Chinese Economics Thread

[nugroho]

As for Silicon wafers, the purity for IC chips(11n+) and solar panels(6~7n) are completely different making them useless.

As for fabs,

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to 40 nm technology can't really handle present day CPUs.

I think SMIC is at 28 nm.

SHANGHAI, Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC; NYSE:

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; SEHK: 981) and Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:

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) today announced that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and SMIC have achieved a major milestone in fabrication of 28nm Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 410 processors. This milestone comes six months after SMIC and Qualcomm Technologies announced their initial plans to collaborate on 28nm wafer production. Snapdragon 410 is a leading-edge processor designed to enable a new class of smartphones and tablets at the high-volume tier through offering integrated LTE, high-performance graphics and imaging, 1080P HD display, 64-bit capable processing and a range of advanced modem features. This milestone represents an important step for SMIC in their 28nm process maturity as they become one of the first Chinese foundries to produce high-performance, low-power mobile processors at one of the industry's most advanced process nodes. This achievement builds on a longstanding wafer supply relationship between SMIC and Qualcomm Technologies that was recently extended in July to collaborate at the 28nm process node.

"The successful yield of 28nm process technology on high-performance, low-power Snapdragon mobile processors represents a major milestone for SMIC in increasing our competitiveness in the global foundry landscape," said Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, chief executive officer and executive director, SMIC. "Our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies has been key in helping us to accelerate our 28nm technology development and achieve this key milestone within six months from the commencement of the collaboration. The maturity of our 28nm process represents a significant long-term growth driver for SMIC in support of Qualcomm Technologies and our customers globally."

"We're extremely pleased with the tremendous progress made by SMIC in achieving a critical milestone in 28nm process technology with the successful yield of Snapdragon 410 processors," said Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and co-president, QCT. "SMIC plays an important role in Qualcomm Technologies' supply chain in allowing us to expand our manufacturing footprint in China to better address the growing need for high- performance and low-power mobile devices with customers in the region and around the world".

China's SMIC to Launch 28nm Mass Production by Year-end 2014
April 14, 2014



SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) plans to launch mass production of 28nm technology at year-end 2014, with 20nm readiness in 2015, reported China' Securities Times on April 14. SMIC says 28nm to 45nm technology will be adopted by its second-phase expansion wafer fab in Beijing, which is slated for operation in September this year with a monthly capacity of 35,000 wafers. Aside from the Beijing fab, the company also has a fab under construction in Shenzhen, China. SMIC's 28nm technology can provide customers with MPW (Multi Project Wafer) services, including 28nm PS (PolySiON) and 28nm HKMG (High-K Dielectrics Metal Gate) processes, mainly applied to processors and chips for smartphones, tablets, and set-top boxes.

and alot more to provide argument that SMIC is 28 nm now, do you still want others article???

 

[broadsword]

America is not going to bar Intel from selling China their latest chips over this kind of spying dispute, so long as they are of the commercial kind as used in consumer goods. Right now, Obama is the laughing stock of the world by criticizing China for its measures. It does not matter also whether China's technology is two generations away the best currently. In the worst case, as I mentioned in an earlier post, NEC, Hitachi, Toshiba, Infineon and other non-American companies will scramble to fill China's needs.

 

[Franklin]

China has another record setting trade surplus for the month of february for about 60 billion dollars. Import fell more than 20% year on year while export surged more than 48% year on year! China is benefitting from the falling commodity prices on the one hand and moving up the value chain on the other hand.

China's February exports surge, topping forecasts

China's exports surged 48.3 percent on year in February, sharply above analysts' forecasts, potentially signaling stronger economic growth for its trade partners.

Imports fell 20.5 percent for the period, according to data from China's customs department. A Reuters poll had forecast exports would rise 14.2 percent and imports would fall 10 percent.

For January and February combined -- a common metric to help smoothe distortions from the Lunar New Year holiday period -- exports rose 15 percent from a year earlier, while imports declined 20.2 percent.

