China is seeking technological self-sufficiency amid U.S. sanctions and is promoting two domestically produced pieces of semiconductor manufacturing equipment that it sees as a major breakthrough.
The lithography machines, which print highly intricate circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, “have achieved major technological advances and have proprietary intellectual property rights but have not yet been put into market use,” the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said, without disclosing the names of the companies that make the two machines.
One of the deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools operates at a wavelength of 193 nanometers (nm) with a resolution of less than 65nm and an overlay accuracy of less than 8nm, according to a new list of “key technical equipment” released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology earlier this week. The other DUV tool operates at a wavelength of 248nm with a resolution of 110nm and an overlay accuracy of 25nm, according to the list.
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These two machines are still far behind the most advanced options available on the market: for example, one of the most advanced DUV machines from Dutch equipment manufacturer ASML Holding operates at a resolution of less than 38nm, with an overlay accuracy of 1.3nm.
DUV machines also lag behind extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines, which use light with a wavelength of just 13.5nm, almost 14 times brighter than DUV’s 195nm.
China has long sought to become technologically self-sufficient in semiconductors, but progress in manufacturing the lithography systems needed to reliably mass-produce advanced chips remains slow.
An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters alt=An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters>
Nearly all of China’s lithography equipment is still made by ASML, but the company has already blocked Chinese customers from accessing its most advanced EUV tools and is under increasing pressure from the United States to withhold supplies of DUV equipment to China-based customers.
State-owned Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment Group Co., Ltd. (SMEE) is China’s best hope of developing its own advanced lithography systems, but it still lags far behind global peers such as ASML. The company, which was added to a U.S. trade blacklist in December 2022, will need breakthroughs across multiple technologies and supplier networks to overcome the restrictions, experts say.
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But SMEE has been making some progress despite the sanctions: According to company registration data made public earlier this week, the company filed a patent application in March last year for an “EUV radiation generator and lithography apparatus.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative news source on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP articles, visit the SCMP app or visit the SCMP Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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