The prevalent opinion among industry experts, reinforced by a recent Goldman Sachs report, is that China’s lithography sector lags approximately two decades behind its counterparts in the United States. Lithography serves an integral role in the process of semiconductor fabrication, representing a considerable obstacle that restricts China’s ability to manufacture sophisticated chips.
At the forefront of the lithography machine production scene is a company based in the Netherlands known as ASML. Its high-grade lithography machinery contains components of U.S. origin, and as such, the U.S. government possesses the power to regulate the distribution of these machines to China.
Huawei, a tech behemoth within China, has experienced sanctions imposed by the United States government. These sanctions prevent the company from acquiring chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which is tied to the allegations of Huawei’s affiliation with the military in China.
This scenario leaves Huawei with the single option of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to fulfill its chip requirements. Additional trade restrictions imposed on SMIC obstruct its ability to procure high-performing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chip manufacturing lithography machines. Consequently, Chinese companies are constrained to stick to the production of 7-nanometer chips.
However, these chips are likely produced using DUV devices – older technology models crafted by ASML. Presently, China does not possess the capability to create advanced lithography scanners independently, given that their production requires components sourced globally, and predominantly from the U.S. and Europe.
A newly published report by Goldman Sachs introduces the likelihood of China’s domestic lithography equipment industry trailing two decades behind ASML. Lithography is a key phase in the multi-step process of semiconductor chip fabrication, primarily involving the translation of photomask images onto a silicon substrate.
State-of-the-art machines, including ASML’s EUV and High-NA EUV tools, are adept at transferring intricate circuit configurations onto silicon wafers, thereby enhancing chip efficiency. Following the pattern transfer, circuit designs are etched to form the final structure, while various materials are deposited and the silicon wafers are cleaned during different stages of the fabrication process.
The indispensability of lithography in replicating fine-designed circuits on the silicon wafer positions it as a chokepoint in the entire chip manufacturing process. Goldman Sachs’ latest report posits that China’s indigenous industry may require a minimum of twenty years to reach something akin to parity with ASML’s ultra-modern chip manufacturing technologies.
Rubbing delicacy into the wound, market leaders in chip manufacturing like Taiwan’s TSMC are already into the mass production of smaller 3-nanometer chips, and are in the preparatory stages of manufacturing even more petite 2-nanometer products.
Goldman Sachs’ commentary underlines the fact that ASML had to spend two decades and a good part of $40 billion, on research and development costs alone, in their bid to progress from 65nm to below 3nm lithography.
In light of China’s domestic lithography equipment industry’s current capabilities hovering at around 65nm, the data revealed by the banking giant suggests that it seems rather remote that these companies could manage to catch up with Western competitors in the near future. The colossal technological gap is a reality that adds substantial complexity to the tech scenario.
The post China’s Lithography Sector Two Decades Behind According to Goldman Sachs appeared first on Real News Now.
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