Semiconductor production
Exposure through particle accelerators – this facility is intended to make China a chip superpower
ASML’s imagesetters dominate the market. Chinese scientists want to develop their own, completely different technology to expose chips.
© ASML
The USA wants to use sanctions to exclude China from producing super chips. Chinese researchers now want to completely bypass Western chip manufacturing technology by using a particle accelerator to expose semiconductors.
When US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo visited Beijing at the end of August, the Chinese leadership had prepared a select humiliation for her. At the same time as the visit, the new Huawei cell phone Mate 60 Pro was brought into stores. The Chinese technology company has been subject to sanctions by the USA for years. The device should show its ineffectiveness. Because the cell phone contains 7-nanometer chips made in China. A technology that, according to Washington, China would not be allowed to master.
But this triumph has a problem: the production of the high-performance chips is still based on Western technology, which has, however, been heavily pimped up in China. In order to be independent of Western sanctions, a new, completely Chinese technology is needed. This is what the party’s economic guidelines stipulate. That would, at least in the future, be an opportunity to overtake the USA in this area.
Own way
According to the South China Morning Post, China is trying to replace the lithography machines now used in microchip manufacturing. Instead, a particle accelerator should be used as a light source for printing the semiconductors. These lithography systems all come from ASML in the Netherlands. They are used to produce semiconductors around the world. ASML is a giant little known to the general public, practically a monopolist. Due to pressure from the USA, the most powerful machines are no longer allowed to be exported to China. The sanctions will be further tightened on January 1, 2024.
In this scenario, the announcement makes sense. The Chinese system does not replicate ASML’s technology, but rather takes a completely different approach. Instead of a compact lithography machine, a particle accelerator will be built in a hall the size of two basketball courts. This accelerator acts as a light source for a very specific light: extreme ultraviolet radiation, EUV (extreme ultra violet). This accelerator technology (Steady-State Microbunching (SSMB)) is based on the fact that charged particles emit light when accelerated. The result is a narrow bandwidth, a small scattering angle and continuous pure EUV light, according to the South China Morning Post.
Continuous high power light
Among other applications, this “pure” light can be used for chip lithography. “One of the potential applications of our research is as a light source for future EUV lithography machines. I think this is the reason why the international community is paying close attention to the topic,” said project leader Professor Tang Chuanxiang of Tsinghua University. “The main challenge is to control the distribution of electrons within the accelerator’s storage ring so that they achieve collective synchronous radiation. The device could be capable of high-quality radiation from terahertz waves with a wavelength of 0.3 mm to EUV Generate waves with wavelengths of 13.5 nm,” said Zhao.
Long road to ongoing production
Work on the project has been ongoing since 2018, and the presentation of the Huawei chip has drawn international attention to it. Several machines for chip production will then be grouped around the “light source”. A kind of chip mega-factory is to be created. The concept promises the production of large quantities at low costs. It is intended to be the stepping stone to the production of 2nm chips. Compared to ASML’s technology, it hopes to continuously produce high-power light.
However, there is still a long way to go before production is underway. Zhao’s team is working on an accelerator that only provides the EUV light for production. All other technology must also be developed or adapted for the new process.
Source: SCMP