Chinese semiconductor industry

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gelgoog

Lieutenant General
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Well that is news to me. Remains to be seen if Intel won't blow it though.
Intel's process engineers have always been shite at cooperating with third parties to make viable processes for a foundry.
AFAIK Tower Semiconductor licenses processes from 3rd party companies like STMicro. So where will the economies of scale come from? It seems to be an aggregation of two businesses which won't mesh well with each other. Probably just to be used to capture all the government aid money that is being splashed around for semi projects at this moment.
 

FairAndUnbiased

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Again, if it needs the level of accuracy of FE iline scanners, our industry would've simply take a FE 4x iline scanner and put in a 2x reduction lens and be done with. But why wasn't this done? smaller "nm" come at higher tool price, which wouldn't be ideal for even advanced packaging litho tool. The biggest challenge of advanced packaging is trying to keep the cost under control and closer to the traditional packaging.

TSV HAR etch is still not as difficult. Look at price delta between TSV etcher and CCP/ICP etcher. Yes, HAR not easy, but DRAM capacitor is also relatively high aspect ratio (not as high as TSV) but much smaller in size and much denser. Different challenge, but again, difficulty is rewarded with higher tool price. The price is supporting evidence of the degree of difficulty.
TSV ~5um
DRAM storage node: <40nm now

As "advanced" as packaging go, it's still operates in a completely different physical size range. Here's a visual to show TSV vs. HAR DRAM capacitors (which you can't even see on the stack of DRAM chips on top because it's too small). The $ spent on FE vs BE is also very telling in which is more complex. Again, I'm not bashing and saying BE flow is not difficult or challenging, I'm just saying it's less so compared to the amount of work/innovation required to meet FE requirements.
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Putting a 2x reducer on a FE tool is indeed wasteful. But you also don't just use old depreciated FE tools for BE work, showing it isn't purely a tool cost consideration. That's all I'm saying.
 

ThatNiceType055

Junior Member
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Great thread!

What is currently the most advanced chip, that can be bought either directly or inside a product, that is purely Chinese, in the sense that it is designed with open source or Chinese design software and produced with Chinese equipment or equipment that is outside the reach of American sanction power?

At one point there was internet chatter about a HiSilicon display driver chip made using a local 28nm process.

Anyone know the status of this?
Probably Loongson 3A/B5000? There are some Loongson 3A/B4000 and 3A/B5000 chipset laptop and PC and server avalible on JD and Taobao. These computers run Linux OS, and can run some software developed for Windows using Wine.
 
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hvpc

Junior Member
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Putting a 2x reducer on a FE tool is indeed wasteful. But you also don't just use old depreciated FE tools for BE work, showing it isn't purely a tool cost consideration. That's all I'm saying.
agree. cost is not the only concern. Advanced packaging will bring forth need to deal with warped wafers from stacking chips or wafers. this is something that FE tools didn't have to deal with. But this could be addressed with known capabilities used by FE scanners. The question is how much to port back from FE scanners without breaking the bank.
 

mrandolph

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Probably Loongson 3A/B5000? There are some Loongson 3A/B4000 and 3A/B5000 chipset laptop and PC and server avalible on JD and Taobao. These computers run Linux OS, and can run some software developed for Windows using Wine.
But are these chips not manufactured using SMIC or another fab using equipment from ASML and other Western suppliers?
 

ThatNiceType055

Junior Member
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But are these chips not manufactured using SMIC or another fab using equipment from ASML and other Western suppliers?
Not sure about the fab for 3A/B5000, 3A/B4000 is 28nm, theoretically there should be no problem for SMIC. Essentially Loongson is a fabless company, so manufacturing depends on other company or department, whether domestic or not.
 

mrandolph

New Member
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Not sure about the fab for 3A/B5000, 3A/B4000 is 28nm, theoretically there should be no problem for SMIC. Essentially Loongson is a fabless company, so manufacturing depends on other company or department, whether domestic or not.
But SMIC relies on ASML and other Western suppliers; is that not correct?

I am curious for something that is designed and fabbed purely with local tech.
 

ThatNiceType055

Junior Member
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But SMIC relies on ASML and other Western suppliers; is that not correct?

I am curious for something that is designed and fabbed purely with local tech.
Yes, you are correct, SMIC rely on ASML's DUV, and it is baned from buying ASML's EUV.

Something fully fabbed with Chinese tech, probably something used on rockets or military equipment? That would be classified and certainly not avalible on the market for regular consumer to buy.
 
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