We all know about this light source thing, but what are the yankees going to do about it? ASML sells to TSMC, Samsung etc which manufacture for all designers. Are they going to sanction asml, which would mean the whole supply chain would be disrupted?
Chinese semiconductor industry
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We all know about this light source thing, but what are the yankees going to do about it? ASML sells to TSMC, Samsung etc which manufacture for all designers. Are they going to sanction asml, which would mean the whole supply chain would be disrupted?
As per the Economist, China still has a 10% cost advantage in semiconductor production over Taiwan or South Korea.
There is still growing demand and new products being introduced, so new Chinese fabs should be able to compete on this.
For existing designs, once the one-off tapeout costs are accounted for, Chinese fabs can compete.
And SMIC can charge a premium because they can offer a secure supply located inside China.
That requires & required a change in Chinese mindset. We love big projects, big companies, big political campaigns, big infrastructure, big cars, big cities. Indeed a new logic.
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ASML scanners can work with gigaphoton light sources, my guess those are the ones that the Chinese had been buying and that is why the U.S. is trying to convince the both Dutch and the Japanese to stop supplying instead of going alone.
But in theory is even possible to fit ASML scanners with RSLaser light sources with a bit of R&D.
What about SMEE producing a better DUV or EUV machine or producing advanced chips without using any litho DUV/EUV equipment ? Also is it true that Nikon & Canon making inroads in CHN ? Grateful for your insights.
Bro SMEE SSA800 28nm DUVL had just finished its verification and is gearing to be mass produce next year as major component providers finished their expansion plan, as @european_guy had posted earlier SMEE need to increase their personnel to service those demands and the reason for CETC to help and compete with SMEE. Both of them are integrators BUT the MOST important thing is to established multiple components makers or SME, with the help of Scientific institution, from the academe and industries , the fusion and synergy it creates will rival that of the silicon valley.
An afterthought Liu He was put in charge by Xi to supervise and head the development of country's efforts to design and manufacture semiconductors within China. At the event he read out Xi's letter, the Chinese vice premier and a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, who attended the opening ceremony of the conference via video link
NANJING, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to promote enterprise innovation and foster more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are specialized and innovative.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks in a congratulatory letter to a conference regarding these enterprises' development, which opened Thursday in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province.
Calling SMEs a vital force for promoting innovation, creating jobs and improving people's livelihoods, Xi expressed his hope that the specialized and innovative firms can focus on their main business and put effort into cultivating their speciality, so as to make greater contributions to stabilizing industrial and supply chains as well as boosting social and economic development.
Governments at all levels should create a favorable environment and increase support for SMEs, consolidate enterprises' confidence in development, encourage enterprises to be innovative, and strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, Xi said.
Xi's letter was read out by Liu He, Chinese vice premier and a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, who attended the opening ceremony of the conference via video link
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This is pretty good, talking about SMIC's current capacity including wholly owned and JVs.
12 inch
60k in Beijing, 35k in Shanghai, 100k in Beijing, 35k Zhangjiang (14 nm and below)
8 inch
180k in Tianjin, 135k in Shanghai, 70k in Shenzhen -> 385k wpm
To be constructed -> all 12 inch (not including the new Tianjin announcement)
40k in Shenzhen (this should actually be 28 nm and above chips) to be completed by 2020
100k in Beijing to be fully completed by 2024 (although first phase will complete sooner?)
100k in Shanghai (28nm and below!) -> my guess is also coming online by 2024.
So, currently have 195k 12 inch wpm of 28 nm and above + 35k 12 inch wpm of 14 nm and below
The interesting part is that the last major 12-inch wafer project was the one they started construction in 2016, so they basically didn't start building a new 12-inch fab for about 4 to 5 years.
At the time, it was announced as a 70k wpm fab, but now it's producing 35k wpm. My guess that's due to them producing 14 nm and below wafers rather than 28 nm nodes. Maybe they were expecting to put the first EUVs here, but after the sanction, they took a few years and some prodding before pushing forward on this massive fab expansion. It seemed like they learnt their lessons from that point and are now announcing every fab as 28 nm and above in order to reduce scrutiny. And maybe they waited a few years for domestic supply chain to catch up. And now that they are confident about achieving adequate yield on more advanced nodes and have gotten assurances of orders, they put in this huge expansion plan.
They have 340k 12 inch wpm to be completed in the next 3 years. I don't see the need to triple their advance 28 nm and above volume. If instead, they are add 140k more advanced nodes + 100k 14 nm and below, that would be more logical. I'm expecting SMIC to really climb the global market share tables by the time 2024 rolls around. If China really has great ambitions, SMIC will be announcing a new 12 inch 100k wpm fab every year.
The existing 35k wpm of advanced nodes could be enough to supply the more immediate advanced node need until 2024. Even 10k N+1 wpm would cover the most urgent AI/server chip needs.
Just to show how far SMIC is ahead of everyone else, this is what Hua Hong has
8 inch
180k between 3 fabs producing 90 nm and above.
