Chinese semiconductor industry

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Arcgem

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gelgoog said:
Huawei design their own chips but I don't know if they designed their own core or not.
I thought they used ARM cores and GPUs and added some of their own logic around that.
But there are people with the ability to design CPU cores in China.
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Designing your own CPU cores for the smartphone business makes zero sense from a business perspective. As of right now, Android does not support architectures outside of x86 and ARM, both proprietary IP. Sure, once upon a time it supported MIPS, but the maintainers officially dropped support in the later versions. Even Apple's iOS runs exclusively on ARM chips.

Introducing another architecture into the smartphone business would mean creating an entirely new technology stack from scratch. New OS, new development tools, and new app ecosystem. One company can't possibly do this alone. You would need to establish something like a standards body to coordinate all of the relevant parties.
 
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gelgoog

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Arcgem said:
Designing your own CPU cores for the smartphone business makes zero sense from a business perspective. As of right now, Android does not support architectures outside of x86 and ARM, both proprietary IP. Sure, once upon a time it supported MIPS, but the maintainers officially dropped support in the later versions. Even Apple's iOS runs exclusively on ARM chips.

Introducing another architecture into the smartphone business would mean creating an entirely new technology stack from scratch. New OS, new development tools, and new app ecosystem. One company can't possibly do this alone. You would need to establish something like a standards body to coordinate all of the relevant parties.
Click to expand...

Ah, but Apple designs their own ARM cores and GPUs today. They have an ARM ISA license but all the rest is their own.
Apple bought a CPU design company years ago which originally designed PowerPC compatible processors (P.A. Semi) with higher speeds.
The chief designer for the Apple ARM core family (Jim Keller) later designed the AMD Zen CPU core and the latest Tesla automotive chips.

Alibaba also acquired a Chinese company which developed CPU cores and recently made their own RISC-V CPU.

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Arcgem

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gelgoog said:
Ah, but Apple designs their own ARM cores and GPUs even. They have an ARM ISA license but all the rest is their own.
Apple bought a CPU design company many years ago which originally designed PowerPC compatible processors with higher speeds.
The chief designer for the current Apple ARM core family (Jim Keller) is also the designer of the AMD Zen CPU core and the latest Tesla automotive chips.
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Maybe I misinterpreted your question about CPU cores. I thought that you meant to ask if anyone thought of using technologies other than ARM for smartphones.

Wangxi said:
Good news

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1326165077767065601
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I would be cautious about this. Huawei and co. should only use this to buy time for a domestic alternative. Anything the Biden administration gives can just as easily be taken away later.
 
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Deleted member 15887

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Jefferies analysts said in a note on Monday that China would likely decline in terms of Biden’s policy priorities, as he focuses first on domestic issues, and that a blanket U.S. ban on China’s semiconductor industry would be less likely under Biden.
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superdog

superdog

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gelgoog said:
Huawei design their own chips but I don't know if they designed their own core or not.
I thought they used ARM cores and GPUs and added some of their own logic around that.
But there are people with the ability to design CPU cores in China.
Click to expand...
They do use their own core design on server SoC (Taishan v110 architecture for Kunpeng 920) since 2019.

In-house GPU development has also been rumored for quite a while, it may appear in future mobile SoCs.
 
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nastya1

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The article said broadcom and Qualcomm are switching SMIC 28nm to TSMC due to TSMC has much better yield and therefore lower cost.

It's been 5 years since SMIC began 28nm and so far still losing money due to lack of scale, yield and lower volumes.

That means 14nm probably won't be profitable.

This is danger of using expensive western equipments. SMIC doesn't have the volume and yield to make 28nm and 14nm profitable.

If SMIC has tough time in 28nm then it's a moot point for N+1,N+2. I think they are USELESS from a profitability stand point

They all need to switch to lower cost domestic equipments otherwise no profits can be made.

This is equivalent to India buying expensive foreign arms to fight wars. It's no sustainable.

Yet, SMIC still turning away Huawei. It's suicidal.

Looks like the Huawei fab will be the forerunner to sustainability and profitability.
 
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latenlazy

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nastya1 said:
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The article said broadcom and Qualcomm are switching SMIC 28nm to TSMC due to TSMC has much better yield and therefore lower cost.

It's been 5 years since SMIC began 28nm and so far still losing money due to lack of scale, yield and lower volumes.

That means 14nm probably won't be profitable.

This is danger of using expensive western equipments. SMIC doesn't have the volume and yield to make 28nm and 14nm profitable.

If SMIC has tough time in 28nm then it's a moot point for N+1,N+2. I think they are USELESS from a profitability stand point

They all need to switch to lower cost domestic equipments otherwise no profits can be made.

This is equivalent to India buying expensive foreign arms to fight wars. It's no sustainable.

Yet, SMIC still turning away Huawei. It's suicidal.

Looks like the Huawei fab will be the forerunner to sustainability and profitability.
Click to expand...
Domestic equipment might end up costing SMIC more money, not less. Cost isn’t a function of your equipment but your yield efficiencies. Worse yield means both lower quality and higher costs. If the quality of Chinese equipment isn’t up to snuff that makes that equation worse, not better.
 
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