Chinese semiconductor industry

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tokenanalyst

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FairAndUnbiased said:
Wait didn't somebody here say wafer bonding I/O with memory array was a useless and expensive technology done as a cope by YMTC?
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Despite such a backdrop, development is proceeding to raise the number of layers. One major turning point going forward is the adoption of wafer bonding technology to deal with the required high speeds. China's YMTC already uses bonding technology, but among global players, Kioxia plans to build a test line in 2023 (around 30K units in 2Q), followed by mass production in 2024 and Samsung Electronics targets adoption of the technology in 2026. If this bonding technology is adopted, we would expect demand for bonding equipment and silicon wafers to increase. In the case of bonding equipment, Tokyo Electron has a track record of producing standalone bonding systems. However, global NAND makers will aim for integrated solutions, and we believe that Tokyo Electron is developing equipment that offers new functionality such as stealth dicing and thinner wafer grinders.


Wow, basically YMTC is a the forefront of applying this technology to NAND manufacturing

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A good opportunity for U-Precision to advance their bonding equipment.

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tokenanalyst

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Univ. Of Manchester & Shandong Univ.–Synaptic Transistors​


Research paper titled “Synaptic transistors with a memory time tunability over seven orders of magnitude” from researchers at The University of Manchester (UK) and Shandong Technology Center of Nanodevices and Integration, School of Microelectronics, Shandong University, China.
Abstract
“The human brain is capable of short- and long-term memory with retention times ranging from a few seconds to several years. Electrolyte-gated transistors have drawn attention for their potential to mimic synaptic behaviors in neuromorphic applications, but they generally operate at low voltages to avoid instability and, hence, offer limited tunability. Sputtered silicon dioxide electrolytes are utilized in this work to gate indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistors, which offer robust operation at much higher voltages. The synaptic memory behavior is studied under single and multiple pulses and under mild (1 V) and strong stimuli (up to 8 V). The devices are found to be capable of providing an extremely wide range of memory retention time from ∼2 ms to ∼20 000 s, over seven orders of magnitude. Furthermore, based on the experimental data on individual transistors, pattern learning and memorizing functionalities are conceptually demonstrated.”

Yang Ming Fu, Tianye Wei, Joseph Brownless, Long Huang, and Aimin Song , “Synaptic transistors with a memory time tunability over seven orders of magnitude”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 252903 (2022)​
 
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xypher

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American and Asian chipmakers are warning that they will have to delay or scale back investment in the U.S. due to Washington's continued failure to fund the $52 billion CHIPS Act aimed at boosting the domestic semiconductor industry.
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Intel has blamed the act's delay for its decision to indefinitely postpone breaking ground on a $20 billion chip fabrication facility, or fab, in Ohio. The U.S. chip giant originally scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony on July 22.
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Intel compatriot GlobalFoundries, the world's third-largest contract chipmaker, said the fate of CHIPS Act will affect the rate and pace at which the company expands its U.S. manufacturing capacity. GlobalFoundries plans to invest $1 billion to build a chip facility in upstate New York.

Asian chipmakers, meanwhile, argue that the act is vital for them to shift production to the U.S., given the higher operational costs compared with Asia.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has started construction of a $12 billion chip plant in Arizona but, like its U.S. peers, says the speed of construction will depend on U.S. subsidies.
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Taiwan's GlobalWafers, the world's third-largest producer of silicon wafers for chipmaking, announced on June 27 that it will build a $5 billion plant in Texas. Doris Hsu, chair and CEO of the company, implied that U.S. government incentives will be critical if the plant is to materialize.
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european_guy

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wxw456 said:
Is it that time of the year again? I really don't understand their obsession with this thread. It always starts with an article posting accompanied by an exaggerated statement to bait out replies. Then its followed by a tirade of off-topic posts and arguments. The regular contributors to this thread usually just post China related semiconductor tech articles.

I read through the Bloomberg article posted and it doesn't even mention SMEE. The only paragraph even related to lithography machines just mentions 2021 ArFi systems sales by Nikon (4) and ASML (81) in China. Unfortunately the article makes the mistake of quoting Founder Securities and concluding that these are the only machines sold in China (hint SMEE isn't publically traded). Why even quote a Chinese securities company about semiconductors? The obvious media reason is to lend some faux credibility ("It's sourced from China!").

