Chinese semiconductor industry

AndrewS said:

When the technology is ready, that would be a good idea from China's perspective.

Unless someone goes to war with Pakistan, a de-Americanised fab (with solely Chinese tools) in Pakistan would be an alternative source of supply if fabs in China are attacked.

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No hard feelings to Pakistan but chips are the new oil. We are talking about digital OPEC here.

This should be viewed from a strategic lens. What is Pakistan going to offer?
Why not concentrate chip (dont care about design) manufacturing in China?

However, the idea of having a back up chip supply is valid

Overbom said:

No hard feelings to Pakistan but chips are the new oil. We are talking about digital OPEC here.

This should be viewed from a strategic lens. What is Pakistan going to offer?
Why not concentrate chip (dont care about design) manufacturing in China?

However, the idea of having a back up chip supply is valid

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Chips aren't oil because they can be manufactured while oil can't.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Chips aren't oil because they can be manufactured while oil can't.

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I meant it in a strategic way. Like oil is a strategic "weapon" which can be used to choke an economy to the ground, the same is for chips

A country without chips is a dead economy.
I am not against setting up chip foundries in Pakistan but my question is what would Pakistan offer to acquire such an extremely valuable thing.

gelgoog said:

Anything better than 28nm is way too expensive. If Pakistan wants to dip its toes into fabrication they shouldn't jump into the high end.
In fact they should likely stick with ArF dry lithography machines. Then they can just license the process from someone else.
They need to figure out some applications and then make the design teams around that. The other option would be to fund universities to work on experimental projects and fab them somewhere else until the fabrication facilities become available.

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Anything better than 180nm is too expensive.

Overbom said:

I meant it in a strategic way. Like oil is a strategic "weapon" which can be used to choke an economy to the ground, the same is for chips

A country without chips is a dead economy.

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They can't even choke Russia from chips. They might be able to choke some small African or Latin American countries but they could choke them with anything.

FairAndUnbiased said:

They can't even choke Russia from chips

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They can't because China would laugh all the way to the bank and just help Russia

However my point remains. Countries who have independent chip capabilities are the West and China.
And we have seen how advanced chips were used as a weapon against China. This shows how important they are.

They are not freely traded but instead used a strategic resource where even with all the money in the world you can't buy them if the supplier is against you

Overbom said:

They can't because China would laugh all the way to the bank and just help Russia

However my point remains. Countries who have independent chip capabilities are the West and China.
And we have seen how advanced chips were used as a weapon against China. This shows how important they are.

They are not freely traded but instead used a strategic resource where even with all the money in the world you can't buy them if the supplier is against you

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Russia has a somewhat independent semiconductor industry from the Soviet era but is severely lacking in lithography. They still use mostly equivalents of 1980s Canon tools with mercury lamps that are typically only used for packaging and analog in China. Their most advanced 65 nm fab uses ASML.

However they do have domestic deposition equipment and tech for mature nodes at 180-350 nm which is sufficient for aerospace.

Most countries aren't like China with a large consumer and industrial electronics industry. They just buy the finished products. Semiconductor devices aren't used directly or anywhere close to directly, you still need to design a PCB and mate it to display, analog IO, power management, etc.

Their best option is for now to stay closer to the i-line (365nm)-(800nm-250nm) ICs , discrete components and focus on reliability to serve their consumer electronics, power, mixed signal, auto and military sectors. Those process are mature enough and the equipment is mature. Will still be an expensive adventure and the failure probability will still be high but will be much much less expensive and risky than trying anything below 180nm for now.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Russia has a somewhat independent semiconductor industry from the Soviet era but is severely lacking in lithography. They still use mostly equivalents of 1980s Canon tools with mercury lamps that are typically only used for packaging and analog in China. Their most advanced 65 nm fab uses ASML.

However they do have domestic deposition equipment and tech for mature nodes at 180-350 nm which is sufficient for aerospace.

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Yes I know that they retain some low level chip capabilities. I was mainly talking about the consumer sector where the big money is made.

I think we can all agree that in the modern world, economies are increasingly becoming reliant on chips. Without chips, is basically the same as without oil these days, that's how important they are.

Anyway, my point is that setting up fabs (if its very old tech, then its ok) in Pakistan should be rather viewed from a strategic/diplomatic perspective and less from an economic perspective

Overbom said:

Yes I know that they retain some low level chip capabilities. I was mainly talking about the consumer sector where the big money is made.

I think we can all agree that in the modern world, economies are increasingly becoming reliant on chips. Without chips, is basically the same as without oil these days, that's how important they are.

Anyway, my point is that setting up fabs (if its very old tech, then its ok) in Pakistan should be rather viewed from a strategic/diplomatic perspective and less from an economic perspective

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It's still a good strategic move because it creates a South Asian competitor to India that can't be bullied easily. It would be better to give it to Bangladesh (bigger economy and still very close to China) but Bangladesh is militarily too weak to avoid Indian bullying and has no land connection with China.

Pakistani fabs that require Chinese input will be able to drive an electronics industry (mostly for things like the analog electronics used in appliances and cars) which would increase their prestige in South Asia and the Middle East. At the same time they will boost Chinese equipment companies which is where the strategic power is held, not the fabs themselves. Most of all, it doesn't conflict much with Chinese semiconductor exports which will focus more on mid and high end products rather than power/analog