Chinese semiconductor industry

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pbd456

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@hvpc Bro sorry for the late reply, wife ask me to accompany her for grocery, so I had to comply....lol here is @Oldschool respond to your question and I said it again SMIC dual approach is the best solution, Your argument holds merits , like @weig2000 had previously stated, it can use ASML equipment while waiting for the domestic alternative to mature. This year is the expected introduction of the domestic 14nm line, which Huawei hope the Beijing SMIC can FAB their 14nm 3D chiplet. Now I don't know IF Washington DC can sanction a whole company IF a subsidiary within legal Prudence (non usage of US equipment and materials) supply Huawei.

Oldschool

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Today at 1:55 PMNew
My answer to hvpc question on Beijing SMIC JV


ASML DUV is non US .
It was few years back, that Huawei was banned under Trump, it cannot use US tech to manufacture it's chips.

At that time, Beijing SMIC was planned. It was expected to pick up Huawei business, and therefore explicit demand for non US equipments.
I read somewhere in the news back then, you might want to dig around for that. Few years ago.

Actually other fabs use more domestic equipments and it just that SMIC don't trust them and never really qualify them.

So, Beijing JV demanded SMIC to qualify more domestic equipments and have to be non US so it can service the likes of Huawei. ASML is non US, so it shouldnt be a problem.
2050i uses the light source from cymer, right?

How about 2000i?
 

huemens

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2050i uses the light source from cymer, right?

How about 2000i?

Gigaphoton is also an option.
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GT66A is now certified as a light source for the latest ARF immersion lithography equipment NXT:2050i by ASML, the leading Dutch company, and mass production and shipment of the light source to end-users will now commence.
 

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
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I disagree @FairAndUnbiased.

scanners are high precision tools that needs to be handled very delicately. Even immersion system takes a bigger crew of riggers and facilities team to move. The scale is way bigger than taking delivery of a etch depo or metro systems. It’s hard for people not to notice of delivery of such system.
And once in a fab, there’s traffic in the litho bay.
Between the truckers, riggers, facilities crew, engineers, technicians, operators, engineers from other vendors, and even admins that has record of SMEE personnel’s entering.
it’s hard to keep it a secret. Someone body would say something and leak the news.

maybe I’m speaking of experience from time at a higher profile fab and is different from others’ experience, but when we move in a scanner, people in the industry knows without we having to announce it. News travel fast in the semi circle. I think this SMIC JV is also high profile and wouldn’t rule out if people are watching for activities at this fab, too.
There are cranes and riggers and trucks all over China, how do you who's moving what? Why isn't there "news" when ASML scanners are installed? There's no chatter when SMIC installs ASML equipment, why should there be when it installs SMEE equipment?
Gigaphoton is also an option.
Guowang is also an option.
 

vinnan

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Unfortunately I'd also tend to agree here.

SMIC Beijing JV will start production in 2024, so till now no equipment should be already in. The FAB will be a modern 28nm plant with expected capacity of 100,000 12-inch wafers per month.

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It is a huge capacity to totally rely on localized equipment. It would be a huge (and somewhat crazy) bet going 100% local as first attempt on such a big fab.

There is also a geopolitical consideration too. Once you go 100% local on an advanced FAB, you cross a red line from US point of view, they will start to really freak out and you don't know what the reaction will be. So better to do such a step with your shoulders fully covered already.
They are already freaking out over China. I think you do not understand the Chinese see themselves in the precipice of a monumental change to their semiconductor industry. They also know that short of being broken completely like Japan the US will never stop attacking Taiwan.
 

tokenanalyst

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Red Sun Optoelectronics: Helping "Double Carbon! Red Sun 210 Large Size Microcrystalline Heterojunction PECVD Equipment Shipped"

On April 10th, the 210 large-scale microcrystalline heterojunction PECVD equipment developed by Red Sun Optoelectronics Co., Ltd. was officially sent to the customer's factory. Another new milestone, marking a major breakthrough in the "CVD+PVD" dual-core traction strategic layout of the company in the field of heterojunctions.

Under the support of the platform of the National Photovoltaic Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center, the company has been committed to the research and development of heterojunction PECVD equipment. In the past two years, it has successively launched the first-generation principle machine, the second-generation quasi-mass production machine and the third-generation machine this time. The main machine adopts the I-IN-P structure combination and is matched with the overall automation solution. The equipment adopts a modular design, which has all aspects such as self-adaptive and rapid control of silicon wafer temperature, rapid increase of super-large area carrier, rapid response of RF feed, large-area multi-layer air distribution spray plate, and capacitive coupling RF plasma field uniformity control. With unique design and intellectual property layout, it can realize single-sided or double-sided microcrystalline process, help customers achieve 25%+ high efficiency goals, and release the green value of heterojunction cells.