The other source quoted is Alex Capri in the Hinrich Foundation. I read through three of his articles related to the issue and guess what? Not a single mention of SMEE and the myriad of other Chinese semiconductor equipment makers like CETC. I'll list some of the issues:
  • The article has no sales and revenue data for private Chinese semiconductor equipment makers (I wouldn't expect it to). So again another opaque wall where we get to argue about numbers none of us have access to.
  • The author has a very limited understanding of the various Chinese semiconductor equipment makers. The articles only mention NAURA, AMEC and Hwatsing and don't go into any detail about them. In fact many of his sources is just articles from the Nikkei newspaper. Confirming yet again that we and even many "experts" don't have the hard data.
    • (2018)
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    • (2021)
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    • Seriously though the article's sources aren't exactly secret and I expect many members here have already read some of these sources before.
  • Unfortunately the articles many sources are from the 2018-2019 period. Not the author's fault, but just the timing of when the articles were written. China is accelerating investments into the semiconductor industry and we will need several years to see more concrete results. But anyone following this thread knows the steady pace of semiconductor tech developments coming out of China.
    • SMIC revenue: $3.36B (2018), $3.12B (2019), $3.91B (2020), $5.44B (2021). Seems to me SMIC has worked out how to deal with US sanctions.
  • The articles themselves deal more with the legal, business, political and geopolitical consequences, than the technical details.
Also the Bloomberg article says the US is pushing for a DUV ban, but then states:
  • The US Department of Commerce and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment.
  • “The discussion is not new. No decisions have been made and we do not want to speculate or comment on rumors,” an ASML spokeswoman said.
  • The only name we get for this news is Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves during a visit Netherlands and Belgium in May/June.
It seems to just be another feel good article with little substance. Has a DUV ban been discussed already? I bet it has been discussed since 2018 or even earlier, so what has even changed in 2022?
  • His twisted logic is that SMEE somehow fooled the entire West/US into believing it has a DUV machine that is actually "non-existant". "The US didn't ban DUV exports because SMEE fooled everyone!"
  • It is more believable that factions in the US simply want to hamper SMIC with a DUV ban to slow any new expansions (consequences be damned!).
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I agree that probably is just yet another attempt that ASML + NL government will manage to neutralize. This Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves that pushed for the ban does not seem important enough to really make it happen. To make Holland to concede such important ban, US needs to push very hard and with some bigger guy.

Nevertheless the main point is that ASML currently is a "single point of failure" in the supply chain. If ASML is blocked to sell DUV in China, it will mean at least 3/4 years delay before SMEE provides a reliable comparable DUV alternative and it would be a huge blow to China IC companies.

US already realized that banning US equipment companies will not be enough because localization have already almost closed the gap, so ASML is their only chance.

I would expect that Chinese government realizes it too and makes some diplomatic efforts with Holland government to counterbalance US lobbying. Although it is clear that US has a much bigger influence in Europe, nevertheless Chinese government is very powerful and no European country is so fool to ignore it.
 
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tokenanalyst

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european_guy said:
To make Holland to concede such important ban, US needs to push very hard and with some bigger guy.
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Will be really hard to convince the Netherlands and Germany to comply. In this time of economic uncertainty.
european_guy said:
it will mean at least 3/4 years delay before SMEE provides a reliable comparable DUV alternative and it would be a huge blow to China IC companies.
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We don't know how advance their "prototype systems" currently are but anything close to 1980Di will be step closer to something close to the 2050Di because from I had been seeing, parallel to the DUVi efforts they are making a gigantic effort to develop an EUV system as soon as possible so some technologies developed for EUV it could help them to advance their DUVi scanners like in the case of the 2050Di from ASML. It will be a big blow for some companies to expand in the short term. But it could be a bigger blow for ASML if they have to compete in the future in such niche technology like EUV (Just speculating).
european_guy said:
US already realized that banning US equipment companies will not be enough because localization have already almost closed the gap, so ASML is their only chance.
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No, for i have been reading the same hawks that want to ban ASML now still want to ban U.S. equipment companies like KLA-AM and change the rule term for selling from "unique" to "capable off", I don't know if they will succeed because the semiconductor lobby still have some friends in D.C. but U.S companies are running out time until a full blown ban now or of in possible GOP administration.
 
