As the competition to 1-nanometer cards gains momentum, Taiwan’s TSMC is likely to be the next chip-making company after Intel to get the most cutting-edge printing application in the semiconductor industry.
According to a Nikkei Asia report, the world’s leading integrated circuit ( IC ) foundry will install ASML’s new high-NA extreme ultra-violet ( EUV) lithography system at its R&, D center in Hsinchu, Taiwan, by the end of this year.
That’s about three months later than industry publications had anticipated, but not significantly more than American Intel, which installed its second high-NA printing system in Oregon in April and its subsequent in August.
Initially, Samsung Electronics plans to purchase its second high-NA program. The Netherlands ‘ ASML is the only company using the EUV printing techniques to create Apis at 7nm and smaller approach nodes.
High-NA lithography systems, also known as EXE systems, likewise use EUV light but employ a new optical system that increases the numerical aperture ( NA ) from 0.33 to 0.55. That reduces the crucial component, or the smallest have the system is print, by 1.7 times and increases the transistor density on a chip by 2.9 times.
According to ASML, the “ability of an visual system to collect and focus light” is measured by the number of n.
According to reports, TSMC aims to start using high-NA lithography at the 1.4nm node ( 14A, A for angstrom ) in 2028 or later, or at 1nm ( 10A ) in 2030 or later. By the end of 2025, it intends to use the EUV printing methods that are already in use for the 2nm process.
That is perhaps true, since it will take a long time to develop and evaluate high-NA EUV effectively in commercial production.
The engineering is also very expensive, with one report claiming that the system costs at least$ 350 million, or about half the cost of conventional EUV equipment. Probably, as product demand rises, that figure will decrease.
While TSMC integrates high-NA EUV into its technology enhance strategy, Intel is using it as part of CEO Pat Gelsinger’s extreme catch-up method, which to date has been dogged by upsetting yields, restructuring charges, lots of red ink and offshoring to TSMC down to 3nm.
Intel’s share price has dropped more than 50 % so far this year, while TSMC’s is up more than 70 %.
High NA EUV tools are anticipated to play a significant role in the development of advanced chips and the production of next-generation processors, according to Intel. Intel Foundry, the first company to move into High NA EUV, will be able to deliver unheard precision and scalability in chip manufacturing, enabling the business to create chips with the most cutting-edge features and capabilities that are necessary for advancing AI and other emerging technologies.
That is, if everything goes according to plan. In particular, Intel anticipates developing and manufacturing advanced chips using both 0.33NA EUV and 0.55NA EUV, starting with Intel 18A’s product proof points in 2025 and continuing to Intel 14A’s production. Intel’s approach will optimize advanced process technology for cost and performance”.
It may, and Intel’s restructuring program is, by most accounts, making progress, but the words “or later” should probably be appended to its timeline.
As for China, at least for now, this is not a contest in which it can compete. Due to US sanctions, it is unable to purchase EUV systems, and the previous generation of ArF ( Argon Flouride ) immersion Deep Ultra-Violet ( DUV) systems it has been able to acquire have a capped 5nm.
Recent reports indicate that Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Co ( SMEE )  ’s ( SMEE )   )   )   is commercially viable down to 65nm, but that its effort to create an ArF immersion system capable of producing ICs at the 28nm process node takes longer than originally planned.
In contrast, it took ASML 10 years of R& D and six years to complete the first high-NA EUV lithography system, which took ASML six years to complete before it was able to ship its first high-NA EUV lithography system.
( For a compact history of IC lithography, see” China’s lithography gains a glass half full, not half empty. )
Without the imposition of US sanctions, China might not have developed its own lithography equipment. South Korea, home to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, two of the world’s leading producers of memory ICs, has n’t developed its own lithography equipment. Japan’s Nikon, unable to compete with ASML, does not make EUV systems. Canon never even tried.
China has also been encouraged by the sanctions ‘ efforts to develop silicon photonics, a technology that processes and transmits sizable amounts of data without using EUV lithography.
Designers and manufacturers of ICs, AI systems and telecommunications equipment, including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, TSMC, IBM, Cisco Systems, NTT, Huawei and other Chinese companies and laboratories, have been working on the technology for many years.
The US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP ) finally caught the attention of silicon photonics this year.
In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on October 27, committee chairman John Moolenaar ( Republican-Missouri ) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi ( Democrat-Illinois ) warned that photonics technology could allow China to overtake the US  in semiconductors and instructed her to take action to stop it.
Quoting Matthew Reynolds, author of” Controlling Light: Is Silicon Photonics an Emerging Front in US-China Tech Competition? “, the congressmen wrote:
Silicon photonic technology can” create large-scale computing systems with higher bandwidth and improved energy efficiency that go beyond the physical limitations of traditional electronic chips” when combined with electronics in semiconductors.
Some experts think that photonic chips can increase computational speed by 1000 times more than current electronic chip designs.
Silicon photonics has the potential to upend the semiconductor industry and redefine battlelines in the US’ technological conflict with the PRC, making the October 7, 2022,  , export control regulations irrelevant and creating a crucial chokepoint for upcoming semiconductor supply chains.
To ensure continued American leadership in crucial and emerging technologies like silicon photonics, the US government should examine the tools at its disposal to assess both how to stop US investment and know-how from supporting our adversaries and encourage domestic innovation.
The committee did its homework, noting that photonics was included in China’s 14th Five-Year Plan ( 2021-2025 ) as a technology that national laboratories should be built, and that CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping had described it as” a high-tech industry where our country has the conditions to achieve breakthroughs ahead of others.
Silicon photonics is being funded by Chinese businesses and research institutes in the billions of dollars. Additionally, in defiance of US sanctions, Nanjing Electronic Devices Institute researchers discovered that photonics is a disruptive technology with enormous military potential. Both Huawei and Nanjing Electronic Devices Institute are listed on the Entity List, with a presumption of denial of license for unauthorized military end-use.
Thus, Silicon Photonic developments could enable China to stay competitive in AI without using TSMC’s high-NA EUV lithography services, which Nvidia, AMD, and other Western competitors do not. In any case, it appears that the US government is once more behind the curve in terms of technology.
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