When the electronics industry ushered in the peak period of development, it also drove the development of the semiconductor industry. Under the circumstance that the market is in short supply, the world has ushered in a shortage of chips.

In order to alleviate the global chip shortage crisis, major wafer manufacturers have begun to expand their production capacity. Although TSMC is not optimistic about the expansion of the 28nm mature process, because the supply of the 28nm process is not as short as it seems. Because the current shortage of chips is very serious, as a leader in the semiconductor industry, TSMC needs to consider the market for these mature processes, so it still expands the chip factory.

Chip manufacturing technology is about to reach Moore's law tipping point

In fact, TSMC's goal has not changed, that is, to develop advanced technical processes. Recently, TSMC officially confirmed that 3NM is already in mass production, and the 2NM factory is under construction.

According to Moore's Law, TSMC is now approaching the limit of advanced chip technology, which is 1.4 nanometers. It is worth noting that according to the latest news, TSMC decided to confirm the previous 3nm team next month to study the 1.4nm chip and determine the key technical specifications.

It is clear that TSMC has eliminated many competitors in its advanced manufacturing process, and this time TSMC is still in the lead. While it's too early to talk about mass production of 1.4nm, there's a new question: what will be the direction of new chip technology as chip technology approaches its limits?

my country may achieve chip corner overtaking

In the advanced manufacturing process, although we have not caught up so quickly, the advanced manufacturing process of the chip is now approaching Moore's Law, and the opportunity for my country to overtake on the track of the chip may be coming.

In the continuous iteration of science and technology, today's equipment is getting more and more advanced, and the performance requirements of silicon chips are higher. Today, the number of transistors in a digital chip is already in the trillions of billions. R&D is approaching the limits of physics.

As we all know, after the chip reaches the 7nm process, it will be more and more difficult to shrink by 1nm in the future, and the cost will be higher and higher. With the process reaching a critical point and the cost increasing sharply, more and more companies have begun to enter the photonic integrated circuit (PIC) to develop electro-optical chips.

What is an optoelectronic chip

Photonic integrated circuits are considered to be the front-end technology of future solid-state quantum processors. Unlike current optoelectronic integrated circuits, it can integrate photonic devices into microprocessors using traditional silicon wafer materials and processes to improve operating efficiency and allow Data is transmitted more efficiently. Therefore, the industry generally believes that it will replace electronic semiconductor signal transmission as a new generation of semiconductor technology.

In the case where the traditional electrical signal transmission has reached a critical point, the photoelectric chip has a faster transmission speed and a larger amount of information transmission, and the transmission method is more secure and stable, so this technology is undoubtedly the current the best choice.

Optoelectronic chips no longer use transistors, but are replaced by ultra-micro lenses, and operations are no longer performed by electrical signals, but by optical signals. Therefore, the optoelectronic chip can achieve extremely high operation frequency without changing the software principle of the binary computer, which can effectively make up for the shortcomings of the electronic chip in terms of high-speed stable operation and data processing capability.

There are already many companies in my country that have launched the layout of the field of optoelectronic chips

Many companies in my country have begun to develop the layout of photonic integrated circuits. For example, Huawei has planned to invest 1 billion pounds to set up a global R&D center in the UK for the research and development of optoelectronic chips. At present, Huawei HiSilicon has mastered 100G optical module chip technology.

Ren Zhengfei has clearly stated before that if optoelectronic chips can be successfully developed and commercialized, then Huawei's chips will be completely free from the technical restrictions of the United States, and the problem of chips being "stuck in the neck" will also be solved.

The leading high-speed optical interconnect chip provider in China, Aoke Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Aoke Optoelectronics") has also officially entered the field of optoelectronic integration.

On the premise of combining its own technical advantages and influence in the industry, Aoke Optoelectronics has introduced top silicon photonics teams at home and abroad, combined with its electronic chips and testing technologies, as well as the advanced 3D packaging and chip design capabilities of the silicon photonics team, The roadmap for accelerating the implementation of optoelectronic co-packaging and optoelectronic heterogeneous integration solutions.

In addition, my country's Xiamen Youxun, ZTE, Hisense, ZTE, Fiberhome and other companies have also made breakthroughs in the field of optoelectronic integration.

in conclusion

With the increasing national investment in this area and the efforts of more researchers, many results have been achieved in this field. We are not as good as some foreign companies in the current chip technology, but we can choose another path. When the circuit chip technology has hit the ceiling, the era of photonic chips will come.

In the future, when the ecology of photonic integrated circuits is gradually perfected and photoelectric chips can be commercialized on a large scale, it will definitely replace the current digital chips and become the mainstream in the semiconductor field.

Of course, at present, silicon electronic chips are still the object of strong market demand, and their status cannot be shaken in a short period of time. However, after many companies further cooperate and develop research and development, the chip problem will no longer be my country's short board. It is also a good opportunity for my country's semiconductor industry to achieve corner overtaking.

The news of this article comes from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author.