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Former ASML head scientist Lin Nan drives China’s latest EUV breakthrough
Updated: 9:37am, 29 Apr 2025
Research team achieves world-class results in photolithography research with solid-state laser-driven approach, paper shows
Chinese researchers have cracked a barrier to the home-grown production of advanced chips by building an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light source platform that operates at internationally competitive parameters, according to a research paper.
The team, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, was led by Lin Nan, previously head of light source technology at ASML in the Netherlands.
ASML, the world’s only manufacturer of EUV machines – which are critical for producing chips with nodes below seven nanometres – has been prohibited from selling its most advanced models to China since 2019, thanks to pressure from the US.
Chinese universities are dominating global research on chips, US report says
While institutions from China take up most places on top 10 rankings for published papers and citations, there are none from the US
Published: 6:00am, 22 Apr 2025
As the United States continues to tighten restrictions on chip exports to China in a bid to curb the country’s access to advanced semiconductors, Chinese researchers have gone into overdrive.
In recent years, Chinese universities have been leading the world in research on chip design and fabrication. And they are producing much of the basic research that could influence next-generation semiconductor technology – and position China ahead of the pack.
From 2018 to 2023, nine of the top 10 biggest producers of English-language research on chips were Chinese institutions, according to a report released in March by the Emerging Technology Observatory at Georgetown University in Washington.
Eight Chinese universities appear in the top 10 list of the most highly cited articles – or the top 10 per cent with the most citations each year in that period.
Only two institutions from other countries made the two lists: the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France ranks third for total articles published, and 10th for the most citations; and the National University of Singapore ranks ninth for top-cited research.
China and the US are vying to take the lead in next-generation semiconductor technology. Photo: AFP
No institutions from the United States – the second largest producer of research on chip design and fabrication – made the top 10 lists for total articles published or most-cited articles. |
