Chinese semiconductor industry

MortyandRick said:

Reading all of these comments on the SMIC 7nm, I get the impression that no matter what China does, she will get further sanctioned. seems like if China doesn’t show they have the capability to make advanced chips then the US will sanction them because they feel china has no other options. If China does show capability to manufacture higher node chips, then the US will panic and may use it as an excuse to sanction them.

Since the USG is trying to pounce in this news, what are your suggestions for what China should have done to prevent more sanctions? I personally don’t think there is anything China could have done. The US will always find an excuse to sanction them, no matter how small the reason. I say good for them, they tried to keep a low profile, and while now it is out in the open, irregardless of whether or was planned or not, they will just keep on chugging along. I initially was quite concerned about the sanctions and the trade war. took me a while to see that the sanctions have seriously jump started China’s IC industry, more so than than just pure govt policy could ever have done.

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I don't know bro. They seemed dead set to find excuses to serve their agenda. I have no clue what could've done differently to stop what USG is trying to do. No clue what to do now to change either.

USG's action certainly galvanized and stimulated the growth of domestic semiconductor industry. The result is evident from the plethora of news on new equipments and technology we receive everyday on the forum. But despite of this growth, win, I still fear the gap between Chinese fab and western block will get bigger in the longer term. Only until after domestic EUV is available, then can stop the gap from getting bigger. This is just my observation and speculation.

hvpc said:

bro, sorry to be a bother, but I couldn't tell from the translation where it says U-precision is not a bottleneck for SMEE. Could you specify which bullet number you are referring to. #5 implies U-Precision is not the bottleneck, but #1-4 doesn't really seem to support it?

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1-U-precision has been delivering high precision wafer stages to SMEE since 2015 for their dry machines, but looks like because China fabs preference for ASML or the lack of spare parts that have trouble SMEE for some time looks like that the high precision wafer stage has not become U-precision main business. That could be solve after Beijing E-Town start to mass produce sub-systems for SMEE systems which could be bad news for ASML because i never knew a company who invest in mass production without projecting sales. they may force the government to do something.

2-They didn't hid nothing, after reading the whole document they did change the word DWSi for "immersion stage" a project that include two components developed in conjunction with Tsinghua: some sort of highly accurate heterodyne grating interferometer and a double maglev levitation worktable wafer stage. the development of both seems to be ended in December 2021 and will be shipped for validation and integration this year.

3-In 2020 was created the "Shanghai Integrated Circuit Equipment & Materials Industry Innovation Center" which SMEE is part of it and according to a patent i saw they have been testing some sort of double worktable wafer stage, probably related to Tsinghua.


when is going to be done? I guess when is done.

tokenanalyst said:

1-U-precision has been delivering high precision wafer stages to SMEE since 2015 for their dry machines, but looks like because China fabs preference for ASML or the lack of spare parts that have trouble SMEE for some time looks like that the high precision wafer stage has not become U-precision main business. That could be solve after Beijing E-Town start to mass produce sub-systems for SMEE systems which could be bad news for ASML because i never knew a company who invest in mass production without projecting sales. they may force the government to do something.

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I could't follow the connection between 'bad news for ASML', 'no projection sales', and 'force government to do something'. Could you explain.

tokenanalyst said:

2-They didn't hid nothing, after reading the whole document they did change the word DWSi for "immersion stage" a project that include two components developed in conjunction with Tsinghua: some sort of highly accurate heterodyne grating interferometer and a double maglev levitation worktable wafer stage. the development of both ended in December 2021 and will be shipped for validation and integration this year.

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?? So DWSi will be shipped this year? So what stage was used on immersion tools that were verified last year?

tokenanalyst said:

3-In 2020 was created the "Shanghai Integrated Circuit Equipment & Materials Industry Innovation Center" which SMEE is part of it and according to a patent i saw they have been testing some sort of double worktable wafer stage, probably related to Tsinghua.

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Could you share this info?

tokenanalyst said:

when is going to be done? I guess when is done.

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yes.

MortyandRick said:

Reading all of these comments on the SMIC 7nm, I get the impression that no matter what China does, she will get further sanctioned. seems like if China doesn’t show they have the capability to make advanced chips then the US will sanction them because they feel china has no other options. If China does show capability to manufacture higher node chips, then the US will panic and may use it as an excuse to sanction them.

