Chinese semiconductor industry

tokenanalyst said:

I think their had been selling their i-line and their KrF for while, i even had seen some photos of production sites in China were one of the Scanners match their frontend offerings, the problem is because they are not a public company and the owners are the Shanghai electric group, SMEE is pretty obscure about sales of their products. Nobody knows really how much SMEE sell.
There have been announcement and rumors over the immersion scanner since early 2020, doing my research, i think they are developing an immersion system from a while back and the development had REALLY accelerated after the sanctions, some companies have been set for this project to mass produce subsystems and parts not only for the immersion scanner but also for the other systems they have. I Think SMEE planning to do an upgrade to all their systems, the SSB520 was an upgrade from the SSB500 with better resolution and accuracy. Others may follow.
The EUV issue just my conviction that they are putting an herculean effort to develop an EUV scanner, there has been a big output of immersion lithography patents in 2020-2021 by the lithography companies in China but not papers by research institutes, now they are just publishing EUV papers like the ones i posted before, so i just guessing that they could have a prototype by 2025. But even that could put a lot of pressure to ASML to ship their low NA EUV to China, who have fought hard to secure the Chinese market.
I think Export controls are usually adjusted depending potential of China of developing something, if not the best Scanner that China would have been allow to import would be a KrF scanner.

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I am not 100% sure about anything in life but that is just how i view the situation. So don't pay to much attention to us we are just a group of enthusiasts.

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Thanks for your detailed explanation.

BTW, at one point in time ASML was thinking about working with SMEE, where ASML will focus on high-end systems and will license their know-how to SMEE to build the low-end systems. That never materialized. Picture you shared was to kick-off their collaboration. But like I said, it didn't go any where beyond this kick-off meeting.

As for SMEE's current product offering. They are able to build and capture market share for iLine and some Krf for the backend packaging application. In this space, the imaging requirement and placement accuracy are not so critical. This is not a space that ASML plays in. ASML's systems, even the iLine are all scanners (not steppers) and are used for front-end wafer manufacturing which has much much tighter imaging and placement accuracy.

SMEE does claim they have FEOL systems...the 600s. They had shipped a couple of them before but where all returned to them (not put into production). My ex-colleague that's in SMEE told me they will attempt again to place these low end systems into FEOL application this year. I think SMEE's FEOL iLine system will be shipped to SMIC, HuaHong (Grace + HLMC), CXMT, & YMTC...expectation there is these will be used, at least, for the most low-end iLine step in FEOL. I think this system's adoption this year for volume production is solid and will definitely happen.

As for the immersion system...my contacts in the industry in china are not so positive. We all believe, SMEE will be able to integrate all the parts together to produce systems that can image a wafer, but probably not good enough for production. I heard from second hand information that even SMEE don't think their system could work for production this year. Anyhow, this is just what i heard from talking to people that are work closely on litho R&D and production. From what I see, most of the hype is from the netizens...even SMEE are quite silent on this.

I for one, hope the likes of SMIC works on growing higher margin mature processes. Investing in high-end nodes are very costly. I'm biased because I want SMIC to make money so I can reap profit from my SMIC stocks.

tokenanalyst said:

IDK if SMEE can but others sub-systems providers could, from my POV looks like SMEE is just acting as a integrator. Like i say before we here is this entire forum not 100% know about anything, here we just scout the surface of an ocean from the beach and that apply to everything. So do not pay to much attention to us we are just enthusiasts.

The fear of U.S. sanctions is fueling the drive of China semiconductor industry. Only time will tell.
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Understood.

Like I said before, I work in the semi industry and have been investing heavily in semiconductor industry for the last 30years.

My experience spans 0.35um all the way down to 3nm for both equipment companies and leading fabs in the world. Hopefully I can provide a different perspective to this group.

ansy1968 said:

@hvpc Shanghai in collaboration with ICRD, From engadget.com from the excerpt below:

Huawei might have a way to avoid some of the worst consequences of

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, provided it’s willing to be patient. Financial Times

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claim Huawei is planning a dedicated chip factory in Shanghai that would make parts for its core telecom infrastructure business. It would be run by a partner, the city-backed Shanghai IC R&D Center, and would be considered experimental until it’s ready to make chips Huawei can use.

The plant would start by making chips based on a very old 45-nanometer process before moving to 28nm chips by late 2021. That would be advanced enough to make chips for smart TVs and Internet of Things devices, the tipsters said. It would reach 20nm by late 2022, when it could make “most” of its 5G cellular hardware.

