news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

a recent phenomenon has given me a lot of trepidation.

first, the day before yesterday, when i was browsing the video account, wechat pushed a short video about lithography machines to me. the video account owner is a middle-aged woman, and the couple is over 110 years old in total. the content of the video account is mainly about self-driving tours in various places in the wenjie m9.a retired lady in her fifties suddenly used a minimalist catalogue from the ministry of industry and information technology to talk about lithography machines. she was so excited that she claimed that her eyes were filled with tears.

why did the video account send me a video of a retired aunt who was traveling by car telling me about lithography machines?

later last night, several wechat friends sent me a form at the same time and asked me what i thought of domestic lithography machines?

finally, today, a lot of people in the circle of friends forwarded various articles about lithography machines.

history textbooks and various ruling class media claim that “the masses are the creators of history.” if we must ensure the correctness of this statement, we can only say that it is a wish rather than a fact.

an invisible force is influencing the thoughts of the group with the help of modern technology.how can a rational individual not be influenced? this is more difficult, and requires more independent thinking and logical ability than ever before. but the bad reality is that in simplified chinese media, even the most rational individuals are in the awkward position of being passively fed information. even if these materials are facts, they are selective facts, not comprehensive facts.

whether an opinion is correct or not has nothing to do with the number of people who hold it.what we should do is to give up judgment and pursue the truth.

the first announcement on this topic was made on september 9 by the ministry of industry and information technology’s wechat official account “gongxin micro news”, which published the “introduction to the promotion and application of the first major technical equipment (2024 edition)”. the specific contents are as follows:

to the competent departments of industry and information technology of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the central government, cities with independent planning status, and xinjiang production and construction corps, and relevant central enterprises:

in order to promote the innovative development and promotion and application of the first major technological equipment, and strengthen the coordination of national support policies such as industry, finance, finance, and science and technology, the "guidelines for the promotion and application of the first major technological equipment (2024 edition)" is now issued to you. please do the relevant work accordingly.

ministry of industry and information technology

september 2, 2024

this is a very long directory. there are 13 first-level directories including electronic special equipment, dozens of second-level directories including integrated circuit equipment, and hundreds of third-level directories including argon fluoride lithography machines, as shown in the following figure:

placed among hundreds of devices without being highlighted,it’s hard to say that this is a standout category that’s worth “tears in the eyes.”it is no accident that it has been hyped up by various self-media.there is a huge hand hidden behind, and its intentions may not be kind。

out of aa technology media that upholds the values ​​of "seriousness, objectivity, and integrity"i think it shoulddo something valuable for societything.

first of all, the chemical formula of argon fluoride is arf. arf is a laser source used to generate laser light with a wavelength of 193nm.

lithography machinethe order of classification from coarse to fine accuracy is: g-line, i-line, krf, arf, euv, as shown below.

arf depends on the optical path medium (air or water).it can also be divided into arf dry(dry method, the medium is air)and arfi(wet method, i=immersion, the medium is water). because the refractive index of water is 1.33, the wavelength of light with a wavelength of 193nm in the air will become 193/1.33=145nm when it enters water. the shorter the wavelength, the higher the accuracy.arfi can be considered more advanced than arf dry.soasml's latest quarterly financial report is classified according to precision: i-line, krf, arf dry, arfi, euv, as shown below(for more details about asml, please refer to my wechat article written in july: lithography machine, the asml you think of and the real asml)

according to asml's report,the global demand for lithography machines (over 80%) is mainly in euv and arfi,andarf dry, krf, and i-line are all relatively low-end lithography machines。

arf dry (dry method) and arfi (wet method)the application dividing line is 65nm processin addition to the wavelength difference caused by the dry and wet methods mentioned above, a very important difference that leads to application differences is whether multiple photolithography methods are used (multiple methods can improve process accuracy).

