The Chinese government is promoting two domestically made chip-making machines that it says have achieved significant advances, as the country strives towards technology self-sufficiency amid US sanctions.

The lithography machines, which print highly complex circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, “have achieved significant technological breakthroughs, own intellectual property rights but have yet to perform on the market”, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which did not name the companies behind the two machines.

One of the deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines operates at a wavelength of 193 nanometres (nm), with a resolution below 65nm and an overlay accuracy below 8nm, according to a new list of “major technological equipment” published by the MIIT earlier this week. The other DUV machine has a wavelength of 248nm, with 110nm resolution and 25nm overlay accuracy, according to the list.

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The two machines are still far behind the most advanced options available on the market. One of Dutch equipment maker ASML Holding’s most advanced DUV machines, for instance, can operate at a resolution of below 38nm with an overlay accuracy of 1.3nm.

DUV machines also lag behind extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines, which use light with a wavelength of just 13.5nm – almost 14 times sharper than DUV’s 195nm.

China has spent years pursuing technology self-sufficiency in semiconductors, but its progress in producing the lithography systems required to reliably mass produce advanced chips remains slow.

An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters alt=An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters>

Nearly all of the country’s lithography machines still come from the ASML, which has already cut off Chinese clients’ access to its cutting-edge EUV machines and is facing increased pressure from the US to withhold its DUV machines from China-based customers.

State-owned enterprise Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (SMEE), the country’s best hope to develop its own advanced lithography systems, still lags far behind its global peers such as ASML. The company, which was added to a trade blacklist by the US in December 2022, would need breakthroughs across multiple technologies and supplier networks to overcome restrictions, according to experts.

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But SMEE has made some progress despite sanctions. The company in March last year filed a patent for “EUV radiation generators and lithography equipment”, according to corporate registry data published earlier this week.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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