"The demand from the advanced economies bodes well," ANZ said in a note Sunday, citing data showing shipments to the U.S. and European Union rose 40.3 percent and 36.6 percent on-year respectively.

But the bank noted that the jump in exports could be due to a base effect. "The February 2014 figures were extremely low as Chinese authorities cracked down the round-tripping trade flows," it said. "We still see strong headwinds facing China's exports this year," ANZ said, citing weak export order PMI data.

ANZ attributed the decline in imports to weak commodity demand compounded by sharp drops in commodity prices, citing as an example the 45.4 percent on year drop in the value of iron-ore imports, although the iron-ore import volume only fell 0.9 percent.

As well, "Chinese commercial banks have significantly tightened the trade financing facilities for commodity traders," ANZ said.

This story is developing. Please check back for further updates.

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[Franklin]

China is good at learning from mistakes of others. They have learned from the political mistakes of the Soviet Union and now China is trying to learn from the economic mistakes of Japan.

China takes lessons from Japan, past master on slowdown, deflation

Chinese regulators are turning to Japan for lessons on economic history, determined to keep the world's second biggest economy from taking the same path of recession and deflation that has blighted its neighbor for the past 20 years.

Beijing views Tokyo's handling of the liberalization of capital flows and the yen over 30 years ago as key factors that led to the creation and subsequent bust of the asset bubble in Japan in the early 1990s, according to Japanese government and other sources who are in direct contact with Chinese regulators.

"They aren't a single bit interested in Japan's successes. Their biggest interest is in Japan's mistakes," one China-based source who is directly in touch with Chinese regulators told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Japanese and Chinese economies do share many similarities, so I assume there is quite a lot to learn from our experiences."

Chinese policymakers and analysts at government think-tanks are already well versed in the experiences of Japan and other countries, and the sources say two-way communication at both government and private-sector level continued even through a chill in diplomatic ties after a territorial spat in 2012.

But as economic growth slows and signs of deflation emerge, China's interest in Japan has increased notably around policy details, according to the sources.

At an annual parliamentary meeting that began on Thursday, China announced an economic growth target of around 7 percent for this year, down from 7.4 percent in 2014, already the slowest in 24 years.

Lost decades

China is carrying out three key financial reforms Japan undertook over the past decades - liberalizing interest rates, internationalizing its currency and opening up its capital account.

These reforms should help develop the economy, but mis-steps could have huge repercussions.

Chinese policymakers see the 1985 Plaza Accord between Japan and the Western powers, which effectively approved a stronger yen and the opening up of the capital account during the 1980s and 1990s, as pivotal events for Tokyo which ultimately led to the Japan's "lost two decades," sources say.

The surge in the yen that followed the agreement hit the country's main exports; Japanese auto makers, for example, started shifting more production overseas. This started to hamper economic growth and prompted the Bank of Japan to ease monetary policy.

However, much of the cash from the easing, along with hot foreign money that followed the liberalization of the capital account, flowed into stocks, property and other assets, often magnified through leveraging.

"China is already applying lessons from Japan's experience. Even when growth is slowing, Chinese policymakers aren't taking policy measures that could heighten financial imbalances. That's very wise of them," Bank of Japan board member Takahide Kiuchi told a news conference in Maebashi, north of Tokyo, on Thursday.

He said that even when asset bubbles were forming, Japan wasn't able to tighten monetary policy because of the impacts it would have on the United States, its biggest partner.

"One of the lessons from Japan's experience is that achieving domestic economic stability should be the top priority for policymakers (rather than international considerations)," Kiuchi added.

Debt Risk

China has other challenges that echo Japan's past.

Its property market has cooled since the government tightened policy to prevent overheating and due to oversupply, and that, coupled with economic slowdown, is raising fears of a rapid rise in bad loans at banks and a further dent in local government finances.

Sources said regulators have also been asking how Japan dealt with bank bankruptcies, and that could be a signal Beijing is preparing for a likely consolidation in the fragmented banking sector once interest rates are liberalized.

