Скачать или смотреть A groundbreaking advancement in China's EUV lithography light source technology

A groundbreaking advancement
in China's EUV lithography light source technology
has sent shockwaves
through the global tech industry.
While the U.S. government was demanding that NVIDIA hand over 15% of its chip sales revenue from China, a breakthrough in a Shanghai lab had global tech giants on edge. In August 2025, the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOFM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences made a significant stride in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light source technology. Its solid-target conversion efficiency surpassed 2%, reaching an internationally advanced level. This seemingly small number struck directly at the heart of the global semiconductor industry.
You might be wondering, "It's just a light source, right?" Why would this send ASML into an emergency board meeting and have the U.S. Department of Commerce scrambling to update its control list? This technology is often described as "harder to build than an atomic bomb." In a world of 7 billion people, fewer than five teams are capable of producing a qualified EUV light source. The more intriguing question is, how did Chinese researchers create this "light" behind the two-decade-old technological "Iron Curtain" constructed by the U.S. and Europe? And how will this breakthrough reshape the rules of the global chip industry?
The War of Light: Why EUV Is the "Lifeline" of Chips
If a lithography machine is the "cash cow" of a chip factory, then the EUV light source is its heart. Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) light is a "super ray" with a wavelength of only 13.5 nanometers, one-ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. It can etch tens of billions of transistors onto a fingernail-sized chip. Without this light, it's impossible to manufacture advanced chips below 7 nanometers, creating a choke point for smartphones, computers, and AI computing power.
The breakthrough made by SIOFM is precisely in this "light manufacturing technology." They used a high-power laser to bombard a tin target, achieving a conversion efficiency of over 2% under solid-target conditions. Don't underestimate this 2%—ASML's EUV light source conversion efficiency also hovers between 2% and 5%, and this metric directly determines the production efficiency and cost of chips. More importantly, this means China has finally touched the threshold of the international top tier in the most critical EUV light source technology.
A comparison highlights the difficulty: Only one company in the world, the Dutch ASML, can build EUV lithography machines. Its total 2024 output was only 44 units. Each one costs €190 million, requires full payment upfront, and has a two-year waiting list. These machines are all divided among Intel, Samsung, and TSMC, and China can't get its hands on a single one. ASML's monopoly relies on its tight grip on core components like the light source and lenses. The light source technology has long been dominated by the U.S. company Cymer, while Germany's ZEISS holds a monopoly on high-precision lenses.