Recently, the 11th Annual meeting of semiconductor equipment opened in Wuxi, the conference sub-forum "New devices and new processes to promote the innovation and development of new materials and new equipment Forum" was held on the same day, after which the "upstream and downstream supply and demand docking" link was held. The guests introduced the application of artificial intelligence in the research and development of semiconductor materials; At the same time, in the process of promoting localization, the semiconductor industry has carried out in-depth supply chain cooperation, formed a database, and formed an effective linkage from design, testing to industrialization, and accelerated the underlying innovation of "jam neck" technology such as equipment and materials.

Ai accelerates semiconductor research and development

The innovation of materials has promoted the vigorous development of the chip industry. According to the analysis of international authoritative institutions, materials contribute more than 60% to the innovation of the integrated circuit industry. In 2022, the global market size of integrated circuit materials reached $69.8 billion, and China ranked second, with an average annual market size of $13 billion and a market share of 19%.

Feng Li said that the development of materials has driven about ten times the chip industry, as well as dozens of times the application system market, but the current localization rate of semiconductor materials is about 25%, of which, the bulk gas, target localization rate is high, compared to the photoresist, mask plate and other localization rate is low.

With the upgrade of the chip from a flat structure to a three-dimensional structure, new devices and new processes are promoting material innovation, and the powerful capabilities of artificial intelligence in data analysis and machine learning can accelerate the screening and design process of materials, thus significantly reducing the research and development cycle and cost, and will also help domestic semiconductor material research and development and innovation.

According to reports, at present, the cuLitho computational lithography library developed by NVIDIA has been applied to international semiconductor equipment, semiconductor manufacturers, etc., to accelerate the chip design and production development of 2 nanometer process; LAM Research has accelerated deep crystalline silicon etching through artificial intelligence, and IBM has also used artificial intelligence to carry out reverse material screening, custom material design and industrialization.

Feng Li said that the Shanghai Institute of Integrated Circuit Materials has used artificial intelligence to speed up process design and improve research and development efficiency in polishing material calculation, photolithographic substrate matching material design and filter doping material selection.

According to reports, the Shanghai Institute of Integrated Circuit Materials uses cross-scale calculation of materials and combines experimental data to form an integrated circuit material gene bank; In March 2023, the Integrated Circuit Materials Innovation Consortium was established.

"Database is one of the three major elements of artificial intelligence, even higher than computing power and algorithms," Feng Li pointed out that by setting up a material innovation consortium, collecting a large number of research and development data, and accelerating the research and development process through machine learning, analytical modeling and other means.

High-end manufacturing calls for innovation in materials and equipment

With the development of analog chips, compound semiconductors and MEMS (electronic mechanical systems), the localization of integrated circuit equipment and materials is facing new challenges and opportunities.

Liu Yunfeng, strategic product center of Yuexin Semiconductor, said that although China's semiconductor industry has made some progress in localization, there is still a certain gap in the field of semiconductor equipment. As far as the manufacturing process of the analog chip is concerned, deep silicon etching equipment, high aspect ratio filling equipment, ultra-high voltage isolation capacitor equipment, ion implantation machine, germanium epitaxy equipment, as well as some special gases, photoresist, etc., also rely on imports.

Yuexin Semiconductor is also actively promoting the process of localization, in-depth layout in the field of automotive electronics, guided by the application of automotive terminals, and establish strategic cooperation with various automakers to create a linkage model from chip manufacturing to the whole machine. According to the semiconductor production capacity planning of Yuexin, the total production capacity of Yuexin I and II of 45,000 pieces has been fully put into production, and the third phase will be released in the first quarter of 2024, and Yuexin has formulated the localization rate of equipment in each stage. At present, Yuexin has achieved more than 50% in the material side, and the localization target of the equipment side has achieved 40%.

In the field of compound semiconductors represented by silicon carbide, the demand for innovation in high-end equipment and materials is increasing.

He Zhonghe, director of the manufacturing technology development and evaluation Department of Shanghai Jita Semiconductor Co., LTD., introduced that at present, the main cost of silicon carbide industry is still concentrated in the material end. In order to improve production and efficiency, the industry has begun to try laser slicing and composite silicon carbide sheet preparation methods to increase production, and the corresponding process has put forward demands for laser slicing equipment, atomic layer bonding and unbonding technology and equipment.

"2023 is the plane MOSFET technology began to channel MOSFET conversion node," He Zhonghe said, silicon carbide device structure innovation, you need to use high-density plasma etching, ALD (atomic layer deposition) technology to solve the process problems, calling for domestic equipment, materials and other manufacturers actively overcome.

Advanced MEMS also places innovative demands on integrated circuit equipment and materials.

Dr. Wang Shinan, chief technical expert of Shanghai Institute of Integrated Circuit Materials, pointed out that compared with integrated circuits, MEMS has more diversified, customized, complex and other characteristics, and the production capacity of each device is limited, so the flexibility and tolerance of the equipment are high. In addition, in the MEMS manufacturing process, the processing of fragile substrates, the processing of high aspect ratio structures, and the control of film thickness uniformity need to be solved, which requires the stability and consistency of equipment and materials as well as supporting software.

