On the day of NOV 29^th, IOE announced that it has developed the first UV super resolution lithography equipment in the world. As a result, the major engineering obstacles limiting China's development in chips, nanocomponents and optical instruments will be excluded. “We no longer fear a foreign technical blockade because we have full intellectual ownership of the new technique,” said Hu Song, the senior researcher of IOE and deputy chief designer of this project. 

The new machine, which scientists began building in 2012, can etch circuitry patterns less than 22 nanometers using ultraviolet light. Combined with other techniques, it can be used in the future to create chips of around 10 nanometers. 

The superconducting nanowire single photon detector manufactured by new machine. (Image from Internet)

Hu said that the machine can also be used to make small components for applications such as sensors, detectors and biochips. It is already being used by several institutions including Sichuan University and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. However, the new machine's production capability is still small, hence it is still limited to producing key components for research. 

Hu indicates that the team will focus its efforts on increasing the machine's productivity to industrial scale in future. He pointed out that there are still substantial gaps in the microengineering sector between China and developed countries, but China is catching up fast.