Chinese semiconductor industry

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tonyget

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From your own source:

Gas dispenser showerhead (table 25): hole layer count is the only difference but the specifications overlap. Other difference is using or not using LPC leach measurements. But this is just a tiny part of the cost of the showerhead and LPC is ez pz to do.

Structural components (table 27): only qualitative difference, they aren't able to elucidate a quantitative difference. All they say is "even lower Ra values" or something. This sounds like promotion of their products rather than a hard standard tbh.

Reactors (table 24): almost no different between 28 nm and 14 nm or even 7 nm. Only requirement is to clean in 100 class rather than 1000 class cleanroom.

How would you know that these distinctions are insignificant?Equipment suppliers have very strict requirement of components. Something of purity 99.9% vs purity 99.99% might sounds not much different, but in reality with each 9 added in the back the cost increase exponentially.
 

henrik

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@european_guy bro TSMC may go to China IF China deliver an EUVL, the thing is TSMC maybe planning a Chinese subsidiary, they're cautious cause they already had invested huge amount on ASML EUVL and being a market leader they have to recoup its investments. From looks of thing they're trying to delay the Arizona FAB construction, maybe the promise gov't subsidies didn't materialized or are feeling the wind of change regarding geopolitics. With Intel the only customer of the new ASML high NA EUVL, it's a hint that maybe TSMC had other plans and by not buying and investing maybe they have seen something that we don't, that a possible Chinese FAB with Chinese EUVL, who knows.
Are the Chinese hinting to TSMC, that they will have Chinese EUV technology ready soon?
 

ansy1968

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Are the Chinese hinting to TSMC, that they will have Chinese EUV technology ready soon?
@henrik bro to reply they maybe viewing this thread for info...lol, joking aside we speak the same language, read Chinese publication and they have a FAB in Nanjing. Many Taiwanese compatriots work in Chinese IC company and many are former TSMC employees. A Chinese EUVL is a given, When? that is the question, everybody including the Taiwanese expect 2025, so why not delay the Arizona FAB so they can leverage their advantage with a FAB in China. We may see a change of gov't in both Taipei and Washington DC anyway. You know TSMC is ASML premium customer, for them not to commit to this ASML High NA EUVL is telling.

And one more thing, SMEE need a lot of experience FAB to certify ,improve and worked on their machine, that's what happen between TSMC and ASML and how they conquer and defeat Japan Nikon and Canon and become number 1. SMEE is under sanction so TSMC need a Chinese subsidiary to circumvent it. Or maybe they can buy SMIC, Hua hong or Huali, cause for them there is much to lose, losing your number one market and having your tech harvested is not an option
 
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FairAndUnbiased

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How would you know that these distinctions are insignificant?Equipment suppliers have very strict requirement of components. Something of purity 99.9% vs purity 99.99% might sounds not much different, but in reality with each 9 added in the back the cost increase exponentially.
I never said insignificant, I said unquantifiable. Why are you putting words in my mouth? Where did I ever use the term insignificant?

They did not specify a number at all for many of their specifications, it is unquantifiable by definition.

What is the quantitative difference between "不锈钢超高光洁度“ vs "不锈钢超高光洁度制造”? What is the quantitative improvement in “Ra达到更低水平?” 0.1% better? 100% better?

Yes I know equipment manufacturers have strict requirement of components. There's standards for particle counting/organic leach/surface analysis for all suppliers, some also have an outgassing standard either by QMS or ASTM 595E. But those component requirements, as specified by the buyers, are not divided by process node. They're divided by component environment i.e. wet process vs. rough vacuum/gas vs. high vacuum. For instance SEMI F19 standard is irrelevant for UHV but vitally important for fluid handling components.

In addition, why did they have a timeline with times that didn't match date of first introduction of process? That is even further proof that its an internally focused document on progress, not of standards.

Can you prove that there is No distinct category of 14 nm only and 28 nm only equipment?
Sure, I absolutely can. If a more advanced process than 14 nm can use equipment from a less advanced process than 28 nm, then that proves that 28 nm and 14 nm processes can use interchangable equipment.

This paper shows 5 nm gate all around (GAA) process structures produced with 1990's PECVD equipment and 2000's ICP etch on 200 mm wafers. This equipment was built for 180 nm process which was state of the art at the time. If 180 nm equipment from 1990's can produce 5 nm GAA structures, then 28 nm and 14 nm are even more similar.

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Stacked SiGe/Si structures are widely used as the units for gate-all-around nanowire transistors (GAA NWTs) which are a promising candidate beyond fin field effective transistors (FinFETs) technologies in near future. These structures deal with a several challenges brought by the shrinking of device dimensions. The preparation of inner spacers is one of the most critical processes for GAA nano-scale transistors. This study focuses on two key processes: inner spacer film conformal deposition and accurate etching. The results show that low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) silicon nitride has a good film filling effect; a precise and controllable silicon nitride inner spacer structure is prepared by using an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) tool and a new gas mixtures of CH2F2/CH4/O2/Ar. Silicon nitride inner spacer etch has a high etch selectivity ratio, exceeding 100:1 to Si and more than 30:1 to SiO2. High anisotropy with an excellent vertical/lateral etch ratio exceeding 80:1 is successfully demonstrated. It also provides a solution to the key process challenges of nano-transistors beyond 5 nm node.

Step 4: For the cavity formed in the step 3, PECVD (AMAT Producer 200 mm(Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA )) and low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) (AMAT Centura 200 (Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA )) equipments were used to grow 40 nm SiN in the filling experiments.
Step 5: Finally, the prepared samples were etched in an ICP tool (TCP 9400DFM (Lam Research Inc., Fremont, CA, USA)), where a gas mixture of CH2F2/O2/CH4/Ar and a chuck temperature of 80 °C were used. The research focuses on the effects of etching process parameters on selection ratio, anisotropy (vertical/lateral etch ratio) and etch morphology.
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tphuang

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I'm actually surprised it has taken this long for Russia to shut off neon gas export to "unfriendly countries". Although given the demise of Ingas and shutdown of Cryoin, the neon production is probably way down. I would imagine most of the recent neon production has been out of China. Maybe Russia can increase its own production.

According to my friend in Taiwan, he said TSMC probably has enough neon for a year, so they are not in immediate trouble at all. It does make me wonder which non-Chinese fabs are running low on neon. I would guess mostly smaller/medium ones that don't have the resources to store large amount of neon. We are likely to see further chip shortage over the next year. That Ukrainian production could be gone forever if Russia accomplishes its goal of taking Odessa and making Ukraine a land locked country.
 

Franklin

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I'm actually surprised it has taken this long for Russia to shut off neon gas export to "unfriendly countries". Although given the demise of Ingas and shutdown of Cryoin, the neon production is probably way down. I would imagine most of the recent neon production has been out of China. Maybe Russia can increase its own production.

According to my friend in Taiwan, he said TSMC probably has enough neon for a year, so they are not in immediate trouble at all. It does make me wonder which non-Chinese fabs are running low on neon. I would guess mostly smaller/medium ones that don't have the resources to store large amount of neon. We are likely to see further chip shortage over the next year. That Ukrainian production could be gone forever if Russia accomplishes its goal of taking Odessa and making Ukraine a land locked country.
Not that big of a deal. Ukraine isn't the only source in the world for neon gas. I'm sure TSMC and other fabs are looking for alternative sources outside of Ukraine.
 
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