than that of single type logic chips, and the mass production results of Samsung Electronics' 1ZNM process DRAM show that compared with DUV lithography machines, EUV greatly simplifies the manufacturing process, which can not only greatly improve lithography resolution and DRAM performance, but also reduce the number of masks used, thereby reducing process steps, reducing defect rates, and greatly shortening production cycles.
Even though the cost of a EUV mask (millions of dollars) is much higher than that of a DUV, it is more cost-effective to mass-produce DRAM with an EUV lithography machine.
In the past two years, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have introduced EUV lithography machines into the 1ZNM process, and the mass production of DRAM has progressed smoothly and evolved to the fifth-generation 1 process. Comparatively speaking, Micron, the DRAM triumvirate, is more conservative and did not immediately follow up with the use of EUV. However, in 2022, after seeing the many benefits of using EUV to produce DRAM, Micron couldn't bear it.
It is reported that Micron will introduce EUV lithography machines into the company's new production line in Japan, investing about $3.6 billion in the 1-gamma process, and Micron can receive $1.5 billion in subsidies from Japan**.
Obviously, when it comes to making DRAM from EUVs, the two South Korean powerhouses are already ahead of the curve. South Korea** came forward to promote in-depth cooperation with the Netherlands and ASML, which will help Samsung and SK hynix memory chips to be upgraded in the future.
Responding to Japan's semiconductor revival.
Recently, South Korea** has been so actively involved in the development of the local semiconductor industry, and another stimulus is that Japan** and the industry are acting collectively to revive the local semiconductor industry.
Japanese companies once dominated the global semiconductor market, occupying more than 50% of the market share in the late 80s, but their current share has fallen to about 10%. Although it remains competitive in some areas, such as power semiconductors, as well as semiconductor equipment and materials, in general, many categories of chips that Japan needs rely on imports, especially advanced process chips (16nm and below), and its home market is almost a desert.
In the past two years, Japan** has been committed to improving the manufacturing capacity of local advanced process chips and has taken a series of measures.
In order to build a local semiconductor chain, Japan has offered a large number of subsidies, not only to attract TSMC to settle in Japan, PSMC will also set up a factory in Miyagi County in a joint venture with the Japanese side, plus UMC's existing Mie County wafer factory, three of the four major wafer foundries in Taiwan, China have been deployed in Japan.
It is reported that the main building of TSMC's new Kumamoto factory has been completed and moved to the machine, and mass production is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2024. TSMC also has the potential to build a second fab in Japan.
In addition to encouraging foreign companies to invest and build factories in the local area, Japan** also organized a rapidus company jointly established by Toyota, Sony, NTT, NEC, SoftBank, Denso, Kioxia, Mitsubishi UFJ and other 8 Japanese companies and officials in August 2022, with the goal of starting trial production of 2nm chips in 2025 and mass production in 2027.
ASML will set up a new technical support center in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2024 to assist Rapidus' 2nm fab in installing and maintaining EUV lithography equipment, according to Japan**.
Tetsuro Higashi, chairman of Rapidus, said that in order to build a state-of-the-art chip manufacturing line, it is expected to invest 7 trillion yen (about 54 billion U.S. dollars) in order to mass produce in 2027. Previously, the subsidy funds provided by the eight shareholding companies and Japan** were far from enough. In April this year, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry finalized a plan to provide an additional 300 billion yen (about 22.) to Rapidus$700 million) subsidy. But that's still not enough, they need to make heavy bets.
Although Japan is weak in advanced process chips, the country is in the leading position in the world in semiconductor materials, and there are a total of 19 kinds of materials commonly used in the front-end process of semiconductors, of which 14 are dominated by Japanese companies, especially photoresists below 10nm process, which are basically only produced by Japanese companies. This is a big problem for South Korea, because most of the key semiconductor materials required for South Korea's advanced chip manufacturing need to be imported from Japan, 4 years ago, because of the confrontation between the two countries and the people due to some incidents, Japan cut off the channel of exporting related semiconductor materials to South Korea, especially photoresist, South Korea's related technologies and products are not competitive. This makes South Korea** and related companies, especially Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, very passive.
In the first half of this year, Japan's Industrial Innovation Investment Corporation (JIC) agreed to acquire photoresist giant JSR, which has about 30% of the global market share. Behind this investment institution is Japan**.
Photoresist is the most core material in the photolithography process, and its purity and quality directly determine the yield of the chip.
The CEO of Samsung Group once said: "If there is a lack of photoresist, then the lithography machine is a pile of scrap metal." ”
In 2019, Japan turned against South Korea, and Japan was not allowed to export photoresist to South Korea, which greatly affected the production of Samsung Electronics' advanced process chips, especially the yield, which plummeted, because it could only use photoresist with insufficient purity.
South Korea learned a lesson, and at that time, South Korea was determined to strengthen its local semiconductor material capabilities. In December 2022, Samsung announced that the EUV photoresist developed by Dongjin Semichem has been successfully applied to chip production, and Dongjin is also the first Korean company to localize EUV photoresist to the mass production level.
Dongjin Semichem began developing photoresists after the implementation of export controls in Japan, and in 2020, Kim Young-Sun, former CEO of ASML Korea, was hired as vice chairman to lay the foundation for entering the EUV photoresist business. According to Korean media ETNews, Dongjin Semichem has formulated a roadmap for the development of High NA EUV photoresist, starting R&D projects from the second half of this year, with the goal of completing technology development in the first half of 2025 at the earliest.
Epilogue. Intel's change has made the competition in advanced processes more intense, and the top three in the industry will come to the closest time in the historical process when the mass production of 2nm process chips comes, whether it is technology or mass production capacity, it is likely to be the smallest gap in decades, and it is the competition of the three at the same time.
With the development of application requirements, memory chips have higher and higher requirements for process technology, and it is a matter of time before they develop to advanced processes below 10nm.
Japan, as the former hegemon of Asia's semiconductor industry, was later pulled down by South Korea, and now, Japan has started the road to rejuvenation.
In the face of these competitions and pressures, South Korea's ** and related enterprises continue to strengthen their sense of competition, and if they do not advance, they will retreat, and more actions and measures are needed to maintain their industry status.