The Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-Bionics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Sinano), in collaboration with the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, has recently published breakthrough findings related to ultra-high precision laser lithography.
Although lithography has been around for a while, this discovery might allow China to become the leading chipset manufacturer. Currently, the US wears that crown.
Over the years, China has managed to become self-sufficient in most aspects of technological development, especially when it comes to smartphones. However, Chinese OEMs are still majorly dependent on TSMC for chipsets.
The ongoing China-US trade war has changed the way many Chinese tech giants operate. Over the past year, the ban and constant lobbying with other countries to inhibit their productions, as a result many Chinese companies, including Huawei, have become self-reliant.
Currently, the Netherlands based ASML is the global leader in lithography. The conglomerate recently stopped all dealings with Chinese companies under immense pressure from the US government.
Hence, the new technology is a major step forward for the country considering SMIC, China’s largest foundry still produces chipsets on a 14nm node process while most of the latest chipsets are being manufactured on 5nm process.
Although the discovery is still at the theoretical state and it could take years as well as plenty of money to implement, technological progress at this pace and proper investments will allow China to produce the latest tech for chipset production in no time.
