The ultimate paradigm of chip manufacturing: atomic-level manufacturing
Currently, chip manufacturing has entered the 3-nanometer process stage, which is equivalent to arranging 100 atoms closely in a row. However, traditional lithography machines are like using a large brush to paint a wall, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to meet the demand for continuous improvement in chip performance. Against this backdrop, atomic-level manufacturing technology has emerged. It is as if engineers are equipped with high-power microscopes and precise tweezers, enabling the manipulation and construction of single atoms and bringing revolutionary breakthroughs to chip manufacturing.
In the electronics field, atomic-level manufacturing is triggering a profound transformation. Take integrated circuit manufacturing as an example. As electronic products are accelerating towards miniaturization and high performance, the requirements for chip performance are also rising. Atomic-level manufacturing technology can effectively reduce impurities and defects and significantly improve chip performance through precise control of the atomic arrangement within the chip. According to industry estimates, if mass production of single-atom feature chips can be achieved, their size and power consumption will be reduced to less than one-thousandth of the current indicators, while the computing power is expected to increase by more than a thousand times, fundamentally reshaping the pattern of the integrated circuit industry.
What is atomic-level manufacturing?
Atomic-level manufacturing is widely recognized as the future development direction of the manufacturing industry. Compared with traditional manufacturing technologies, it not only achieves a microscale breakthrough in size but also reaches an unprecedented level of precision, and is hailed as the "ultimate form" of manufacturing technology.
As a transformative manufacturing technology, the core goal of atomic-level manufacturing is to precisely advance the controllable dimension of the manufacturing process to the atomic and atomic primitive levels through large-scale and high-precision atomic manipulation. In this process, the manufacturing precision continuously approaches the atomic scale, gradually achieving the precise construction of atomic-level structures, and finally reaching the ideal state of "creating atom by atom on demand". With this technology, product performance can break through the existing bottlenecks and approach the theoretical limit infinitely.
Analyzing deeply from the perspective of the innovation of manufacturing elements, atomic-level manufacturing will comprehensively reshape the three key elements of traditional manufacturing:
Processing objects: It realizes a fundamental transformation from continuous macroscopic materials to discrete atoms. This transformation allows the manufacturing process to precisely construct the basic units of materials at the micro level, providing the possibility for the customized development of material properties. For example, new functional materials with specific atomic arrangements can be designed according to requirements.
Processing precision: It jumps from the traditional scale category to the atomic scale. This means that the manufacturing process can precisely control the arrangement mode, combination structure, etc. of atoms, greatly improving the controllability of manufacturing precision and product quality, and controlling the errors in the micro structure of products at the atomic level.
Performance determination mode: It breaks the traditional inherent mode of "materials + structure" determining product performance and establishes a new paradigm of "atomic regulation directly determining product performance". This breakthrough has opened up a new path for the research and development of new materials and products with high performance and multiple functions. For example, by adjusting the atomic composition and arrangement, special materials with super conductivity and ultra-high strength can be developed.
Key technologies of atomic-level manufacturing
With its disruptive potential, atomic-level manufacturing has been listed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China as one of the six core future development directions. The essence of its technology lies in the unprecedented high-precision manipulation of atoms, the basic units that make up the material world. Through complex operations such as precise removal, deposition, displacement, and assembly at the atomic level, high-performance products with specific atomic arrangement structures can be created.
From the perspective of technological evolution, atomic-level manufacturing is by no means simply "miniaturizing the manufacturing scale to the nanometer level". Instead, it marks a profound leap from "shaping the material form" in the traditional industrial era to "revealing the essence of matter and reshaping the material structure" in the quantum technology era in human manufacturing activities, and is a huge leap in human exploration and creation ability in the micro world. It mainly involves the following technologies:
Atomic layer deposition: Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a thin-film preparation technology that grows layer by layer at the atomic level. Its core advantages lie in the high controllability, excellent uniformity, and three-dimensional conformality of the deposited thin-film thickness, making it stand out in the field of advanced semiconductor processes and become the key core technology for functional thin-film deposition. As the global semiconductor industry continues to expand and market competition becomes increasingly fierce, the semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry is facing a new round of technological transformation. Atomic-level manufacturing technologies represented by ALD equipment are expected to become the focus track of the industry. According to SEMI industry statistics, the current market share of ALD in the semiconductor coating segment is about 11% - 13%, and it is expected to maintain a high-speed growth trend in the next few years, with a compound annual growth rate of up to 26.3%.
Atomic layer etching: Atomic layer etching (ALE) is a nano-processing technology based on "self-limiting reactions". Its characteristic is to gradually remove the material surface in units of single atomic layers, thereby achieving a high-precision and uniform etching process. It is opposite to ALD (atomic layer deposition), one is to deposit materials layer by layer, and the other is to remove materials layer by layer. As an important part of atomic-level manufacturing, atomic layer etching technology can achieve the atomic-level precise removal of materials, ensuring the precision control of the micro structure in the chip manufacturing process and providing key support for the production of advanced process chips.
Atomic-level precision positioning technology: Traditional measurement methods have obvious limitations in multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) measurement ability, anti-interference performance, and structural compactness, making it difficult to meet the urgent need for high-precision positioning in atomic-level manufacturing. Against this backdrop, grating interferometers, with their excellent multi-degree-of-freedom measurement ability, strong robustness to environmental disturbances, and advantages of miniaturization and integration, have gradually become the core technology supporting precision manufacturing and nano-metrology. The urgency and necessity of in-depth research and industrial application of them are becoming increasingly prominent.
