Chip technology is so difficult and complex, why is South Korea s Samsung in the lead?

Often, people prefer to look at the scenery on the surface and selectively ignore the hardships behind it. For South Korea's chip technology, Samsung Electronics has experienced many hardships behind the scenes. Chips can be roughly divided into two categories, one is processor chips and the other is memory chips

At present, the United States is still in the leading position in processor chips, and Samsung's real leadership lies in memory chips.

So, let's take a look at how Samsung embarked on the road of no return to chip research and development! The research and development of Samsung chips began with Lee Byung-cheol, and developed from Lee Kun-hee, who has invested a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, and South Korea has given a great policy tilt. In 1982, Samsung set up a special project team and purchased a license for 64K DRAM chip technology through Micron Technology.

In this way, Samsung has accumulated technology through ten years and <>

In 1992, Samsung began to challenge the DRAM chip with a capacity of 256M, during which time it invested 170 billion won, and since 1994, Samsung has surpassed the United States and Japan. Of course, this includes the addition of Liang Mengsong, the decline of the Japanese chip industry, and Samsung's process from huge losses to gradual profits. Given Samsung's position in South Korea, it is not an exaggeration to say that the whole country is developing chips.

Chip R&D not only relies on scientific research strength, but also an industry that continues to burn money.

In order to ensure its leading position in logic chips, Samsung has decided to continue to invest $115.8 billion in R&D over the next decade. Samsung's goal this time is to surpass TSMC and become the world's largest chip company. At the same time, it maintains its leading position in Intel and sits firmly in the position of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.

In comparison, China's chip industry is still lagging behind, and Samsung Electronics is bound to become a strong opponent in China's chip industry in the future.

This is mainly because South Korea's Samsung developed relatively early, so it will be in the lead.

He just has a better operation of the equipment, and of course the lithography auxiliary may be innovative to make the lithography thread more detailed. This has to do with which country the United States intends to have a higher manufacturing process. The United States has relaxed restrictions on Samsung and TSMC.

Because Samsung has been making chips for a long time, it is normal for a leading position.

This is leftover from Westerners, there are patents everywhere, and you can only develop your own architecture, materials, and processes to make breakthroughs, and there is no way to follow their path.

Samsung's chips are provided by Qualcomm in the United States, and Samsung's chips are not actually leading, but lagging behind.

Because Samsung started very early in these businesses, its core technology is very mature.

Because South Korea's Samsung technology is really at the forefront, and the performance of his phone is really good.

On the one hand, companies like Samsung have been involved in the chip field for a long time and have accumulated a large number of experience and technical patents; On the other hand, South Korea's open environment has allowed Samsung to keep pace with the world, and it has hardly missed a single wave of technology since South Korea's independence.

Maybe it's because they've always been good at developing technology in this area.

That's because South Korea's Samsung's chip technology is originally at the forefront of the world.

Because Samsung mobile phones have their own unique technical means as support.

After all, this is what they are good at, and they must have advantages that others can't match.

This is cutting-edge technology, and this is also Maozi's shortcoming.

This is because South Korea has also privatized large airline, steel and other giant companies, distributed them to large conglomerates, and provided them with measures called "preferential treatment". After 1984, South Korea officially embarked on the road of vibrating the "cavity skin core", in which the role of the first is indispensable. In the "Semiconductor Industry Promotion Plan" implemented from 1983 to 1987, South Korea has vigorously promoted the development of the Korean semiconductor industry.

South Korea's chip industry can be said to be driven by Samsung, and in the 60s of the last century, Samsung was a hodgepodge involved in all walks of life, with no technical content. However, Samsung Electronics, which was established in 1969, began the counterattack of the Koreans' "domestic core".

An important figure has to be mentioned, that is, at that time, South Korea's Samsung's young owner Lee Kun-hee, studied in the United States to see the development of the semiconductor industry in the United States, after investigation and analysis, Wu Zhaocha believes that the semiconductor such a high-value-added cutting-edge industry is the way out for South Korea, a resource-poor country in the future, so a huge loss of more than ten years to a big win of the semiconductor road began from this.

And the same is true of Huawei in our country:

Founded in 2004 by HiSilicon, Huawei has a weak foundation and a late start compared to Samsung, but Huawei has been able to produce and design the Kirin 980 with 7nm process in 15 years, and even in the field of mobile phone CPUs, Qualcomm, Samsung and other processors are weak, which illustrates the problem: the chip is indeed complex, but as long as you are willing to invest and increase research and development efforts, you can achieve success. This is true for Samsung, and so is for Huawei.

In recent years, TSMC has led the way in the chip process, and Apple, MediaTek, and Qualcomm are its customers. Compared with Samsung, it is much behind in the chip process, even if it is also a 5nm process, TSMC's is better. Of course, Samsung is also playing catch-up.

