Why are chips so difficult to make? It's a miracle to make these
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As we all know, chips play a vital role in every smart device, whether it is a PC, a smartphone or a smart wearable device, CPU as a core component is indispensable. However, China is currently unable to effectively mass-produce such a small gadget.
Sometimes something being too tiny does not mean it is easy to manufacture, not to mention that chips, which require nano-scale technology to operate, are beyond human control. The most important thing in an IC chip is the transistor, which is equivalent to the nervous system in the human brain. The more transistors there are, the faster the chip will operate. Therefore, how to place more transistors in such a small space has become a difficult problem.
The basic unit of a chip - transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device, commonly used in amplifiers or electrically controlled switches. Due to its fast response speed and high accuracy, it can be used for a variety of digital and analog functions, including amplification, switching, voltage regulation, signal modulation, and oscillators. Transistors can be packaged independently or as part of an integrated circuit that can accommodate 100 million or more transistors in a very small area, which is why so many transistors can be integrated into a CPU.
As early as 1929, engineer Lilienfeld had obtained a patent for a transistor. However, due to the limited technology level at that time, it was not possible to manufacture the transistor. It was not until December 1947 that the world's first practical semiconductor device was manufactured in Bell Labs. In the first test, this transistor could amplify the audio signal by 100 times, and its appearance was similar to a matchstick.
It was not until 1950 that the first "PN junction transistor" (PN junction is the junction of P type and N type, P type has more holes and N type has more electrons, which will be discussed below) finally came out. Most of the transistors today still belong to this PN junction transistor.
The process of manufacturing chips
Back to chip manufacturing, what is the current process of making a good chip? As the brain of these smart devices, what steps does it need to go through to be born?
A chip is actually a component that carries an integrated circuit, which can be roughly divided into two categories. One is functional chips, such as CPUs and processing chips for communication base stations; the second is storage chips, such as flash memory in computers.
To manufacture a chip, the industry mainly divides it into several aspects. The first is the design of the chip. Just like a project requires a blueprint, the same is true for chips. What kind of function the chip wants to achieve has been determined in the design step, which requires professional talents to design the circuit.
The second is production, which is also the most tedious step and will be discussed in detail later. The last step is packaging, which is to assemble the finished chip into a product that can be sold, which is what we see on the market. This process is called packaging, and most of my country's chip industry involves the packaging industry.
Among these three steps, the most difficult one is design, while the easiest one is packaging. As the soul of the chip, without a good design, the chip cannot be made at all, so design is crucial.
At present, my country's chip industry is mainly concentrated in manufacturing and packaging, especially packaging, while there are very few companies involved in the design level. Even if there are designed chips, they are mainly concentrated in the low-end and mid-end levels, and the share of high-end chip design is basically zero.
How the chip works
The main raw material for making chips is silicon, which is usually extracted from sand and gravel. The silicon dioxide in the sand is melted and then reduced to obtain silicon. Then the silicon is doped, with boron added on the left and phosphorus on the right.
The main reason for doping is that silicon itself is not conductive, but there are four electrons around silicon, which is equivalent to four holes. Boron has only three electrons around it, which is one less electron than silicon, so it is mainly conductive by holes, which is called P-type semiconductor. Phosphorus has five electrons around it, one more than silicon, so it is called N-type semiconductor. The combination of the two forms the above-mentioned PN junction.
The main feature of the PN junction is that current can only flow through when the positive electrode is added to the left and the negative electrode is added to the right. If the current direction is reversed, the current will not flow, which is a diode. In this way, we can use these diodes that can only flow current in one direction to perform many operations, such as AND or NOR gates, etc. This knowledge is also mentioned in high school courses now, so I will not repeat it here.
How to make a chip?
Back to the specific production of chips, after the silicon is produced, it is sliced and cut into discs. Then photoresist is applied on these discs, and ultraviolet light is used through a lens to photolithography these silicon wafers coated with photoresist. After irradiating the photoresist at certain specific positions according to the design drawings, these photoresists will also undergo corresponding changes.
After photolithography comes etching. Due to different designs, the etching areas are also different. Generally speaking, the areas after photolithography will be corroded, while the areas without photolithography will not. Of course, the situation may also be the opposite. This is all based on actual needs.
Take the etching of the photolithography area as an example. The etching area forms grooves, and then doping is performed in these grooves, that is, the boron element or phosphorus element mentioned above. Finally, the photoresist is washed away by washing, leaving only the doped silicon wafer, and then the semiconductor PN junction can be made.
Such steps may be repeated more than once. If complex functions need to be realized, it is necessary to repeat the steps of gluing, doping, etching, cleaning, etc., and then deposit metal on it to connect the circuit. Finally, a complete wafer is produced. After the wafer is cut and packaged, it becomes a chip. This is a complete chip manufacturing process.
Reasons for scarcity in chip design
From the perspective of industrial structure, my country's chip industry is particularly scarce in the design field. The main reasons are three: the first is the educational environment. Due to foreign technology blockades and the scarcity of talent in the domestic chip field, education has always been lacking. It is impossible to get in touch with the world's most advanced chip design thinking, and naturally it is impossible to cultivate good talents.
The second is that not enough attention is paid to technical talents, or the entire industry is too indifferent to technical talents, resulting in many technical talents switching from hardware to software development or sales. This has also led to the inability to fill the chip talent gap in our country.
The third is that the entire market is flooded with foreign high-end chips, so domestic chips cannot get effective feedback from the market in many cases, which leads to a very slow pace of updating and replacement, which naturally slows down the development of domestic chips.
Of course, the country has many solutions to this situation. For the first problem, China already has the "National Thousand Talents Plan" to bring back high-tech talents from abroad to lead the further development of the domestic science and technology industry. For the second problem, it is still necessary to change the concept of domestic entrepreneurs. When the treatment of technical personnel can become a top position in the company, these technical talents will naturally return.
Regarding the last question, although the US sanctions on ZTE have been eased now, the impact of this incident has already made all domestic technology companies feel threatened. It has also brought new business opportunities to the domestic chip industry. At least it can provide a place for domestic chips to test the waters and allow them to be updated and iterated.
summary
my country's chip industry has been stumbling along the way, and suffered a heavy blow after the "Hanxin" incident. Now everything is in a state of disrepair. Coupled with the good opportunity created by the United States, it is the key opportunity for the vigorous development of my country's chip industry. I believe that my country's chip industry will be able to return to its glory days.
Unlike enterprises, if a country wants to achieve great rejuvenation, it must master its own core technologies in every industry. It does not have to be the first, but it cannot be without. The rise of the chip field, coupled with the country's support, is believed to have a more far-reaching impact on the future semiconductor industry.
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