China's Semiconductor Ambitions: Progress and Challenges in Advanced Chip Manufacturing

China touts 2 homemade advanced chip-making machines amid US tech tussle

China has claimed a breakthrough in a domestically developed chip making machines, marking a vital step in overcoming U.S. curbs on the country's semiconductor ambitions, Bloomberg News reported. State-linked organizations were advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography system with a resolution of 65 nanometers ((nm)) or better, the report added, citing an announcement from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, or MIIT, from earlier this month. The specifications mark a step from the previous most-advanced indigenous equipment -- developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group, which was at around 90nm. The Chinese government is promoting two domestically made chip-making machines. The lithography machines, which print complex circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, "have achieved significant technological breakthroughs, own intellectual property rights but have yet to perform on the market," the South China Morning Post, or SCMP, reported on Sunday, citing MIIT, which did not disclose the companies behind the two machines. One of the deep ultraviolet, or DUV, lithography machines operates at a wavelength of 193 nm, with a resolution below 65nm and an overlay accuracy below 8nm, as per the new list of "major technological equipment" published by the MIIT last week. The other DUV system has a wavelength of 248nm, with 110nm resolution and 25nm overlay accuracy, the SCMP report noted. However, the two machines are still far behind the most advanced system on the market, such as those from Dutch chip equipment maker ASML (ASML). One of ASML's most advanced DUV machines, can operate at a resolution of below 38nm with an overlay accuracy of 1.3nm. The DUV machines are also behind the extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, systems which are produced by ASML that use light with a wavelength of only 13.5nm - almost 14 times sharper than the DUV's 195nm. Earlier, this month, the Dutch government was expanding the export licensing requirements for ASML's immersion DUV semiconductor equipment that would take oversight over them from the U.S. and align the policies of the two nations. Following the move, China was "dissatisfied" with the Dutch government's decision. The Biden administration has been stepping up efforts to curb China's access to advance semiconductor equipment, which, among other things, is used in making AI products. Facing U.S. pressure, The Netherlands has not allowed ASML to ship its best EUV equipment to China, while it started requiring a license for NXT:2000 series and better of DUV tools in September 2023. In July, the U.S. government was thinking of imposing the most severe trade curbs available if companies, including ASML, continued to provide China access to advanced semiconductor technology. ASML was also being targeted by the U.S. because it has a monopoly on making some machines which produce the most advanced semiconductors.

China Might Be 15 Years Behind US, ASML In Chipmaking Suggests Official Document

This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy. With the latest sanctions by the Dutch government requiring ASML to seek licenses before it can sell older DUV based chip manufacturing machines, China has purportedly developed its own DUV scanner, according to a document published on the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's website. Chip manufacturing machines have become a prized commodity for China since the latest equipment is only manufactured by ASML, and the local Chinese machine could help the country reduce reliance on Western products for advancing in the crucial industry in an era where artificial intelligence software requires the latest semiconductors for peak performance. The document outlines the three key details of China's latest DUV lithography machine: resolution, wavelength, and overlay. The scanner is an Argon Fluoride machine, which has been used in the global semiconductor industry for roughly two decades. It uses a 193 nanometer wavelength of light and can print chips with a resolution of 65 nanometers. This resolution was available to Dutch chip manufacturing equipment giant ASML's customers through its ArF machines dating back to at least 2009. In terms of ASML's latest product portfolio, the closest match is the TWINSCAN XT:1460K scanner. This machine also has a resolution lower than 65 nanometers and uses a 193 nanometer Argon Fluoride light source. However, it is still more advanced than the Chinese machine since the overlay specification is less than 2.5 nanometers - far superior to the 8 nanometer overlay claimed by the Chinese ministry. Since semiconductor fabrication involves manipulating light to print minute circuits on a silicon wafer, its quality and technical parameters involve the manipulation of light. A chip machine's resolution is simply defined as the minimum feature size that a machine can print. This size depends on a variety of other factors, out of which some of the most important are the machine's numerical aperture, its depth of focus and the mask size. Within these, a higher numerical aperture typically means lower resolution, allowing chip manufacturers to shrink chip sizes. A machine's overlay is its ability to map out new patterns on existing patterns on a wafer. Since chip fabrication uses a mask to imprint circuit patterns for electrical conductivity, machines with smaller overlay capabilities are better since they allow the circuits to be tightly packed. ASML first introduced its TWINSCAN chip machines in 2005. Since then, the firm has moved forward to immersion machines and the newer EUV tools that are slowly becoming the industry's mainstay. Its TWINSCAN:XT 1460 scanner, which is the closest approximation to the currently available TWINSCAN:XT:1460K machine, first surfaced in the firm's 2015 annual report with a resolution of 65 nanometers a light wavelength of 193 nanometers. Before 1460, the 1450 scanner was present in annual reports dating back to 2009. This scanner had a resolution of 57 nanometers and was the latest machine in the firm's non immersion lithography portfolio.