The authentic responsible for China can make avant -garde chips is an almost unknown company: Sicarrier

During the last year and a half Huawei and SMIC have monopolized much of attention in the scope of the semiconductor industry. These two Chinese companies have worked together to develop the technology they needed to produce integrated 7 nm circuits using equipment deep ultraviolet lithography (UVP) that produces ASML. SANCTIONS TO CHINA from the United States and the Netherlands prevent this Dutch company from selling their most advanced machines to their Chinese clients, so none of them have access to their equipment extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE).

The latter are adequate to manufacture 7 Nm chips on a large more advanced integration technologies. Nevertheless, Huawei and SMIC have managed to produce them using UVP equipment thanks to a technique known as Multiple patterning. Broadly this technology consists in transferring the pattern to the wafer in several passes with the purpose of increasing the resolution of the lithographic process. His problem is that he usually has an upward impact on the cost of chips and the decline in production capacity, although it works.

Sicarrier is the Chinese company backed by the government behind this milestone

During the last days several Asian media, such as SCMP either Nikkei Asiathey are giving visibility to a Chinese manufacturer of practically unknown lithography equipment that aspires to be the protagonist of Semicon China. This fair is dedicated to the semiconductor industry and will be held this week in Shanghai (China). A priori is surprising that Sicarrierwhich is what this company is called, it is attracting so much attention, but if we investigate a bit we will discover what makes it so special.

The first reason is that it is a company that, according to the media that I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, is closely linked to Huawei, although its ties are not entirely clear. What we do know is that it has the economic support of the Shenzhen administration. And, what is more important, than the technology used by Huawei and SMIC to manufacture 7 Nm integrated circuits derives from a patent from sicarrier which seeks to make possible the production of 5 Nm chips using UVP lithography equipment.

Although it was founded in 2021, during the last four years Sicarrier has maintained a very low profile. And there is no doubt that it is an express choice of its directive dome. Gives the feeling that the Chinese government wanted to happen as unnoticed as possible, and makes sense to be so if we are in mind that, according to Nikkei AsiaSicarrier’s goal is to compete with the manufacturers of lithography equipment that lead the market, among which are the Dutch company ASMLthe Japanese Tokyo Electron or the American Apply materials. It will be interesting to check this same week if the teams that will be released in Semicon China are up to expectations.

Image | Sicarrier

More information | SCMP | Nikkei Asia

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