Text | Shanghai Auto News
What is the concept of 2 nm process? The diameter of a hair filament is generally 50,000-60,000 nanometers. Calculated by 50,000 nanometers, 2 nanometers is equivalent to axially dividing the hair into 25,000 pieces.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the new company "Rapidus" was formally established after receiving subsidies from the Japanese government and capital contributions from eight companies including Toyota Group and Japan Telecom and Telephone Co., Ltd. The joint venture company hopes to have the ability to mass-produce 2 nm process chips between 2025 and 2030.
Japan has fallen behind its rivals for 10 years.
Nano is actually a unit of length. As we all know, Apple A16 bionic chip and Snapdragon 8 chip are all 4 nm process chips.
Chip is an integrated circuit, which integrates resistors, transistors and other components on a small board and connects these electronic components in series with connecting wires. With the development of technology, tens of billions of existing transistors can be integrated on this small board by using mask aligner. The higher the integration, the stronger the computing power of the chip and the stronger the performance.
The purpose of establishing Rapidus is to master the manufacturing technology of a new generation of logic semiconductors (semiconductors that undertake control, processing and arithmetic processing), establish mass production lines, and promote the commercialization of foundry business in Japan. For Rapidus, there are many difficulties to overcome in order to achieve these goals. At the press conference on the establishment of Rapidus held recently, the president of the new company, Koike Chunyi, said: "Japan lags behind its competitors for 10-20 years in the field of cutting-edge logic chips, and it is not easy to recover its disadvantages."
The scale of investment required for R&D and manufacturing of cutting-edge logic semiconductors has increased to trillions of yen. Not only expensive equipment and research and development, but also advanced technology and experience are needed in manufacturing process. Japanese companies failed to keep up with the investment competition in the 1910 s, and the domestic logic semiconductor factory in Japan still stayed at the level of about 40 nanometers.
In addition to the Japanese government’s support of 70 billion yen (about 3.56 billion yuan), Rapidus has received a total investment of 7.3 billion yen from eight domestic companies in Japan. The new company plans to start production in 2027, and has begun to take action to ensure equipment and talents.
According to Kyodo News, analysts are skeptical about whether the new company can succeed immediately in the fierce global competition. Compared with the aid of $52.7 billion (about 367.9 billion yuan) proposed by the Chip and Science Act of the United States, the Japanese government only allocated 70 billion yen in financial support. An Tian Hideki, a senior analyst at Toyo Securities, said that the 70 billion yen was "simply not enough" to make the new company competitive in the global market, and the chip industry needed about 1 trillion yen of investment every year. "It is difficult to force private companies to bear such costs, so the question is whether the Japanese government is prepared to do so."
At present, TSMC and samsung galaxy have mastered the mass production technology of "3 nm" products, and also put forward the plan of mass production of a new generation of 2 nm chip products in 2025. In the face of competition from foundry giants such as TSMC, Koike said that Rapidus "will not catch up with TSMC and Samsung in scale". TSMC and Samsung produce semiconductors for terminal products with large supply like smart phones, while Rapidus will explore different models from the two leading companies.
2 nm is a brand new track.
At present, in addition to TSMC and Samsung, Intel also has plans to return to the peak through the 2 nm process. At the same time, European and Japanese governments and enterprises also hope to revive chip manufacturing through the 2-nanometer process. Why do so many companies, even countries and regions, decide to bet on 2-nanometer chips?
First of all, compared with the current mainstream chips, 2-nanometer chips will greatly reduce power consumption and greatly improve performance. This means that the battery life and performance of electronic products such as mobile phones and computers will be greatly improved. For the automobile industry, the 2-nanometer chip can speed up the detection of objects in autonomous vehicles and shorten the calculation time of autonomous driving systems.
On the other hand, according to Forbes, the process architecture, materials and equipment involved in the 2-nanometer process semiconductor will be updated. Technological innovation means that the industrial structure may be reshuffled, which is also an important reason why many enterprises have invested in this new track. Forbes pointed out that the semiconductor process has gradually approached the physical limit, so the change of transistor architecture, the application of new materials, or packaging technology are all key factors in the development of 2 nm process chips. At present, although many countries and enterprises are working on 2-nanometer chips, 2-nanometer chips still face multiple bottlenecks in terms of architecture, materials and equipment.
At present, the focus of 2 nm process technology is that transistor architecture will enter GAAfet era from FinFET. The new architecture can effectively control the leakage problem of 2 nm chip, or it will become the mainstream architecture of 2 nm process. However, at present, only Samsung has made remarkable achievements in the GAAFET architecture process. In June this year, Samsung announced mass production of 3nm chips based on GAAFet.
Secondly, the selection and application of new materials will also play a crucial role in the research and development of 2 nm process. Specifically, two-dimensional or one-dimensional materials such as graphene, carbon nanotubes and transition metal compounds are expected to replace silicon-based materials because of their small size. In addition, the process of manufacturing 2-nanometer chips needs the support of mask aligner and other equipment. At present, mask aligner, which meets the production demand of 2 nm process, still needs to break through the innovation of optical resolution, photoresist and other related technologies and equipment series.
At the same time, the challenge from manufacturing cost can not be ignored. Relevant data show that the R&D cost of 7nm process is at least $300 million, the average cost of 5nm process is $542 million, and the starting price of 3nm and 2nm processes is at least $1 billion.