Last year was a difficult and crucial year for China’s technology industry.

The United States promulgated the "Export Control Regulations" in May, further adding to the "Entity List" and explicitly prohibiting companies such as Huawei from using American semiconductor equipment and products made with American technology.

As one of the largest semiconductor companies in China, HiSilicon can currently independently develop high-end chips, but Huawei cannot produce and process them.

TSMC, which continues to maintain good cooperation with Huawei, is likely to terminate its cooperation with Huawei because it uses a lot of American technology and special equipment.

SMIC, which is regarded as the best alternative to TSMC and has received a RMB 16 billion project investment from my country, also recently stated that it cannot continue to invest in TSMC until it obtains permission from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Companies such as Huawei provide chip manufacturing services.

Even the mainland’s leading companies are subject to the US New Deal, which has completely exposed the shortcomings of China’s technology application.

The most important special equipment for chip manufacturing is the photolithography machine. Although SMIC has completed the production and processing of 14nm chips at this stage, the special equipment for the photolithography machine it uses are all imported from abroad.

In early 2018, SMIC purchased an EUV lithography machine from ASML of the Netherlands for a sky-high price of 150 million U.S. dollars. It has not been obtained so far. This fully highlights the extent of my country's advanced optical technology. passive.

There are also companies in China dedicated to breaking through lithography machine technology, the most iconic of which is Shanghai Microelectronics.

Not long ago, Shanghai Microelectronics announced that it will deliver a domestic lithography machine in 2021-2022, but it is a 28nm lithography machine.

You must understand that the market demand of the mobile phone processor market has reached the 5nm period, and 28nm technology is obviously lagging far behind.

I firmly believe that in the eyes of most people, the biggest shortcoming of Chinese chip manufacturing companies represented by SMIC is the lithography machine. Although the lithography machine is a primary problem, it is not SMIC's biggest shortcoming.

Not long ago, Ma Zuoping, a micro-nano electronics scientist and academician of the Chinese-American Academy of Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized that the key to SMIC lies in the number and quality of outstanding talents.

"Excellent talents are the core competitive advantage of a company's development." Huawei launched the "Super Genius" program last year, aiming to attract 200-300 young talents from around the world with high salaries.

Alibaba has specially created the scientific research department "Dharma Academy". It has currently joined forces with 234 scientific research teams from the scientific research departments of 99 universities in 13 countries to jointly study cutting-edge technologies.

It has also attracted first-class talents such as Michael I. Jordan, an American academician and a world-renowned master in the artificial intelligence technology industry.

TSMC has always been the leader in the world's chip processing and manufacturing industry by virtue of its professional and technical talents with a large number of products.

Looking back at SMIC, there are only 300-400 outstanding talent and technical backbones, and the overall quality of the elite team of outstanding talents is not excellent. In the long run, it will definitely continue to be controlled by others.