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Nov 1, 2020 — Financial Times sources claim Huawei is planning a dedicated chip factory in Shanghai that would make parts for its core telecom infrastructure ...

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Yes. I know ICRD.

This news is true based on what I know. I was told ICRD will even buy an asml system to help qualify domestic system (I think this means SMEE's immersion system). But ICRD is a research center, will not have enough capacity to support Huawei's chip needs. I think ICRD should have no trouble with 28nm process...but they do not have experience with 16nm or below...YET.

hvpc said:

SMEE does claim they have FEOL systems...the 600s. They had shipped a couple of them before but where all returned to them (not put into production). My ex-colleague that's in SMEE told me they will attempt again to place these low end systems into FEOL application this year. I think SMEE's FEOL iLine system will be shipped to SMIC, HuaHong (Grace + HLMC), CXMT, & YMTC...expectation there is these will be used, at least, for the most low-end iLine step in FEOL. I think this system's adoption this year for volume production is solid and will definitely happen.

As for the immersion system...my contacts in the industry in china are not so positive. We all believe, SMEE will be able to integrate all the parts together to produce systems that can image a wafer, but probably not good enough for production. I heard from second hand information that even SMEE don't think their system could work for production this year. Anyhow, this is just what i heard from talking to people that are work closely on litho R&D and production. From what I see, most of the hype is from the netizens...even SMEE are quite silent on this.

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Positive or not, SMEE has been pretty secretive about all this, including their supply chain, dealing with fabs and research so i don't think many people had information about what SMEE is doing except for what you can find in the internet, very different from other Chinese SME companies. As far as i know when they launched their first prototype ArF DUV scanner in 2011 was only capable of 50WPH my guess they did almost everything themselves except for a few key components, looking to their paper their wafer stage was not very precise probably limiting the application of the Scanner. My guess is the most rejections where from that timeline. A lot of subsystem companies for lithography in China has been created since 2013-2014 and because they are focusing in one area of the system my guess that they will be better developing those subsystems than SMEE alone. As far as i know from the companies themselves almost all subsystems of the immersion lithography system has passed verification, so is up to SMEE to integrate those subsystems. From i have seen in their patents SMEE has been working hard on that job. Will they succeed? could be. But we will have to wait. Just announcing the Scanner will create pressure on ASML.

If for some weird reason SMEE can't do the job properly then they should focus only in packaging and other markets and compete with Canon and Vecco and create a new frontend lithography company.

hvpc said:

Understood.

Like I said before, I work in the semi industry and have been investing heavily in semiconductor industry for the last 30years.

My experience spans 0.35um all the way down to 3nm for both equipment companies and leading fabs in the world. Hopefully I can provide a different perspective to this group.

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I hope you don't imagine that because some members have indulged your FUD spreading that you have any credibility here. It's highly suspicious to say the least that you signed up in December 2020 to a defense forum and stayed silent for a year and change, then chose to make your first posts in a marginal thread (by the way, setting your profile to private won't help you, we can still search for posts by member and see your posts no matter your settings). Furthermore, your FUD directly contradicts members who have proved their credibility time and again by posting well-vetted rumours that have eventually proved true.

You claim to have 30 years of experience in the industry and are in touch with insiders all over. Well... put up or shut up. Prove you are who you say you are by posting proof of your identity and work history. I'm sure it's a fascinating one given your journey from 0.35um all the way down to 3nm. If you're concerned about making your identity public, the moderators here are trustworthy people - I'm sure you could relay this information to one of them in private and they could vouch for you.

Until you prove you are who you say you are, you're just another internet rando with tall tales.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I hope you don't imagine that because some members have indulged your FUD spreading that you have any credibility here. It's highly suspicious to say the least that you signed up in December 2020 to a defense forum and stayed silent for a year and change, then chose to make your first posts in a marginal thread (by the way, setting your profile to private won't help you, we can still search for posts by member and see your posts no matter your settings). Furthermore, your FUD directly contradicts members who have proved their credibility time and again by posting well-vetted rumours that have eventually proved true.

You claim to have 30 years of experience in the industry and are in touch with insiders all over. Well... put up or shut up. Prove you are who you say you are by posting proof of your identity and work history. I'm sure it's a fascinating one given your journey from 0.35um all the way down to 3nm. If you're concerned about making your identity public, the moderators here are trustworthy people - I'm sure you could relay this information to one of them in private and they could vouch for you.

Until you prove you are who you say you are, you're just another internet rando with tall tales.

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"i have a friend in the industry", "someone says" or "people that i have talked", yeah is starting to sounds like social media.

