In fact, I have always believed that chip technology is a comprehensive technology, and lithography machine technology is like a "sharp knife" stuck in our hearts, so chips are life, and lithography machines are the guarantee of life.

However, on the one hand, due to the constraints of domestic lithography machine technology, for us, not having a lithography machine is like being constantly alert to the crisis of this chip. So, is chip manufacturing difficult? Is it possible without a photolithography machine?

The difficulty of chip manufacturing is known through the manufacturing steps

We know that if a chip is formed and put into the device, four steps are required, namely design, manufacturing, packaging and testing . Design and manufacturing can be said to be the essence of chip design. When it comes to design, Qualcomm, Apple, and Huawei are all design companies.

They were designed using EDA software. It must be mentioned that this software itself is the weakness of our chip design field. Now in terms of design, Huawei has been able to meet our design needs. The key lies in manufacturing

Let me talk about the steps of chip manufacturing first, so that you may more easily understand the difficulty of chip manufacturing.

The first step: What we need is to extract the wafers from the sand, make the extracted single crystal silicon into silicon ingots, and then process and cut the silicon ingots into wafers one by one. This is what is called of wafers.

Step 2: At this time we have another factor restricting us, which is to apply a layer of photoresist on the wafer (can be cured with ultraviolet light, but is easily dissolved by water). It needs to be mentioned here: Photoresist mainly comes from Japan and the United States, especially high-end photoresist. Only Japan has coating and developing machines.

After etching, the unnecessary coating is dissolved, leaving the photolithographic portion and forming the groove. Other ion elements need to be injected into the trench to change the conductivity of single crystal silicon.

02 Chip Difficulty: Circle by Circle

You must know that in the chip step, we lack more than just a photolithography machine. It even includes EDA design software in the design field; in the manufacturing field: Japanese and American photoresist clamps, Japanese resist developers, Dutch photolithography machines, and Japanese ion implanters are all key components.

Being a Chinese is not easy, so all high technologies must be developed by oneself. Western countries will restrict the core parts of China's needs. There is no other way but to rely on the Chinese themselves. Although I am in a very bad situation now, I am still very glad that I am Chinese. I'm very proud. In a few years, only China and foreign countries will be left in the world. The time should not be too long. Come on yourself, come on China.

At present, there are five domestic companies that can produce lithography machines. The most advanced one is Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd. The chip technology for mass production of lithography machines is 90 nm, and it is now moving towards 65 nm. The most advanced technology abroad is 5 nm and is moving towards 3 nm. There is a gap of 9 steps in the middle. Judging from the gap of 4 to 5 years at each step, it will take 40 years to catch up.