Moore s Law, in fact, has died at 28nm, can Chinese chips catch up with TSMC?

Mondo Technology Updated on 2024-02-16

As the law of development in the field of chips, Moore's Law has been widely recognized and applied. However, as chip processes move into the 28nm node, questions have begun to be raised about the validity of Moore's Law. On the one hand, despite the continuous advancement of chip processes, such as 14nm, 10nm, 7nm and even smaller, the increase in transistor density is no longer as rapid as before, approaching the physical limit. On the other hand, as the process was upgraded, the cost per transistor did not decrease at the rate expected by Moore's Law. This has sparked controversy over whether Moore's Law is still valid.

Over the past few years, the cost of transistors has ceased to continue to decline as Moore's Law proposes. According to the cost analysis of some fabs, the average cost of transistors has stabilized since the 28nm process node in 2012. This shows that Moore's Law has failed in practical application and can no longer lead to a sustained reduction in costs.

Some domestic experts believe that the current chip process advancement is more about making progress in the improvement of architecture and process, achieving similar energy efficiency and performance to advanced chips. Therefore, it is not necessary to pursue the most advanced process excessively, but should focus on the development of chiplets, advanced packaging technologies, etc., to achieve the same performance and power consumption as the more advanced process under the older process, and better balance the requirements of performance, power consumption and cost.

The failure of Moore's Law has brought opportunities for the development of China's chip industry. As mentioned earlier, the continued downward trend in transistor costs is no longer evident after the failure of Moore's Law, and China's rapid development of chip technology is expected to achieve a greater advantage when transistor scaling occurs again. The emergence of this opportunity makes it possible for China to catch up with and surpass leading companies such as TSMC.

Unlike companies such as TSMC, China's chip industry is still in a relatively early stage and has a large space for technological leaps. In the context of the failure of Moore's Law, China's chip industry can pay more attention to the innovation of chip architecture and packaging technology as the core, as well as in-depth research on the chip manufacturing process to improve the performance and power consumption of chips.

In addition, after the failure of Moore's Law, China's chip industry can learn from the experience and technology of TSMC and other enterprises in process technology, quality control, process equipment, etc., so as to improve its own technical level and competitiveness. With these lessons and learnings, China's chip industry is expected to quickly catch up when transistor shrinkage occurs again.

Overall, the failure of Moore's Law does not mean that the chip industry is stagnant, but rather brings opportunities for the development of China's chip industry. As long as China's chip industry can seize this opportunity, strengthen its own technological innovation, and learn from the experience of advanced enterprises, it is expected to catch up in the future and occupy a place in the global chip industry.

The issue of Moore's Law failure has caused extensive discussion inside and outside the chip industry, and as a self-editor, I also have some personal thoughts and opinions on this.

First of all, the failure of Moore's Law does not mean that the development of chip technology has stagnated. Although the miniaturization of transistors has become difficult, there are still many directions to pursue in the development of chip technology. In addition to the progress of the manufacturing process, innovations in chip architecture and packaging technology can also further improve the performance and power consumption characteristics of chips. Therefore, there is still a lot of development potential to be tapped in the chip field.

Second, China's chip industry has development opportunities in the context of the failure of Moore's Law. Although China's chip industry started relatively late, it is at this point in time that China's chip industry has the opportunity to catch up through its own efforts and technological innovation. At the same time, China's chip industry can also learn from the experience and technology of advanced enterprises such as TSMC to improve its own development level.

Finally, the failure of Moore's Law may also be a wake-up call not to overrely on the development of a single law. Although Moore's Law has brought huge development opportunities to the chip industry in the past few decades, the development of technology is multifaceted and diversified. We need to pay more attention to all-round innovation and development to find other new laws and opportunities to promote the continuous progress of chip technology.

To sum up, the failure of Moore's Law is an opportunity for China's chip industry. China's chip industry can catch up through technological innovation, learning from others, and focusing on all-round development, and achieve greater competitive advantages in future development. At the same time, we must also make it clear that the failure of Moore's Law does not mean the stagnation of chip technology, and we still have many opportunities and directions to pursue to promote the continuous progress and innovation of chip technology.

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