as for how many layers of photolithography arfi can withstand, it depends on the accuracy of each photolithography, that is, the overlay index in the table of the ministry of industry and information technology above. but frankly speaking, the 8nm overlay accuracy is not particularly good.generally speakingthe 4nm overlay accuracy is not a problem for the 28nm process.butusing 8nm overlay accuracy to produce 28nm may cause serious performance issues。

because as the feature size decreases, the number of chip layers generally continues to increase.registration errors can accumulate across multiple layersthese errors can be added up to result in a larger combined deviation. for example, if the number of layers for 28nm is 64 and the number of layers for 10nm is 128, then the 128 layers will have a larger accumulation of registration errors.

so why does registration error occur?

1. the mask may have slight dimensional deviations during the manufacturing process, which may cause incomplete matching with the positioning marks on the wafer. like wafer positioning, the mask also needs to be accurately positioned on the lithography machine. errors in positioning marks, mechanical errors, or operator errors may cause mask alignment problems.

2. the wafer may be twisted or bent during processing, and the chip structure may expand or shrink. this deformation may cause the same pattern to have different registration errors at different locations on the wafer.

3. performance limitations of the lithography equipment itself. different lithography equipment manufacturers have differentthe overlay of the lithography machine is also different.generally speaking, the smaller the overlay, the higher the resolution, the greater the depth of focus, and the more expensive the equipment.

in short, it is the 2.1.6 argon fluoride lithography machine in the "guidelines for the promotion and application of the first major technical equipment (2024 edition)"it's not some advanced equipment that's worth crying about., photolithography machine manufacturing companies still have a long way to go.

objectively speaking, the gap between domestic lithography machines and asml is still huge (the above asml report chart can explain everything), andas asml's high n/a euv lithography machines are put into mass production, the gap is still widening.

as for why there is such a huge gap in the domestic lithography machine industry, and why the contrast is so obvious when compared with other equipment horizontally?i think the root cause lies in the problems with the domestic lithography machine industry mechanism.

the current global lithography market competition pattern: asml, nikon and canon, the three major suppliers, account for 99% of the market share, among which asml has an absolute dominant position with a market share of 82.14%. it is not only the dominant in sales revenue, but also in technological leadership. in contrast, china's domestic lithography machine self-sufficiency rate is less than 1%, which is the lowest self-sufficiency rate in the semiconductor industry chain. the most core, important and complex link in the semiconductor industry has such a low autonomy rate, which is completely inconsistent with my country's status as the largest manufacturing country.

why has shanghai microelectronics equipment co., ltd., the only company with high hopes, still not been able to take the lead after 20 years? some people say that shanghai microelectronics lacks technology, funds, talents, accessories, and management. these reasons all sound reasonable, but i think they are just appearances and rhetoric, not substance. the development model of shanghai microelectronics is problematic at its root.

the assessment mechanism of shanghai microelectronics equipment adopts a project-based scientific research approach rather than a market-based mechanism. scientific research adopts an expert review mechanism, focusing on the breakthrough of products while ignoring economy and scale. it does not really benefit downstream customers in the industrial chain, and the upstream suppliers in the industrial chain do not really benefit due to insufficient scale. it seems that the country has invested a lot of funds in support for more than 20 years, but a good ecological environment for the industrial chain has not been formed. therefore, the development model of china's lithography machines was problematic at its root.

i think,the only ultimate solution is marketization, allowing and encouraging private lithography machine companies to participate, and rewarding those lithography machine companies and supporting industry chain companies that can truly continue to iterate stably and continuously through market-oriented means.

there are only two means for the advancement of civilization: technological progress + free and open markets.however, technological progress cannot be achieved behind closed doors, but must be based on a free and open market.

although there are some regrets, i believe that those warriors who are willing to accept challenges and believe that they will enjoy rewards after success are already on the way. they are not alone, and they are not fighting alone, but are coordinating with all upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.the future will still depend on them. this is not speculation. there are several people with names and surnames.