Must European semiconductors move towards advanced processes?

Latest update time：2024-09-22

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Source: Content From bits-chips, thank you.

Bram Nauta, professor of IC design at the University of Twente, who spends most of his time working on more mature nodes, said Europe needs to take control of its own cutting-edge CMOS.

The profits of the semiconductor industry are concentrated at the most advanced CMOS nodes. Judging by TSMC’s results and expectations, mature nodes are still important, but the “extra” growth is in technologies below 7nm. Europe is not playing a role here. The European industry is stagnant at 16nm, even though we have reached this node. 16nm is great for automotive, RF and analog, but if we want to play a larger role in the global semiconductor industry, we must scale to the most advanced nodes.

It’s not easy. If I talk to the industry, I don’t hear much about ambition to achieve this. “We’re happy with our technology.” “We don’t do these big digital chips anyway.” From the business perspective of the incumbents, this makes sense. In Europe, we are strong in analog/RF circuit design, but it doesn’t make sense to do these designs at 7nm. The transistors are no better than at older nodes, and may even be worse, due to the relatively large interconnect parasitics. Without experience, laying out a simple inverter with FinFET technology for the first time might take a week and several sleepless nights. So, the current European industry is not even trying.

However, the growth in semiconductors is expected to be in computing and artificial intelligence, which requires a lot of digital computing in advanced CMOS. Areas mean turnover and market share. AI will make decisions for us, it will replace civil servants, car drivers, teachers, lawyers, and even writing columns like this one will be done by AI. If a country, a continent, or at least a large group of people with shared values becomes so dependent on AI, you better control it.

To start controlling AI, you first need hardware and design large chips below 7nm CMOS. You need talent and a lot of venture capital. In Europe, we have almost no talent that has mastered this kind of chip design. They are too big and too expensive for universities. There are a few exceptions, academic programs, which still have this knowledge, but in general, we don't train complex digital hardware engineers anymore. The second problem is venture capital. Europe has a lot of pension reserves, but the venture capital part of them is invested in the United States, not here.

We can only use 16nm process

So, we were kind of stuck. ESMC had built a 16nm fab in Dresden, and Intel was in an identity crisis, didn't know what kind of company it wanted to be, and had just stopped investing in very advanced fabs in Germany. The 16nm fabs were for the automotive industry, which was strategically important to Europe and Germany in particular.

At the same time, our European cars are threatened by being surpassed by new Chinese car brands that are much cheaper. Ten years ago, we were still laughing at the ugliness and unsafety of Chinese cars, while "breaking through technology, leading the future" was the creed of the Germans. Now the situation has changed dramatically. Modern cars are battery-powered and equipped with some sensors and a lot of silicon chips. Europe has no battery industry and no advanced chip industry. European cars will become classic cars.

Europe wanted to invest in chips, but it turned out that many opportunists grabbed the money without foresight. In the best case, they wanted to invest in mature IC technology (which is good!), but in most cases they turned to adventures such as photonics, quantum and superconductivity. Yes, we should invest in these technologies, but by the time they matured, Europe had become a technological desert. And these technologies could not replace CMOS anyway.

If Europe wants to survive in semiconductors, we must move to mainstream CMOS. Start training more digital chip designers. Make analog and RF designers confident in FinFET technology. And most importantly: make sure we have venture capital. If we don’t spend money now, there won’t be much to spend later.

Reference Links

https://bits-chips.nl/article/go-mainstream/

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