Russia does not have a lithography machine, and 90% of its chips rely on imports. Why are you not afraid of the United States getting stuck?
2021-10-12 09:37 HKT
Since the Soviet Union, the United States will be a deep hostility to Russia, we will see it as their enemy, on the one hand constantly on Russian launch multiple
sanctions , on the other hand the Allies to Russia launched
military intervention .
The newly appointed US President Biden's
hostility towards Russia
is obvious . The United States has previously announced
sanctions on Russia's chip and semiconductor industries .
Under the constant pressure of the United States and its allies, the Russian chip industry has shrunk.
90% of the chips need to be imported, and there is no lithography machine . Today, when the chip industry is related to the development of many industries, Russia is so backward in the chip industry.
Still not afraid of the United States getting stuck on its own "neck" . Why is this?
Small chip, big technology
Current status of Russia's chip industry
The chip appeared during the US-Soviet arms race in the last century. The United States grasped the golden age of chip development at that time, while the undisintegrated Soviet Union made
serious mistakes in its estimation of chip development at that time , and incorrectly estimated the development of the chip industry.
While the United States is working hard to explore the field of semiconductors, the
Soviet Union is still
concentrating on the study of small electron tubes , which has led to the Soviet Union being in a backward posture in the early stages of chip development. In the disintegration of the Soviet Union, countries such as Russia and Belarus were formed. Among them, Russia inherited most of the Soviet Union's legacy, so it was constantly targeted by the United States.
Electron tube
Under the joint suppression of Western countries, the current Russian
chip industry is very depressed , especially for the development of civilian chips. It can be said that there is no way out.
Therefore, Russia's civilian chips are very dependent on imports, and almost all civilian chips need to be imported. Due to Russia's weak chip capabilities , Russia is in the position of a
consumer terminal in the chip industry, and Russia is
a loyal buyer of
American chips .
Of course, Russia also has very few chips that do not need to be imported. Most of these chips are
military chips . Military chips are not very demanding. They only need
high temperature resistance, radiation protection, and stability . It does not matter whether it is the most advanced technology.
The use of military chips is also indispensable in the manufacture of fighters.
Therefore, military chips are very friendly to Russia, which does not have lithography machines, and Russia has not disappointed, and has made a lot of achievements in military chips.
Lithography
The lithography machine is the source of the production of chips . It uses similar
copying technology to rub the fine patterns on the mask onto the silicon wafer through light exposure. It is also called an
exposure machine . If you want to produce chips, you must have a lithography machine, and the production technology of lithography machines is controlled in a very small number of countries, such as the
Netherlands, Japan, Germany, the United States, and China . Among them, the Netherlands has the most advanced lithography machine technology. Its most high-end lithography machine has even reached the
2 nanometer level.
What is the difficulty of producing lithography machines? We can take a look at the CPU in our old mobile phone, only the size of a fingernail, but there are countless circuit diagrams printed on it. Someone once made such an analogy,
like carving a picture of Qingming Shanghe on the hair , even more difficult than this. In order to develop lithography technology,
China once went to Germany to observe other people's research, but was told, " Even if you give you a full set of drawings, you can't do it ."
Lithography
This is not to despise us, but to say that the
production lithography machine has extremely high technical requirements . Even if it is a low-end lithography machine, it is also a machine composed of
tens of thousands of precision parts and
hundreds of high-precision sensors. The most important thing is that its error is almost zero, only
one ten thousandth of a hair. .
A high-end lithography machine is often the crystallization of the wisdom of dozens of countries, and each component is made by the top technology of a country, so the lithography machine is also known as
the flower of the modern optical industry .
How does a lithography machine produce chips? First, we have to prepare wafers. The wafer is a cylindrical monocrystalline silicon, a silicon wafer formed by slicing after grinding and polishing.
The smaller the wafer size, the smaller the chip size produced .
Wafer
Then, we will use a photolithography machine to
remove the protective film on the wafer surface according to the template . Due to the different templates, the method of removing the protective film of the wafer by the lithography machine is also different: one is that when the size of the template and the wafer are the same, the template is different, and the lithography machine removes the protective film on the surface of the wafer; the other is the
template and the wafer. The manufactured
integrated circuits are of the same size, and the template is moved .
Because the latter has higher accuracy and more catering to market needs, the second processing method has gradually become the mainstream. Finally, we only need to
soak the wafer
with part of the protective film removed
in corrosive water , and corrode the part without the protective film to
form a circuit . After taking out the chip, rinse the surface with clean water, and a chip is produced. It can be said that in the production process of chips, if there is no lithography machine, there will be no chips.
Processed wafer
So how did Russia break through the predicament of not having a lithography machine and have the courage not to be afraid of the United States getting stuck?
How does Russia overcome the influence of no lithography machine?
First, although more than 90% of Russian chips rely on imports, it is also for this reason that Russia is in the position of an
end consumer in the chip sales chain . You only need to spend money to buy these chips. As a buyer rather than a seller, Russia naturally does not need to worry about the impact of the lithography machine.
In addition, what should worry about is the United States, which has imposed sanctions on it, because Russia is a loyal buyer of American chips, and a large part of the chips are bought from the United States. And even if the United States stops supplying chips to Russia , it is difficult for anyone to remain
unmoved in the face of such a
huge domestic
chip market in Russia. Therefore, as a buyer, Russia just sits and waits for the seller's chip to be sold.