Atomic-level polishing technology: The core goal of this technology is to achieve atomic-scale flatness and ultra-low surface roughness on the wafer surface, ensuring that the wafer reaches a local or even global flatness of less than 0.1nm, while minimizing subsurface damage and surface contamination. Currently, the mainstream atomic-level polishing methods mainly include chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), plasma polishing, and ion beam polishing. Although these technologies theoretically have great potential to achieve atomic-level flatness and have shown good performance in specific materials and application scenarios, limited by multiple "sticking points" such as the optimization of polishing liquid formulations, the research and development of core equipment, and the adjustment of process parameters, the large-scale and industrial application of domestic atomic-level polishing technology still faces severe challenges, and it is urgent to break through the key technological bottlenecks.
Frequent policies: escorting the development of atomic-level manufacturing
As a future industry with high technological challenges, industrial innovation, international strategic significance, and economic driving force, atomic-level manufacturing is currently at a critical stage of moving from theoretical innovation and key technological breakthroughs to industrialization. Many academicians, including Zhu Shining, Yang Huayong, Wang Weihua, Tan Jiubin, and Xie Suyuan, have jointly called for seizing the strategic opportunity to create a new track for the future industry of atomic-level manufacturing. The academicians suggest that China needs to fully grasp the core characteristics of future industries, ultimate manufacturing, and basic cross-disciplines, strengthen the top-level design of industrial innovation and precise policy support, strengthen macro guidance, industrial collaborative innovation, and ecological system construction, open up a new track for future manufacturing through scientific and technological innovation in atomic-level manufacturing, accelerate the large-scale industrial process of technology, promote the in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, and create a high-value, highly controllable, and internationally leading future industry of atomic-level manufacturing.
From the perspective of policy practice, China's support for atomic-level manufacturing has been continuously increasing, and the policy system has been gradually improved:
In 2016, the National Key R & D Program launched the "Nanotechnology" special project, including the design and manipulation of materials at the atomic scale in the key research scope, laying the foundation for the research and development of atomic-level manufacturing technology.
In 2018, Nanjing City and Nanjing University jointly established the first domestic atomic manufacturing research center, building a platform for collaborative innovation among industry, academia, and research. During this period, Professor Song Fengqi served as the leader of a national-level research group, leading the team to overcome multiple technological difficulties, iterating the atomic-level manufacturing equipment many times, and significantly improving the processing efficiency in 2019, achieving the preparation of atomic cluster particles on a 1-inch silicon wafer within a few minutes (which can be used for sensor manufacturing). This equipment was successfully selected for the National "13th Five-Year Plan" Scientific and Technological Innovation Achievement Exhibition.
In 2024, the policy promotion of atomic-level manufacturing entered the fast lane: On September 20, the 2024 Symposium on the Innovative Development of Atomic-Level Manufacturing was held, focusing on in-depth discussions on the scientific nature and implementability of the content of the "Implementation Opinions on the Innovative Development of Atomic-Level Manufacturing (2025 - 2030)". On November 23, the First Forum on the Industrial Development of Atomic-Level Manufacturing was held. Guided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, nearly a hundred universities, research institutes, and enterprises jointly initiated the establishment of the "Alliance for the Innovative Development of Atomic-Level Manufacturing", marking the initial formation of an industrial collaborative innovation system. On December 4, at the 2024 Equipment Manufacturing Industry Development Conference, relevant officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly stated that they would promote the in-depth integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation and accelerate the cultivation and development of the atomic-level manufacturing industry. From December 26 to 27, the National Conference on Industry and Information Technology proposed to formulate and introduce innovation and development policies in fields such as atomic-level manufacturing to further improve the policy guarantee system.
In 2025, the policy support continued to increase. On September 2, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued the "Stable Growth Action Plan for the Electronic Information Manufacturing Industry from 2025 to 2030", for the first time including "atomic-level manufacturing" in the official action plan of a national ministry, clearly proposing to "support the basic research in frontier technology directions such as all-solid-state batteries and atomic-level manufacturing", marking an unprecedented improvement in the strategic position of atomic-level manufacturing.
A series of policies and measures indicate that China is systematically promoting the development of atomic-level manufacturing technology through top-level design and policy guidance, strengthening the construction of national manufacturing innovation centers, aiming to improve the overall level of China's manufacturing industry and its international core competitiveness.
Chinese enterprises are accelerating their layout, facing both challenges and opportunities
Driven by both policy support and market demand, domestic enterprises have begun to actively layout in the field of atomic-level manufacturing, and some enterprises have made breakthroughs in core technologies and industrial applications.
As the core promoter of the industrialization of ALD technology, Micro Nano Technology focuses on the application and implementation of ALD technology in fields such as semiconductors, pan-semiconductors, new energy, and new materials. Currently, the company has launched a number of product series centered around ALD technology, such as iTomic HiK, iTomic MW, and iTomic PE. The products cover many subdivided application fields such as logic chips, memory chips, advanced packaging, and compound semiconductors, and have established in-depth cooperative relationships with many mainstream domestic manufacturers. After industry verification, many key indicators of its equipment have reached the international advanced level.
Professor Lu Xinchun of Tsinghua University focuses on the industrialization practice of atomic-level manufacturing and is currently the chairman and chief scientist of Huahai Qingke Co., Ltd. The domestic chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) equipment developed by his team has been successfully applied in high-end chip manufacturing, with a polishing precision of 0.1 nanometers, filling the technological gap in domestic high-end polishing equipment.
Although China has achieved phased results in the field of atomic-level manufacturing, it still faces many severe challenges. In the future, it is necessary to focus on tackling common problems such as atomic-level design software, self-assembly processes, and in-situ detection technologies, and establish a full-chain standard covering materials, equipment, and products.
This article is from the WeChat public account “Semiconductor Industry Insights” (ID: ICViews), author: Peng Cheng, published by 36Kr with authorization.