According to a report published by Georgetown University’s Emerging Technology Observatory (ETO), China ranks number one in the world for the combined three ranked countries when publishing semiconductor-related papers:
According to an ETO report, between 2018 and 2023, Chinese scholars published 160,852 academic articles in the United States (71,688), India (39,709), Japan (30,401), and Korea (28,345). In terms of the number of citations per article, the US achieved 17.6 compared to China’s 14.8.
All the top 10 research institutes were based in China, but France’s National Centre, Delacherschèscientique, ranked third.
From 2018 to 2023, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) published 14,387 chip-related articles, followed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (7,849), the Center National Delachersche Science Science (5,446), and the University of Electronic Science and Technology in China (5,237).
However, China ranked only fifth in the world in terms of the number of papers published by chipmakers.
Samsung published 1,940 articles from 2018 to 2023, followed by Stmicroelectronics (1,070), Intel (951), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 611), and China Electronics Technology Group (CETC, 594).
In terms of the number of citations per article, Intel achieved 17.3, followed by Samsung (16.8), IBM (15.4), and Samsung (16.8). CETC was only 10th.
South China Morning Post (SCMP), owned by Alibaba co-founder Jack MA, reported in an ETO report that “Tech War: China leads us to quantitative and the quality of semiconductor research.” “Quantity” was called a large number of quotes per article by Chinese researchers.
Zachary Arnold, lead analyst at ETO, told Nature Magazine that the findings do not mean that China is currently leading the chip manufacturing sector, but “it shows where things are heading.”
The ETO report added that if China develops research work on commercial applications, it may soon feel that the US will not be able to use export controls to maintain a competitive advantage in the design and production of high-performance microchips.
Chen Yunji, co-founder of AI-CHIP design company Cambricon, said naturally that China’s ability to make high-end chips in chip design is behind chip design due to US export controls.
Meanwhile, the quality of some academic papers in China is questionable due to the activities of “paper mills” that refer to companies that produce fraudulent or poor quality manuscripts and sell authors.
On December 31st last year, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued guidance calling for crackdowns on paper mills. The lower court also cracked down on the “paper industry chain” and called for severe punishment for those who committed research fraud.
US export control
In 2019, the Trump administration asked ASML, the world’s largest supplier of chip equipment in the Netherlands, to transport the shipment of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to China. EUV lithography allows for the creation of 7nm chips with a single exposure and 2-3nm chips with multiple exposures.
Since then, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) has attempted to create a 7NM chip using a Deep-Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machine and multiple exposure techniques. We have successfully launched the Kirin 9000S chips for Huawei Technologies’ Mate60 smartphones, which were released in September 2023.
In early 2024, the Dutch government stopped granting licenses for ASML to export NXT:2000i and subsequent DUV immersion systems to China.
“China’s scientific innovation has defied the imagination of people multiple times,” Minister Wang Yidi, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee and the Foreign Minister’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference in Beijing on March 7.
“This journey hasn’t been smooth. Unjust external suppression, like missile technology, space science, chipmaking, etc., hasn’t stopped. But when there is a blockade, there is a breakthrough. When there is a suppression, there is an innovation.”
Quoting an ancient Chinese poem, “Mountains cannot stop the surge in flows of powerful rivers,” Wang said that the blockade cannot stop China’s technological advances.
He said that science and technology should not be used to create iron curtains, but should be shared by all. China is ready to share its technology with the Global South.
He stressed that “high fences and small yards,” a policy that banned China from gaining US high tech during the Biden era, could not suppress the spirit of China’s innovation. He said supply chain decoupling and disruption only leads to self-assessment.
US President Donald Trump, who began his second term on January 20th this year, believes Biden’s “high fence and small yards” policy will not work either.
White House officials recently met with Japanese and Dutch officials to discuss stopping Tokyo Electronics and ASML from maintaining semiconductor gears with Chinese chip fabs.
They said Japan and the Netherlands should ask companies to meet restrictions placed on their companies by the US, including Lam Research Corp, KLA Corp and Applied Materials Inc.
Will it surpass Korea?
China has been trying to make lithography for tens of thousands of dollars into the semiconductor industry for tens of thousands of dollars. However, the program failed to achieve the expected results due to corruption. In July 2022, Chinese officials and executives from the national investment fund and affiliates were arrested.
China is currently focusing on chip design and packaging technology that does not rely on EUV lithography.
In a recent survey, the Korean Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning, the Korean think tank, said in a recent survey that China has overtaken South Korea in almost every major area of semiconductor technology.
In a survey interviewing 39 industry experts, China now leads high-strength and resistance-based memory technology, earning 94.1% compared to 90.9% in South Korea. The best benchmark is 100%.
Resistor-based memory, or resistive random access memory (RERAM or RRAM), is a future technology suitable for deep learning calculations. It will ultimately replace traditional flash memory.
Kistep also found that South Korea is behind China, but found that it has a high-performance, low-power artificial intelligence (AI) chip at 84.1% compared to China’s 88.3%.
He said the rise of China’s chip technology is a call for South Korea’s awakening, and that technological innovation with support from the government and the private sector must be accelerated.
Last year, Huawei struggled to make enough Kirin 9100 chips with its new flagship Mate70 smartphone due to limited production capabilities for Smic’s 7nm chips.
The Henan-based IT columnist said China can use 14NM chip processing and 3D packaging technology to create chips with performance equivalent to 3NM and 5NM chips. This involves stacking several mid-end chips to improve computing speed.
Yong Ji-an is a contributor to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist and specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics.
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