Chinese semiconductor industry

european_guy said:

From the article:

"the products of Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA in an attempt to identify workable export controls under which less advanced tools that are no use for cutting-edge manufacturing might still be sold to China, while more advanced tools would still be prohibited"

This won't work because less advanced tools from the American trio are already almost fully localized (etchers, CVD yes for sure)....and hence plan B:

"The proposal hinges on getting America’s allies—in particular Japan and the Netherlands, home to Tokyo Electron and ASML—to enforce the same export controls on their toolmakers."

They realized that if Japan end Europe keep selling their equipment, US alone can't get through it. In some ways it resembles what happened with Huawei, where after more than 1 year trying, at the end only forcing TSMC, a non US company, to stop producing for Huawei, proved effective.

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european_guy said:

I foresee that in 2 years time, by 2024 / 2025, Chinese manufacturers will have mostly close the gap in etching, cvd, wet processing, thermal processing.

I foresee that in 2 years time only state of the art lithography will remain outside of Chinese reach. Indeed the gap will widen compared to today because a bigger share of advanced production will rely on EUV, and ASML will manufacture its second generation high NA EXE:5200 EUV machine.

So

1. For whatever SMEE litho machine will be available in 2025, Chinese manufacturers will be able to build a fully localized FAB around it.

2. The gap between state-of-the-art FAB and Chinese FAB will be wider than today. IOW the technological gap between SMIC and TSMC will be wider than today, because TSMC will possibly use EXE:5200, while SMIC cannot improve due to limitations in acquiring advanced litho machines.

3. For 2024/2025 the only way US can block China development is on forcing ASML. Limiting exports of any other Japanese or American manufacturer will be mostly ineffective.

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antiterror13 said:

Interesting prediction, but it seems logical to me, how about in 2025 to 2030 ? which I 'd predict China would be able to crack EUV, possibly with revolutionary SSMB light source a few yrs later

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antiterror13 said:

Interesting prediction, but it seems logical to me, how about in 2025 to 2030 ? which I 'd predict China would be able to crack EUV, possibly with revolutionary SSMB light source a few yrs later

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pbd456 said:

ASML has said that memory makers have ordered EUV for their critical layers. How will it affect YMTC? How dense can the memory layer get without EUV if the overlay accuracy for the DUV can be as low as 2nm?

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AssassinsMace said:

There's an assumption that journalists do their due diligence in writing articles. They make sure to dot their "i"s and cross their "t"s. No they don't. It's like what I've noted before in this forum where there was a story that said Chinese were buying up French vineyards that outraged the French. Multiple other articles afterwards said the same things. One wine journalist was going to write a story too but then decided he was going to fly to France to see himself if this were happening. He found out nothing of the sort was happening. So it only takes one lying journalist to make up a story and then other journalists will write stories themselves based that original article without ever checking to see if it was true because they all wanted to believe it. My question is how do they think the US can stop China just from stopping the West from selling the tools to China? How did they come up with these tools themselves? It's because they're going on the assumption only white people with the superior genetic intelligence can create these tools. Why is there such a thing as intellectual property? It's because it's the only thing out there that prevents someone from copying that technology for themselves. If something like that could be kept secret and prevent others from copying, you wouldn't need intellectual property rights. In order for someone to claim intellectual property, they have to show how it's done in order to establish in a society of laws that someone used the same exact methods and copied it. There's not only one way to do things in most things. So if someone finds another way of doing something, they can't claim IP theft. Google came up with what is said to be the beginnings of a quantum computer. Then China came up with their own equivalent but it uses a totally new different system that uses lasers and mirrors. Just because Google came up with a quantum computer first, does it mean they hold the intellectual property to anything called a quantum computer and China stole it from them even though it's an entirely different process? There's no byline on this article so it's safe to assume it was written by editors of the Economist that know nothing about science and engineering and are going by what many Westerners want to believe that it's about genetic superiority to believe China has to get the tools from them in order to deny them and not just the Chinese can come up with it on their own. If that were the case, why are they worried about China's rise in technology if inferior genetics will stop the Chinese on its own?

Remember when China started to develop aircraft carriers, the West said it takes 40 years to master aircraft carriers so China shouldn't bother. Was it because the West were good fellas giving China sage advice? No, they were just trying to stop China from building aircraft carriers.

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european_guy said:

2. The gap between state-of-the-art FAB and Chinese FAB will be wider than today. IOW the technological gap between SMIC and TSMC will be wider than today, because TSMC will possibly use EXE:5200, while SMIC cannot improve due to limitations in acquiring advanced litho machines.

Click to expand...

european_guy said:

I foresee that in 2 years time, by 2024 / 2025, Chinese manufacturers will have mostly close the gap in etching, cvd, wet processing, thermal processing.

I foresee that in 2 years time only state of the art lithography will remain outside of Chinese reach. Indeed the gap will widen compared to today because a bigger share of advanced production will rely on EUV, and ASML will manufacture its second generation high NA EXE:5200 EUV machine.

So

1. For whatever SMEE litho machine will be available in 2025, Chinese manufacturers will be able to build a fully localized FAB around it.

2. The gap between state-of-the-art FAB and Chinese FAB will be wider than today. IOW the technological gap between SMIC and TSMC will be wider than today, because TSMC will possibly use EXE:5200, while SMIC cannot improve due to limitations in acquiring advanced litho machines.

3. For 2024/2025 the only way US can block China development is on forcing ASML. Limiting exports of any other Japanese or American manufacturer will be mostly ineffective.

Click to expand...

european_guy said:

I foresee that in 2 years time, by 2024 / 2025, Chinese manufacturers will have mostly close the gap in etching, cvd, wet processing, thermal processing.

I foresee that in 2 years time only state of the art lithography will remain outside of Chinese reach. Indeed the gap will widen compared to today because a bigger share of advanced production will rely on EUV, and ASML will manufacture its second generation high NA EXE:5200 EUV machine.

Click to expand...