China is already unstoppable. It is finishing an ultraviolet light mega -source to make avant -garde chips

China has been engaged in its own “Manhattan project”. Unlike the plan that executed USA during World War II, it is not dedicated to the creation of nuclear weapons (China has them since the mid -60s of the last century); It seeks to put in the hands of Chinese companies the ability to MANUFACTE INTEGRATED VANGUARD CIRCUITS comparable to the most advanced currently produced in Taiwan, USA, South Korea or Japan.

The sanctions that have deployed US governments and the Netherlands They prevent the Dutch company Asml extreme ultraviolet (UVE). Without them Chips Chinese, such as SMIC (Semiconductor manufacturing international corp), Hua Hong Semiconductor, China Resources Microelectronics or Guangzhou Zensemi cannot produce integrated circuits comparable to those who are already manufacturing TSMC, Intel or Samsung.

China needs to have Your own UVE photolithography teams as soon as possible. Its economy, and, above all, its technical and scientific development are at stake. The problem is that developing this machine is very complex. In fact, Asml took more than two decades put it up. And he had the economic support of his best clients (TSMC, Intel and Samsung), as well as the collaboration of several owners of avant -garde technologies, such as the German Zeiss, which manufactures the optical elements of the lithography machines, or the US company of American origin, which produces the ultraviolet light source.

China is finishing a gigantic syncrotron that will produce UVE light

In the middle of last March several Asian media collected a photograph taken at the Huawei Research Center in Dongguan, in the province of Canton, in which it appeared The prototype of a UVE lithography team Designed and manufactured entirely in China. Presumably this machine is similar to those produced by ASML, which invites us to anticipate that for 2026 the country led by Xi Jinping will have the ability to produce advanced chips on a large scale. However, China’s plans do not end here.

And it is that the Chinese Academy of Sciences is finishing the one that is undoubtedly the most ambitious project of those who are developing the Chinese semiconductor industry. According to Dr. Kiman expert in the manufacture of integrated circuits who has worked in Samsung and that He currently investigates for TSMC in the USChina is about to reach a “Deepseek” in the field of integrated circuit industry. This simply means that it is preparing to reach a disruption that has the potential to place this Asian country at the same height as the US, Taiwan or South Korea.

However, China’s strategy to produce avant -garde chips is very different from what their rivals have used until now. As we have seen, each of the ASML UVE machines incorporates its own ultraviolet light source, but the Chinese Academy of Sciences seeks to generate this important radiation to produce advanced chips using a syncrotron, which is nothing other than a circular particle accelerator that is used to analyze atomic level the properties of matter, such as various types of materials, or, even, even, of proteins. It’s called heps (High Energy Photon Source or high -energy photons source), it is in Beijing and we can see it in the cover photography of this article.

An important note before moving forward: the ultraviolet light (UV) is responsible for transferring the geometric pattern that contains the design of the chips to the Silicon wafer. This means, in broad strokes, that UVE light has the ability to make possible the manufacture of Integrated circuits with a higher resolution that the light of deep ultraviolet (UVP) that use the previous generation lithography machines that China has in their hands. And a greater resolution in practice implies that it is possible to produce semiconductors with more transistors, and, therefore, more sophisticated and powerful.

A priori we can think that a particle accelerator has nothing to do with the manufacture of integrated circuits, but we would be overlooking something very important: the Heps syncrotron has the ability to produce high power UVE light. In fact, it is a source designed to generate a large amount of radiation.

China’s plan is to place several semiconductor manufacturing plants around particles to which The syncrotron will deliver the UVE light in the same way that a power plant delivers electricity to its customers. That simple. The date on which China plans to start this megaphabrum of avant -garde semiconductors has not yet leaked, but as we can see in photography, it is already very advanced, so we can take it for granted that it will enter into production soon.

Image | Dr. Kim

More information | Dr. Kim

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