Wang Shinan suggested that equipment manufacturers can keep up with demand, adhere to continuous innovation, invest more in the product verification stage, and obtain more data to further improve product quality and stability.

The industrial chain accelerates innovation at the bottom

In the context of the current supply chain risk escalation, domestic semiconductor equipment and material manufacturers have been closely linked with the industrial chain and suppliers, extending the innovation chain to the basic layer fields such as parts and basic materials.

Dr. Lu Zhipeng, vice president of Tuojing Chuangyi (Shenyang) Semiconductor Co., LTD., pointed out that in order to maintain the safety of the supply chain, Tuojing has not only committed to the development of new semiconductor equipment in recent years, but also focused on the localization of core components to improve the stability of the supply chain. According to reports, Tuojing's localization of core components covers 13 categories and dozens of product phases, and the localization rate of the company's mass production equipment can reach 90%, and the localization rate of new research and development projects is higher.

"In developing core components, our products need to not only meet the needs of the equipment functionally, but also focus on repeatability, quality and long-term reliability." Lu Zhipeng said that the company works closely with suppliers throughout the supply chain to establish a consistent quality control system. In addition, in the development and design stage, Tuojing will closely discuss product specifications, functions, reliability and other indicators with partners, from the project to the landing costs of mass production, to achieve a "win-win", and improve the test link, pay attention to the quality control in the mass production into the industrialization process, improve the reliability of domestic products and other indicators.

As a domestic supplier of pure sputtering targets, Jiangfeng Electronics has expanded from electronic materials to semiconductor precision parts and related core materials. In 2018, the company established a parts division, which now forms six production bases for more than 700 equipment and a manufacturing team of 1,600 people, serving about 120 production customers.

Bian Yijun, deputy general manager of Jiangfeng Electronics, said that since 2016, the United States and Japan have upgraded the control of China's semiconductors, which has intensified the pressure on the domestic supply chain and further promoted the localization of parts in China. At present, the localization rate of mechanical parts has reached more than 50%, and in other areas such as optics, the localization rate is low, and it also has great development potential.

"The essence of parts or to solve the problem of key materials", Jiang Feng Electronics deputy general manager Bianyi Jun said, Jiang Feng Electronics positioning as a "localization manufacturer" role, the company in the layout of parts, but also in the layout of core raw materials localization, hoping to start from parts, from upstream to downstream to fully support the local supply chain.

The industrial chain of the Yangtze River Delta is deeply integrated

As a key town for the development of integrated circuits in the country, the semiconductor industry in the Yangtze River Delta region has begun to contribute and cooperate with the resources of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

At this conference, Guo Yiwu, secretary-general of Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association, introduced in his speech that Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association has been committed to promoting the deep integration of the Yangtze River Delta region, accelerating the development of the semiconductor industry, paying particular attention to the integration of the upstream and downstream resources of the integrated circuit industry chain, promoting sharing and cooperation, and calling on all places to play the resource endowment, take the application as the lead. Jointly build a safe and resilient supply chain ecology.

According to statistics, in 2022, the scale of the national integrated circuit industry has exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.8%, while the Yangtze River Delta region has reached more than 750 billion yuan, an increase of 18%, accounting for more than 60% of the country. Shanghai accounts for 22.3% of the total. He also introduced the achievements of Shanghai IC equipment and materials enterprises in the front track equipment and back track equipment, and stressed the importance of upstream and downstream coordinated development.

"From January to June this year, the Shanghai integrated circuit equipment industry continued to grow," Guo Yiwu pointed out that although most semiconductor segments saw a decline in sales, equipment and materials maintained bucking the trend, achieving sales of nearly 15.4 billion, an increase of 27.3%.

Qin Shu, secretary-general of Jiangsu Semiconductor Industry Association, said that Wuxi, as one of the important starting points of the domestic integrated circuit industry, has continuously strengthened the construction of the integrated circuit industry chain, focused on strengthening the key links, and achieved remarkable achievements in the course of nearly 40 years of development.

According to statistics, Wuxi integrated circuit industry chain will achieve an output value of 209.152 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 15.2%. Jiangsu Province also maintained strong growth in integrated circuit design, manufacturing, closed test and other aspects of sales revenue, accounting for 26.5% of the national scale, especially Jiangsu's closed test industry accounted for more than half of the national scale.

Qin Shu also stressed the importance of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, and said that the Yangtze River Delta needs to standard the level of developed countries in the world and major national strategic needs, accelerate the regional division of labor and cooperation in technology and process innovation, break through the "jam neck" problem in the construction of industrial chain supply chain system, and promote the integrated circuit industry, especially the development of new equipment and new materials to a new level.

At the end of the forum, Shanghai Integrated Circuit Industry Association and integrated circuit material innovation Consortium organized the "upstream and downstream supply and demand matching meeting", 7 from domestic leading wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment enterprises and platforms and more than 50 equipment, materials, parts enterprises, on-site "face-to-face supply and demand docking, point-to-point strong chain supplement chain", The matchmaking conference has built upstream and downstream interworking channels for semiconductor manufacturers to help enterprises reach exchanges and cooperation, harvest orders, strengthen product collaboration, and support procurement.