Nobody 100% sure about if SMEE will succeed because that will depend of a lot on them and SMEE is a pretty secretive company which not help their reputation, i hope they succeed, but is questionable that someone with 30 years working in equipment manufacturing companies and fabs from 350nm to 3nm would care for a group of enthusiasts posters in a forum. It would be great to have some credentials, some nice links or even maybe some industry "leaks" if connections run deep.

hvpc said:

SMEE does claim they have FEOL systems...the 600s. They had shipped a couple of them before but where all returned to them (not put into production). My ex-colleague that's in SMEE told me they will attempt again to place these low end systems into FEOL application this year. I think SMEE's FEOL iLine system will be shipped to SMIC, HuaHong (Grace + HLMC), CXMT, & YMTC...expectation there is these will be used, at least, for the most low-end iLine step in FEOL. I think this system's adoption this year for volume production is solid and will definitely hap

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The geopolitical problem for YTMC and SMIC is obviously immersion lithography and EUV that will definitely affect their operations and future expansion if U.S. hawks start to tight the nuts so its make more sense that they will be working around the clock with lithography integrators and subsystems manufacturers to get at least an immersion lithography system working.
It will be suicidal for them if they aren't working with lithography companies in China to get a immersion system ready at least for trial production.

latenlazy said:

Tbh I think the SSMB concept is still mostly vaporware and will take time to materialize. But the reason why I think 2025 is a doable, albeit difficult, timeline for China to build their own EUV scanner is because they’ve already built a concept EUV scanner at the Changchun Institute of Optics all the way back in 2017, and seems to already have some prototype options for an industrial grade light source, so most of the work they have left to do just to have something usable is component and system integration. In terms of performance I would expect that such an EUV scanner is unlikely to have the same performance and reliability as ASML’s but if you’re SMIC or another Chinese fab it’s not like you’re swimming in alternatives, and some of the business pains from adopting a less reliable or performant scanner can be mitigated somewhat by government support.

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Yeah. I don't think this technology is ready for production. Definitely won't be ready by 2025.

Besides,

tokenanalyst said:

"i have a friend in the industry", "someone says" or "people that i have talked", yeah is starting to sounds like social media.

Nobody 100% sure about if SMEE will succeed because that will depend of a lot on them and SMEE is a pretty secretive company which not help their reputation, i hope they succeed, but is questionable that someone with 30 years working in equipment manufacturing companies and fabs from 350nm to 3nm would care for a group of enthusiasts posters in a forum. It would be great to have some credentials, some nice links or even maybe some industry "leaks" if connections run deep.

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All your points are valid. I can see why you would suspect what I'm saying.

We can wait until the end of this year to see if there's any confirmation of SMEE's immersion system in production. Then you can judge if I'm speaking the truth or just spreading my own speculations.

So far, I would take what's shared in this forum with a grain of salt and lean toward my assessments. That is, unless someone you all believe to be credible and have semiconductor experience can provide different insight, then I think for the time being I will believe what I had compiled from my industry source.

Again, just sharing my opinion just like the rest of you. Feel free to draw from it or dismiss it.

@hvpc Where in India are you from, and how long before you start spouting off about how shit China is? We know you are just foaming at the mouth at having to act like this.

hvpc said:

Yeah. I don't think this technology is ready for production. Definitely won't be ready by 2025.

Besides,


All your points are valid. I can see why you would suspect what I'm saying.

We can wait until the end of this year to see if there's any confirmation of SMEE's immersion system in production. Then you can judge if I'm speaking the truth or just spreading my own speculations.

So far, I would take what's shared in this forum with a grain of salt and lean toward my assessments. That is, unless someone you all believe to be credible and have semiconductor experience can provide different insight, then I think for the time being I will believe what I had compiled from my industry source.

Again, just sharing my opinion just like the rest of you. Feel free to draw from it or dismiss it.

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Of course this is just a forum. We just post links.

Maybe you are new to this forum or maybe you are not, if you look back in 2020 all the SMEE saga in this forum was the skepticism whatever SMEE was developing a immersion scanner, someone posted a link (not the equalocean one) but a post in a Chinese social media with some weird Chinese subsystems manufacturers, the same post was posted in PDF forum, that turns out to be true, they where not only developing a scanner but they are already in process of patenting it. The new saga is when is going to delivered. I don't know so we just have to wait and see, but my logic says it will be suicidal if SMIC and others are not collaborating with China lithography systems integrators and subsystems manufacturers around the clock to have a immersion system working.