China’s state-owned Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) is expected to deliver the country’s first ever home-grown 28-nanometre lithography machine this year, the South China Morning Post reported, citing the state media outlet Securities Times. The potential breakthrough comes amid a heightened tech war between China and the US, whose allies Japan and Netherlands are now also restricting exports of advanced chipmaking tools.
SMEE, China’s only potential competitor to the Netherlands’ world-leading lithography machine maker ASML, was added to the US trade blacklist in December last year. It has developed machines capable of producing chips at the 90 nanometre node standard, its website showed.
That technology was perfected roughly 20 years ago and is sufficient for low-end chips useful for some power-management purposes. Developing native 28nm chipmaking ability is crucial for Beijing’s tech ambitions amid uncertainty around how long it will be able to access machines from its current supplier ASML.
Read the full report: South China Morning Post.
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