"It makes perfects sense for them to look to Japan rather than other countries since our financial systems are very similar," said another Shanghai-based source.

Like Japan, Chinese firms rely heavily on bank loans to meet their financing needs as opposed to debt or equity issues. Also China heavily regulates its banking sector, for example by limiting the number and locations where banks can open branches, similar to Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The consolidation in the banking sector Japan saw in the 70s and 80s was mainly a result of stronger banks rescuing weaker ones so they could expand their network. It's possible this kind of move will happen in China," the source said.

On the surface, government relations between Tokyo and Beijing remain cool after Japan nationalized disputed islands in the East China Sea in 2012, which triggered anti-Japan protests in China and a boycott of Japanese goods.

But the sources say communication between the countries remained frequent, though often at low-key, private meetings.

"There's very frequent exchange of views. But it usually takes an informal setting because at times it's hard to meet publicly in big, public events," said one Japanese policymaker with knowledge of bilateral exchanges.

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[Silvestre]

China is good at learning from mistakes of others. They have learned from the political mistakes of the Soviet Union and now China is trying to learn from the economic mistakes of Japan.

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Top-5 in world economics in 2013:

1.USA - 16 trillioner Dollar
2.China - 16 trillioner Dollar
3.India - 6,5 trillioner Dollar
4.Japan - 4,5 trillioner Dollar
5.Germany - 3,5 trillioner Dollar

 

[no_name]

^^^ This is in PPP terms right?

 

[balance]

Interesting article with interesting facts.

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[AssassinsMace]

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Interesting to see how this plays out. Those pessimistic are coming from the position that the developed world are the only ones that count. China built trade markets with developing countries that the developed ones didn't bother. And today you see promising growth in those countries.

 

[SteelBird]

China builds 57 stories building in 19 days. (first posted by Zaky on FB)

 

[Player 0]

Not sure if this has been posted already

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China to have most robots in world by 2017
Feb 7, 2015

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44 Views


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BEIJING: China will have more robots operating in its production plants by 2017 than any other country as it cranks up automation of its car and electronics factories, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) said on Thursday.

Already the biggest market in the $9.5 billion (6 billion pound) global robot trade — or $29 billion including associated software, peripherals and systems engineering — China lags far behind its more industrialized peers in terms of robot density.

China has just 30 robots per 10,000 workers employed in manufacturing industries, compared with 437 in South Korea, 323 in Japan, 282 in Germany and 152 in the United States.

But a race by carmakers to build plants in China along with wage inflation that has eroded the competitiveness of Chinese labor will push the operational stock of industrial robots to more than double to 428,000 by 2017, the IFR estimates.

“Companies are forced to invest ever more in robots to be more productive and raise quality,” said Gudrun Litzenberger, general secretary of the Frankfurt-based IFR.

“In the current phase it’s the auto industry, but in the next two or three years it will be driven by the electronics industry,” she said.

Japanese robot makers still have the lion’s share of the market, with about 60 percent, but Chinese suppliers are growing fast, with about a quarter of the market. Most of the rest are supplied by European and U.S. manufacturers.

Four foreign robot makers — Switzerland’s ABB, Germany’s Kuka, and Japan’s Yaskawa and Fanuc — already have production sites in China and more are expected to follow.

“The automation of China’s production plants has just started,” said Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director of ABB Robotics. “We have witnessed swift, almost explosive growth over the last two or three years, surpassing even our expectations.”

The automotive industry is by far the largest customer for robots in China, accounting for about 40 percent of robots in operation, as China is both the world’s biggest car market and its biggest production site.

European carmakers such as Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and Daimler which have invested heavily in China are bringing their robotics suppliers with them, Litzenberger said.

The electronics industry is expected to follow.

Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, which makes Apple iPhones and iPads among other products, is already making its own Foxbot robots as well as using robots bought from other suppliers. (Reuters)