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Isn't a stated or unstated goal of the United States government that they have to be 2 generations ahead of China in the actual semiconductor manufactured?

How did they come up with that metric or idea?

I think that is what they want. I never really paid attention to that, because I thought it was nutz.

Why does the United States have to be at least 2 generations ahead of China in chip fabrication?

It would make more sense that all advanced chips be banned from China. However, that is way too late. Maybe 10-20 years too late for that idea.

This idea, if true, that they have to be 2 generation ahead, makes no sense. If the United States can fab a 3nm chip, and therefore, if the sanctions worked against China, then China is stuck on 7nm chips.

However, all Chinese technological advances lately, like as of right now today, from weapons, space, quantum mechanics, to supercomputers, none use 7nm, only the Huawei 5G basestation uses 7nm chip IIRC, and they got a stockpile of that.

Seems like this is a race to nowhere for the Americans.

Almost like the Cold War, where they have to build more nukes than the Soviets, and they built thousands and thousands of nukes to kill the world several times over, but here in IC today against China they got to be 2 generations ahead.

This 7nm SMIC chip, when comparing America and China straight up in fab capabilities and know-how, they are equal or China is ahead.

So this news of this chip, makes me laugh my freaking ass off.

Some plan this is turning out to be.

Their answer?

We know what is coming, more sanctions!

What was the definition of insanity again?

PopularScience said:

The chip is 7nm (N+2) and produced in 2021 July.

SMIC is now working on 5nm. They must have gotten the most advanced DUVi machines from ASML.

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@PopularScience bro it's known that SMIC had received 2 units or more NXT 2050i in its SN1 FAB as far back in 2019 as posted by @foofy. And more will be coming on SMIC SN2 expansion plan.





Nov 12, 2021 — SMIC is building new chip plants in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen with local government support, Zhao said. "In that case, we are planning ...

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  Sep 3, 2021 — TSMC, the world's biggest contract chipmaker, announced a similar move this year, saying it will spend $2.8 billion to expand its production ...

Rumor circulated that Huawei took control of SMIC Ningbo.

PopularScience said:

The chip is 7nm (N+2) and produced in 2021 July.

SMIC is now working on 5nm. They must have gotten the most advanced DUVi machines from ASML.

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I would have to disagree with you, bro. 5nm is still in development, it has yet to reach risk production stage.

But agree to disagree.

Like I said, once the TechInsight analysis comes out, it'll be easy to tell what this MinerVA chip really is. Let's put this discussion on hold for now.

UK Stops Vision Technology Sale to Chinese Company​

The UK has posted a notice announcing a decision to block the transfer of cutting-edge vision technology to China, saying the deal posed a national security threat.

The University of Manchester had signed a deal with Beijing Infinite Vision Technology Company to license advanced SCAMP-5 and SCAMP-7 vision processing technology for further development, testing, manufacture, use and sale.

The nature of the technology triggered a national security review under the National Security and Investment Act 2021.

After the review, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng determined the technology has dual–use applications and that there is potential the technology could be used to build military capabilities which pose a national security risk to the UK.

A SCAMP vision sensor does not output regular images as most sensors do, but rather the results of sensor analysis that provides details of what the sensor is seeing, according to the University of Manchester.

This means it can do much more and deliver more valuable information. The technology is used in advanced applications in areas such as robotics, virtual reality, vehicles and surveillance.

Looks like a done deal. 华为人亲自下场。

重大消息！华为：再接管一座晶圆厂！

tonyget said:

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UK Stops Vision Technology Sale to Chinese Company​

The UK has posted a notice announcing a decision to block the transfer of cutting-edge vision technology to China, saying the deal posed a national security threat.

The University of Manchester had signed a deal with Beijing Infinite Vision Technology Company to license advanced SCAMP-5 and SCAMP-7 vision processing technology for further development, testing, manufacture, use and sale.

The nature of the technology triggered a national security review under the National Security and Investment Act 2021.

After the review, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng determined the technology has dual–use applications and that there is potential the technology could be used to build military capabilities which pose a national security risk to the UK.

A SCAMP vision sensor does not output regular images as most sensors do, but rather the results of sensor analysis that provides details of what the sensor is seeing, according to the University of Manchester.

This means it can do much more and deliver more valuable information. The technology is used in advanced applications in areas such as robotics, virtual reality, vehicles and surveillance.

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Is it semiconductor related?