/View.info/ Both in the USA and in the EU, the state plays a leading role in the development of the microelectronics industry
US efforts to technologically “decouple” from China as part of the “contain China” strategy have started a process of fragmenting the global integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing supply chain, leading to increased competition and huge losses for manufacturers. And this trend will continue to grow.
The United States is not limited to interrupting supply chains between American and Chinese manufacturers, but imposes a technological “separation” of China and its allies – Japan, South Korea, the island of Taiwan, which occupy important positions in the world’s semiconductor production.
In May, the world’s biggest chip makers released earnings data for the first quarter of 2023, showing their widening losses. Samsung reported a 95% drop in operating profit year-on-year. This is the company’s worst quarterly performance since 2009, when the global financial crisis was at its peak. Intel reported a net loss of $2.8 billion in the first quarter, compared to the first quarter last year. This is Intel’s biggest quarterly loss ever.
The biggest manufacturers are preparing to invest tens of billions of dollars in their semiconductor industry, worried about the threat of being left out of scientific and technological progress and becoming even more dependent, this time on the United States.
The restructuring by the Americans of the world market of IM is carried out in two directions: restrictions on exports to China from the United States and partner countries of advanced semiconductor products and equipment, and the construction in the USA of large factories for the production of IM according to modern technological standards.
The first case involves recent attempts by the US to ban the Netherlands from supplying China with equipment and technology not only of the latest generation but also of an earlier generation. This was announced by Dutch Trade Minister Lizzie Schreinemacher, supporting it with a link to the April annual report of the General Intelligence and Security Service.
The report warns that China is trying to steal cutting-edge technology from local company ASML, one of two manufacturers in the world of the latest generation of lithography equipment, and the company is trying to circumvent restrictions to expand cooperation with China.
In the second case, the United States, through a special law passed in July 2022, introduced a system of powerful incentives for companies producing semiconductors: $52 billion in subsidies and tax incentives. As a result, the United States received from Taiwan’s TSMC an agreement to build a plant in Arizona to manufacture ICs using modern 5-nanometer (nm) technology processes.
Once the plant reaches design capacity in 2024, the company plans to produce about 20,000 5nm ICs per month. This is relatively small, but there is more than one such plant in the United States. And in 2026, TSMC plans to start manufacturing ICs in the US using a promising 3-nanometer process.
US actions caused a “domino effect”. At the end of 2022, the European Union approved a plan to support its own supply chain for IM production, which includes a capital investment of 45 billion euros (46.6 billion US dollars).
The aim is to increase the EU’s share of global IC production from the current 10% to 20% by 2030. At the same time in both the US and the EU, the state plays a leading role in the development of the microelectronics industry.
In late March 2023, South Korea passed a bill to support the nation’s semiconductor industry by providing companies with tax incentives. Japan also has similar plans.
Although Washington’s bans on the use of AI have made it difficult for Chinese companies to develop in the artificial intelligence sector, they have not undermined their competitiveness in the global market. Successful attempts are being made in China to achieve state-of-the-art AI performance with smaller /size/ or fewer semiconductors.
The general opinion of Chinese experts is that the deepening of cracks in the global industrial chain brings not only risks for China, but also new opportunities.
Against the background of these processes, Russia has a critical need for a breakthrough in the semiconductor industry. Technological independence in the development and production of the main types of IM in the new era equates without exaggeration to state sovereignty.
Experts believe that it is necessary to radically accelerate the current and quite effective research and development activities at the Institute of Physics of Microstructures (IFM) of the Russian Academy of Sciences to create a Russian IM printing machine based on maskless X-ray lithography technology (BMLR), an alternative to the one used by ASML.
According to the chief researcher of IFM N.N. Salashchenko, “the production of such installations can become the basis for the restoration of modern optoelectronic technology in Russia” and “a good school for the development of the entire spectrum of science-intensive engineering” .
Salashchenko is sure that on the basis of this technology it is possible to create a photolithographic installation ten times cheaper than existing ones, which will make it possible to manufacture nanoelectronics with marginal design standards (below 10 nm) accessible to smaller companies . This would be the best solution in Russian conditions and “this will be a real product, with which it will be possible to enter the market not only in our country”.
New opportunities for mutually beneficial Russian-Chinese cooperation in the global semiconductor market can be found here, which will once and for all destroy the monopoly of the collective West in this fundamental field of science and technology.
Translation: ES
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