Text/Dong Review/Zi Yang Correction/Zhi Qiu
With the gradual failure of Moore's Law and the development of silicon-based chips approaching the limit, the world's major chip manufacturers are now looking for a new direction for the development of the chip industry.
Among them, carbon-based chips are regarded by industry insiders as an important product that will replace silicon-based chips in the future.
Power consumption is reduced by a factor of 50
Industry data shows that the transistors made of nanocarbon as materials, in the laboratory environment, nanocarbon transistors have 5 times better power consumption performance than silicon transistors.
In addition, the overall power consumption of carbon-based integrated circuits is about 50 times lower than that of current silicon-based integrated circuits.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the advantages of lower power consumption, the manufacturing of carbon-based chips also has the inherent advantages of lower manufacturing costs.
At the same time, in the manufacture of carbon-based chips, it is still possible to continue the manufacturing equipment required for current silicon-based chips. Or more precisely, carbon-based chips with the same process process are less demanding for the equipment required for manufacturing than silicon-based chips.
Bypass the ASML lithography machine
As we all know, the important reason why mainland chips are necked by foreign-funded cards is not the backwardness of mainland chip companies in chip design, but the lack of key equipment for chip manufacturing - EUV lithography machines.
However, industry insiders said that after the advent of carbon-based chips, it may bypass ASML's EUV lithography machine.
According to the data, the lithography technology on the market today is divided into DUV technology and EUV technology. Among them, the DUV lithography machine can achieve a 25nm chip process, even if Intel relies on its own dual-table mode, the use of DUV lithography machine can only reach the 10nm process; the chip manufacturing process below 10nm still needs to be achieved with the help of EUV lithography machine.
However, in the manufacturing process of carbon-based chips, DUV lithography machines can meet the requirements of the 5nm chip manufacturing process.
Domestic chips usher in new opportunities for overtaking
Therefore, for chip manufacturing enterprises in the mainland, in the future in the continuous development of carbon-based chips, they may take this opportunity to successfully develop advanced chip process processes without relying on the premise of EUV lithography machines imported from asML in the Netherlands.
However, from the current development of carbon-based chips, it is still in the initial stage of laboratory research, so it still needs a long way to go if the mainland wants to effectively achieve mass production of carbon-based chips.
In addition, although the manufacturing cost of carbon-based chips is low, the research investment is not low. Industry insiders said that in order to ensure the mass production of carbon-based chips, the research investment in carbon-based materials needs to reach billions of yuan.
Because the return ratio of carbon-based chips in the early stage of research is not clear, if you want to develop carbon-based chips, the relevant investment and support of the government are very important in this process.
Write at the end
According to the news revealed by Xinhua Net, carbon-based materials have been included in the "14th Five-Year Plan" raw material industry development plan. If the follow-up mainland can make breakthroughs in carbon-based materials, the future development of the mainland chip field will find new development growth points, and domestic chips will officially usher in new opportunities for overtaking in curves.
Are you optimistic about the future development prospects of carbon-based chips?