At the same time, Red Sun PVD equipment has also been reported frequently. The key technical indicators of the equipment are leading the industry, and they have successively won orders from leading enterprises. Red Sun will further consolidate the technical foundation, focus on the localization of high-end photovoltaic equipment of heterojunction, and promote the cost reduction and efficiency increase and high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.

1651589581263.png

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FairAndUnbiased

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I disagree @FairAndUnbiased.

scanners are high precision tools that needs to be handled very delicately. Even immersion system takes a bigger crew of riggers and facilities team to move. The scale is way bigger than taking delivery of a etch depo or metro systems. It’s hard for people not to notice of delivery of such system.
And once in a fab, there’s traffic in the litho bay.
Between the truckers, riggers, facilities crew, engineers, technicians, operators, engineers from other vendors, and even admins that has record of SMEE personnel’s entering.
it’s hard to keep it a secret. Someone body would say something and leak the news.

maybe I’m speaking of experience from time at a higher profile fab and is different from others’ experience, but when we move in a scanner, people in the industry knows without we having to announce it. News travel fast in the semi circle. I think this SMIC JV is also high profile and wouldn’t rule out if people are watching for activities at this fab, too.
I really don't know about that, especially the gossip part. I don't talk about my work to my family in specifics because they don't understand. If someone says "yeah we installed a big machine at work" it can be anything, and "yeah we installed an SMEE ArF immersion lithography tool" will be met with "?????" from people outside the industry. Just another example: some people occasionally go to the subfab facilities to check in on say, an online gas analyzer for spot troubleshooting. But despite the subfab being critical and huge, 99% of the public doesn't know it exists and doesn't even understand that subfab is the word to describe it.

More concrete example: a jet is big, it's loud, yet they're tested in absolute secrecy all the time.

I understand that a lithography system is large and complicated. But it's also broken down into smaller boxes and installed inside a critical part of the cleanroom. Whose gonna see it? How many of those people are gonna realistically talk especially if told not to? Of the people that do, whose gonna mention it to a reporter or a technical person that takes it to a reporter?
 

luosifen

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The company being talked about has a website:
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'Shanghai Institute of IC Materials (SICM) is an innovative platform for the development and commercialization of IC materials, and was co-founded by Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and National Silicon Industry Group Co., Ltd.

SICM focuses expertise on substrate materials and process materials. It has extensive capabilities and R&D programs in 300mm wafer, silicon on insulator (SOI), advanced lithography material, photomask, polishing material, wet chemical, gases, etc. SICM also dedicated to the construction of IC Materials Microanalysis Platform and IC Materials Genome Platform, which aims to accelerate and expand IC materials innovation and deployment.'

I'm guessing this isn't one of the leading edge semiconductor companies in China but provides key materials for downstream processes?
 

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
Guowang plan to mass produce lithography optics not light sources, you mean RSLaser, but both belong to same investment group (Beijing E-Town), if that is the case the problem will be how to seamless make the Arf light sources of RSLaser work with ASML scanners and I don't think that will be a trivial task.
Why make an ArF laser that works with ASML scanners? The lasers just need to work with the SSA800 and its successor machine(s).
 

tokenanalyst

Brigadier
Registered Member
I really don't know about that, especially the gossip part. I don't talk about my work to my family in specifics because they don't understand. If someone says "yeah we installed a big machine at work" it can be anything, and "yeah we installed an SMEE ArF immersion lithography tool" will be met with "?????" from people outside the industry. Just another example: some people occasionally go to the subfab facilities to check in on say, an online gas analyzer for spot troubleshooting. But despite the subfab being critical and huge, 99% of the public doesn't know it exists and doesn't even understand that subfab is the word to describe it.

More concrete example: a jet is big, it's loud, yet they're tested in absolute secrecy all the time.

I understand that a lithography system is large and complicated. But it's also broken down into smaller boxes and installed inside a critical part of the cleanroom. Whose gonna see it? How many of those people are gonna realistically talk especially if told not to? Of the people that do, whose gonna mention it to a reporter or a technical person that takes it to a reporter?
1651593426792.png

Exactly, just look at this ion implanter delivered by Kingstone, looks as big as lithography scanner if not bigger and if they hadn't done a ceremony announcing the delivery of the equipment, we would never have known that it was delivered, and what's more is that we didn't even know what a fab this is. It may be SMIC. but we are not going to know it is secret and apparently no information has leaked where this equipment is installed.
 
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