Russia: Too much money has been given to the United States
Second, the United States has the US chip advantage, and Russia has also made new discoveries in the study of small electronic tubes-excited crystal oscillators. Russian researchers conducted a series of studies by thinking about their country's dominant area-
analog circuit technology , and finally found a solution, that is,
to replace military chips with excited crystal oscillators , alleviating the power of US chip sanctions.
And this research result is also applied in fact, the Russian
S-400 air defense missile system is used this research result, without the chip, still shows the power of this air defense missile system.
The S-400 air defense missile system has a strong combat capability, with long, medium and short range and high, medium and low altitude defense combat capabilities. For the US
Tomahawk cruise missile , this system can intercept the Tomahawk missile excellently by combining positional defense and mobile defense. Not only can it
improve defense capabilities , but it is also very
economical and applicable . At the same time, it is considered the best of all air defense missile systems in the world today.
Tomahawk missile
Not only that, Russia also holds many powerful nuclear weapons, including nuclear submarines, nuclear bombs, bombers, etc., among which
the number of
nuclear submarines and bombers in the hands of Russia
is very large , which severely
restricts the most proud military weapons of the United States-
Aircraft carrier .
And the recent success of Russia in hypersonic missiles has further strengthened its strong military strength. The failure of the United States in researching hypersonic missiles also proves that Russia is
insurmountable in the military . This is one of the reasons why the United States dare not act rashly.
Third, even if the lack of advanced lithography machines has led to Russia's lagging behind in the chip industry , Russia is not inferior to the United States in terms of
overall electronics . The
Murmansk-BN electronic warfare system that they researched and equipped in their own country is a very rare strategic-level electronic warfare system. Compared with semiconductors researched by the United States, it is more stable against nuclear radiation and at the same time. The
interference range of this system
is 5,000 kilometers , and it is natural to break the information supply chain.
Murmansk Electronic Warfare System Operation Module
Fourth, Russia actually responded to the situation where there is no lithography machine with a "breaking jar" mentality. Because of the
failure of Russia's predecessor chip development in the
early stage , it has been
suppressed by many Western countries, and the Russian chip industry has almost been scrapped. Russia gave up this industry, focused on the research of electron tubes, and solved the predicament of not having lithography machines through innovations in electron tubes as a countermeasure.
Now that the chip is so important,
what step have we achieved in this regard ?
China Chip
In 2017, China's supercomputer
"Shenwei Taihu Light" , which uses the domestic chip "Shenwei 26010" many-core processor, won the world's three consecutive championships in the field of supercomputing. This is only a small microcosm of China's chip technology. In addition, Huawei HiSilicon's Kirin processor has long been among the world's top mobile phone chips. Shanghai Microelectronics also released a good news: Breaking through the blockade, developed a
22-nanometer lithography machine.
China Lithography Machine
But for now, compared with the United States, the Netherlands, Japan and other countries, China's technology in this area of chips is still immature, and it mainly relies on large amounts of imports.
In fact, before the 1980s, China's semiconductor technology was relatively advanced, but because foreign companies liberalized their trade with China,
the idea of “buying better than building” became extremely popular since the 1980s . Liu Shaoqi even proposed “shipbuilding”. It's better to buy a boat, and it is better to buy a boat than to rent a boat." Although this sentence
was severely criticized later , in that era, China's semiconductor industry began to stagnate. It was not until the 1990s that we realized the importance of innovation and began to pursue the international advanced level.
The most advanced level is about to achieve
mass production of nano-5 goals, while China now can only complete 22-nanometer lithography technology. Therefore, we need to
seek technological breakthroughs in this short period of time, catch up to the international level faster, and realize the dream of
independent research and development of high-end chips as soon as possible .
Chinese chip bloody breakthrough
The importance of independent research and development of chips
Chips are full of our daily lives. There are chips in refrigerators, TVs, mobile phones, computers and other furniture. But looking at the
entire chip market, there is no China . With the deepening of chip research, we are more and more aware of the meaning of chips.
It not only marks the degree of technological development of a country, but also plays a decisive role in a country's international status. Whether a country has the ability to independently research and develop chips and whether the developed chips are at a leading level are all related to the country's right to speak, and a country has enough right to speak before it has a
sense of international
presence and will be
respected by
other countries. And value .
"China Core"
At the same time, research and development of chips is also a high-tech. "Several skills are not overwhelming." For every country, it is hoped that the deeper the technology, the better.
Concluding remarks
Although Russia today has the confidence not to be afraid of the United States' necks due to its
military strength and innovative discoveries in electronic tubes , some military experts still believe that Russia should also develop lithography technology to ensure that it will not fall into the trap. The dilemma of stuck neck.
Whether it is Russia or China, our main purpose is to grow and strengthen ourselves, so that we can really not fear the potential threats.
Do the top stream, walk the flower path
As China
continues to have good news in the development of chips and lithography technology, I believe that with our continuous technological breakthroughs in the future, we will no longer be restricted by external factors, and our domestic chips will also With our efforts, it has rapidly developed into the
world's top class . But before this expectation is realized, we still have to make great efforts.
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