sunnymaxi

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european_guy said:
Nevertheless the main point is that ASML currently is a "single point of failure" in the supply chain. If ASML is blocked to sell DUV in China, it will mean at least 3/4 years delay before SMEE provides a reliable comparable DUV alternative and it would be a huge blow to China IC companies.
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i have read all your massages in this thread. you are wrong here.

in first 6 months of 2022, ASML delivered 24 DUVs to Chinese mainland chip firms. in past 3 years China purchased tons of DUVs from Japan , ASML and second hand machines as well. first time in history China surpassed Taiwan and south Korea to become the largest customer of ASML in 2022. accounts their 34 percent sales. yes 34 percent . ASML also announced to hire 200 engineers for their Shanghai office. China have shit tons of DUVs. let ASML block DUV sales. EU already struggling with economy and inflation and huge pressure on EURO as well. so there will be hardly any affects on China IC companies.

i m little busy right now. but soon will tell you the real progress of indigenous DUV. we have a good news in Q42022 related domestically produce DUV.

so nothing will happen. let ASML block DUV.
 
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tokenanalyst

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sunnymaxi said:
i have read all your massages in this thread. you are wrong here.

in first 6 months of 2022, ASML delivered 24 DUVs to Chinese mainland chip firms. in past 3 years China purchased tons of DUVs from Japan , ASML and second hand machines as well. first time in history China surpassed Taiwan and south Korea to become the largest customer of ASML in 2022. accounts their 34 percent sales. yes 34 percent . ASML also announced to hire 200 engineers for their Shanghai office. China have shit tons of DUVs. let ASML block DUV sales. EU already struggling with economy and inflation and huge pressure on EURO as well. so there will be hardly any affects on China IC companies.

i m little busy right now. but soon will tell you the real progress of indigenous DUV. we have a good news in Q42022 related domestically produce DUV.

so nothing will happen. let ASML block DUV.
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Exactly, it could affect future expansion in the short term, but it won't affect current capabilities, plus ASML has to honor its commitments to Chinese companies. Regardless of how much the US can convince the Europeans and Japanese to accept this (something I seriously doubt) it could push Chinese companies and institutions to develop their own systems even faster, even companies that have been reluctant will have to support local systems because there is no other options.
Another problem is that you could speculate that the Chinese government could adopt a "sell the best or sell nothing" policy, where ASML and others might be restricted from competing against Chinese companies on older generation systems that already exist in China if they are not allow to sell what the Chinese consider their "best equipment" in the Chinese market. Like some kind of retaliation.​
 
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Topazchen

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sunnymaxi said:
i have read all your massages in this thread. you are wrong here.

in first 6 months of 2022, ASML delivered 24 DUVs to Chinese mainland chip firms. in past 3 years China purchased tons of DUVs from Japan , ASML and second hand machines as well. first time in history China surpassed Taiwan and south Korea to become the largest customer of ASML in 2022. accounts their 34 percent sales. yes 34 percent . ASML also announced to hire 200 engineers for their Shanghai office. China have shit tons of DUVs. let ASML block DUV sales. EU already struggling with economy and inflation and huge pressure on EURO as well. so there will be hardly any affects on China IC companies.

i m little busy right now. but soon will tell you the real progress of indigenous DUV. we have a good news in Q42022 related domestically produce DUV.

so nothing will happen. let ASML block DUV.
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I also wanted to point out that the 'leak' of US lobbying efforts to ban DUV sales come just a week after ASML announced it was hiring 100s of engineers in China.

It can't be a coincidence
 
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lube

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I remember the article quoting a trade hawk Dutch MP who heavily opposed a DUV ban by ASML despite strongly supporting the EUV export ban.

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The idea of banning mature DUV technology from China in order to slow down progress towards 5nm is made in super bad faith. Everyone knows that. The EUV ban was only accepted because ASML being able to keep selling DUV was the implicit compromise.

Don't think the Japanese or the Dutch buy the idea it's anything other than Biden hawks wanting to send a message, at the cost of Nikon and ASML.
 
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