The commercialization of EUV lithography in China is advancing.
Chinese semiconductor industry
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Chinese semiconductor industry
What is going on with SMEE releasing DUV litho Machine by 2023? Any update on that? Or are they delayed? Unfortunately, China has gone into hiding pretty much everything until it's completely ready. Look at Huawei's Kirin 9000s chip. It's being produced in massive numbers meaning that SMIC...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
It’s interesting just the flood of euv related patents that are coming out this year. Especially since some of these were filed more than a year ago. Indicating maybe they hit some progression or benchmark.
Big question is what else is left. Looks like they just need to integrate and test.
Isn't publishing these patents dangerous since one corporation could read the abstract and replicate its work (such as copying or knowing your secrets). Same thing goes for space, weapon, material science patents/abstract reports.
Dr. Burn Lin, the 'father of immersion lithography' says 5nm needs four-fold multi-patterning with DUV, and stated that even six-fold multi-patterning is also possible with immersive DUV technology, which opens the door to sub-5nm nodes (4.5nm? 4nm?) if you really push the technology to its limits, but at extra cost due to yields. () It's well worth the extra cost to keep Huawei in the game until EUV is adopted. Mate series will be competitive for at minimum 2-3 years, even longer.
You are committing the mistake of assuming marketshare=capability.
Erui Micro Semiconductor front-end overlay equipment headquarters project signed with Wuxi High-tech Zone
It is reported that Wuxi Erui Micro Semiconductor Equipment Co., Ltd. focuses on the development and manufacturing of integrated circuit front-end process volume testing equipment, and is committed to providing measurement equipment represented by overlay errors and other defect detection for mass production of photolithography processes. equipment.
Cui Rongguo, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Wuxi High-tech Zone and Secretary of the Xinwu District Party Committee, said that Wuxi High-tech Zone has a full industrial chain of design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment and parts, and its industrial scale accounts for one-third of the province and one-ninth of the country. , cultivating a number of high-quality integrated circuit equipment companies such as Microconductor Nano and Yiwen Electronics. Semiconductor front-end overlay equipment is the core link in the fields of IC equipment, semiconductor manufacturing and control. The Erui team has a profound industrial background and rich technical experience in this field. We hope that companies can give full play to their own advantages and accelerate the gathering of talents and technology. Innovative breakthroughs help improve the level of the integrated circuit industry in Wuxi High-tech Zone and inject new momentum into the high-quality development of the industry in Wuxi High-tech Zone.
Weichong: Self-developed innovative wafer inspection equipment ASPIRER 3000 to help high-quality development of semiconductor manufacturing
ASPIRER 3000, the core product independently developed by WeChong Semiconductor, is an innovative new wafer electrical defect inspection equipment. It applies innovative second harmonic wafer quantity inspection technology to achieve non-contact, Non-destructive, online, fast and internal inspection can accurately identify and locate wafer defects. It has great application value for various dielectric layers, non-dielectric layers and new semiconductor materials. The fast, efficient, accurate and full-field scanning detection capabilities of ASPIRER 3000 can meet the high requirements of advanced manufacturing processes for detection equipment, and can bring huge value to customers in various stages such as research and development, capacity ramping, and mass production.
In terms of detection objects, the application scenarios of ASPIRER 3000 not only cover most of the functions of imported front-end electrical property testing machines currently widely used in wafer factories, but there are also other application scenarios to be explored, with huge potential. WeChong Semiconductor insists on independent research and development. The system design, device selection, software code, and even key components of ASPIRER 3000 are all self-developed by WeChong Semiconductor.
ASPIRER 3000 has received great attention from major domestic head fabs since its release. Since 2022, it has conducted more than ten rounds of demo tests for domestic head fabs for logic and storage processes, verifying a variety of application scenarios. . The first mass-produced product of ASPIRER 3000 was successfully shipped to a domestic head storage Fab customer in March 2023. The verification on the client is currently underway smoothly. The customer has applied the machine online for wafer inspection. It is especially important to point out that for a certain After some specific processes, the ASPIRER 3000 is being deployed as the only inspection site.
We Chong Semiconductor's R&D personnel account for 77%. Based on the recognition of its industrial value and technical capabilities, Weichong Semiconductor has continued to be recognized by many leading industry investment institutions in the two and a half years since its establishment. It has completed 5 rounds of financing so far, including nearly 100 million yuan in Series A in August 2023. Financing.
Can’t patent without publishing.
My guess is the real secret sauce is in house, patents a just lawyer jargon description of the invention for these companies to protect themselves from local companies trying to enter the space and foreign companies who are getting a lot EUV patents even if they wouldn't probably be allowed to sell anything related to EUV lithography in China.
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