At the IEEE ISSCC International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Samsung showcased a chip manufactured by its 3nm process, to be precise, a 256GB (32GB) capacity virtual SRAM memory chip, which is expected to achieve mass production next year. The important thing is that the write voltage is only needed, so why emphasize the write voltage?

The leakage phenomenon of the chip can be said to be the biggest killer feature of the chip power consumption, and the power consumption generated by the leakage currently accounts for more than 50% of the chip power consumption. In the past, TSMC also won the title of "Taiwan Leakage" because of leakage. A lower write voltage can improve the leakage of the chip.

This is a good thing for mobile phones that are currently experiencing record high power consumption. If the power consumption is low, there is no need for such strong heat dissipation, there is no need for too much space to heat dissipate the acre pile, and the battery of the mobile phone can be larger, and the battery life problem will not be solved?

Samsung, which has always been overtaken by TSMC, may really want to overtake in corners this time, and Samsung and TSMC's 3nm process uses different technical routes. Samsung's 3nm process transistors can increase the density by more than 80% and reduce power consumption by 50%. TSMC's 3nm process collectively increases density by 70% and reduces power consumption by 27%. But in terms of technical parameters, Samsung's 3nm process seems to be more advanced.

But technical parameters are one thing, actual performance is another, this time Samsung or TSMC who will be the final winner?

There is no need to say how important chip manufacturing technology is, the most advanced chip process in Chinese mainland is SMIC's 14nm, which is far from the international advanced level. Huawei's Kirin chip is stuck because the manufacture of the chip is controlled by others.

At present, the only company in the world that can produce optical EUV lithography machines is the Dutch AMSL company, and behind this company is Western countries. The output of EUV lithography machines is only about 20 units per year, and the unit price is as high as 100 million US dollars. TSMC spent a huge amount of money to place an order for 13 units as early as last year.

At the moment of the global chip shortage, it is really difficult to say whether the 3nm process chip can be mass-produced next year. The initial mass production of 3nm process chips is bound to be low, should chip manufacturers spend more energy to expand the production capacity of 5nm chips to alleviate the global chip shortage?

Who will be the final winner in the battle for chip manufacturing process? See!

This chip is small in size and does not look strange, but it integrates advanced technology. It is the core and cornerstone of the information industry. It has a bearing on the national economy, people's livelihood and information security, and touches the hearts of hundreds of millions of people.

A chip is an integrated circuit. It is an electronic product that gathers semiconductor devices on the surface of a silicon wafer through micromachining technology.

The secret of the chip is that it can connect hundreds of millions of tiny transistors together and print them on silicon wafers in the form of developing negatives, thus creating a small but powerful "integrated circuit". How small is the transistor on a chip? The diameter and length of a hair can discharge 1000 pieces, and together they can complete the assigned task.

The chip is the size of a fingernail, but it is surprisingly large. It has the functions of information collection, processing, storage, control, navigation, communication, display and so on. It is the core component of all electronic devices.

In today's information society, chips are everywhere. Almost all products with "electricity" have chips embedded in them. We can't live without our phones every day.

There are up to 30 chips inside. Almost all electronic devices in the world cannot work without chips.

Chips are not only related to the national economy and people's livelihood, but also related to information security. Some Western countries see it as a "**" that conducts ** or wars for their own interests. They restrict the development of the information industry in relevant countries through embargoes, sales restrictions and other measures, focusing on information collection or cyber attacks through the "backdoor" of Internet chip access.

For example, the "Prism Gate" incident in recent years and the attack on Iran's nuclear power plant by a major country through the Internet are inextricably linked to chips. Therefore, chips are not only the core of the information industry, but also the cornerstone of information processing and security. Throughout the history of the development of semiconductor chips, the most fundamental reason why South Korea can manufacture chips is the transfer of the global semiconductor industry.

Semiconductor technology originated in the United States. In the seventies and eighties of the last century, it was first transferred to Japan, which surpassed the United States with industrial PC DRAM technology. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, South Korea and Taiwan became one of the four dragons in Asia with the development trend of personal computers and low-cost OEM technology to develop semiconductors.

According to the laws of semiconductor history, now it is China's turn. China is also active in the chip semiconductor industry. However, Europe and the United States want to stop it.

The reason why he has such advanced technology is actually because their talents are very outstanding.

I think that although Korea is a relatively small country, they have more researchers.

Because they attach great importance to this aspect and have been insisting on it for a long time.

I think there should be a lot of scientific and technological personnel in this area in South Korea, so his technology is relatively advanced.

Intel has reportedly lost its long-held title as the world's top computer chip manufacturer by at least one important measure.

Samsung's semiconductor division sold $15.8 billion in the most recent quarter, surpassing Intel, which sold $100 million in chips in the same period.

According to the Associated Press, Intel has been the leading semiconductor company in terms of sales volume since 1992. But with the rise of smartphones and other mobile devices, PC sales have declined, and Samsung's chip business has also benefited.