12 inch
40k wpm of power device, 38k wpm of 28 inch and above, another 40k wpm of 28/22-14 inch
According to their reporting, they will reach close to 100k wpm of 12 inch production by the end of this year, so I assume the numbers given are max theoretical production based on optimal node. Maybe the power device foundry can't produce that much power chips a month. Maybe the advanced node foundry is experimenting with 14/22 nm node and can't come close to 40k wpm. Either way, their theoretical capacity is way below SMIC. It sounds like they will announce new fab, but that hasn't happened yet. And hasn't happened for a few years.
Cansemi also adding more 12-inch capacity all the way up to 22 nm to 120k wpm in total
So, SMIC can charge quite the premium. I do not know if SMIC will have a cost advantage over Taiwan for 7nm/5nm process. The labor, electricity, land, tax and water cost are all significant lower, but that maybe offset by yield and having to do more exposures with DUVs.
12 inch
60k in Beijing, 35k in Shanghai, 100k in Beijing, 35k Zhangjiang (14 nm and below)
8 inch
180k in Tianjin, 135k in Shanghai, 70k in Shenzhen -> 385k wpm
To be constructed -> all 12 inch (not including the new Tianjin announcement)
40k in Shenzhen (this should actually be 28 nm and above chips) to be completed by 2020
100k in Beijing to be fully completed by 2024 (although first phase will complete sooner?)
100k in Shanghai (28nm and below!) -> my guess is also coming online by 2024.
So, currently have 195k 12 inch wpm of 28 nm and above + 35k 12 inch wpm of 14 nm and below
The interesting part is that the last major 12-inch wafer project was the one they started construction in 2016, so they basically didn't start building a new 12-inch fab for about 4 to 5 years.
At the time, it was announced as a 70k wpm fab, but now it's producing 35k wpm. My guess that's due to them producing 14 nm and below wafers rather than 28 nm nodes. Maybe they were expecting to put the first EUVs here, but after the sanction, they took a few years and some prodding before pushing forward on this massive fab expansion. It seemed like they learnt their lessons from that point and are now announcing every fab as 28 nm and above in order to reduce scrutiny. And maybe they waited a few years for domestic supply chain to catch up. And now that they are confident about achieving adequate yield on more advanced nodes and have gotten assurances of orders, they put in this huge expansion plan.
They have 340k 12 inch wpm to be completed in the next 3 years. I don't see the need to triple their advance 28 nm and above volume. If instead, they are add 140k more advanced nodes + 100k 14 nm and below, that would be more logical. I'm expecting SMIC to really climb the global market share tables by the time 2024 rolls around. If China really has great ambitions, SMIC will be announcing a new 12 inch 100k wpm fab every year.
The existing 35k wpm of advanced nodes could be enough to supply the more immediate advanced node need until 2024. Even 10k N+1 wpm would cover the most urgent AI/server chip needs.
Just to show how far SMIC is ahead of everyone else, this is what Hua Hong has
8 inch
180k between 3 fabs producing 90 nm and above.
12 inch
40k wpm of power device, 38k wpm of 28 inch and above, another 40k wpm of 28/22-14 inch
According to their reporting, they will reach close to 100k wpm of 12 inch production by the end of this year, so I assume the numbers given are max theoretical production based on optimal node. Maybe the power device foundry can't produce that much power chips a month. Maybe the advanced node foundry is experimenting with 14/22 nm node and can't come close to 40k wpm. Either way, their theoretical capacity is way below SMIC. It sounds like they will announce new fab, but that hasn't happened yet. And hasn't happened for a few years.
Cansemi also adding more 12-inch capacity all the way up to 22 nm to 120k wpm in total
hmm, I think SMIC's advantage would be fear from most Chinese companies that they will get cut off from TSMC/Samsung fabs. There are obvious ones like national supercomputers, Huawei, Phytium and Sunway that have to work with SMIC due to being on entity list. But beyond that, how long can players like Biren and Alibaba stay away from the eyes of sanction? They just scored top performances on MLCommons test.
So, SMIC can charge quite the premium. I do not know if SMIC will have a cost advantage over Taiwan for 7nm/5nm process. The labor, electricity, land, tax and water cost are all significant lower, but that maybe offset by yield and having to do more exposures with DUVs.
Yes, they need AI and server chips. That's why it's important for these Chines fabless design studios to get working with SMIC. All of the AI GPUs we've seen are using 7 nm process. These chip designers can work with SMIC for their N+2 process and have them ready for production in 2024 or something. It gives players like Biren and Hanbo all of 2023 to trial their chips with customers and get their own ecosystem up and running. By then, US gov't probably would catch on and try to ban TSMC from building chips for these Chinese fabless design shops.
both the amd and intel have similar TDP but the intel has more cores and also comes with igpu which means it is more powerful while also generating same amount of heat...does that mean that the so called TSMC 7nm is just a marketing trick? to make amd look better when their product are actually just a reinvention of the wheel? i actually do not have much respect to TSMC or even Liang Mong Song cause i think they are just implementing the ASML solution without own development?
YMTC isn't cost competitive, but their government has subsidized them to the tune of $24B to date. This funding has enabled YMTC to exist and build fabs where a normal free market company would have folded long ago. They also have predatory pricing and undercut the industry so they can take market share (which is illegal). This type of mercantilism really distorts the market and is a huge threat to South Korea as a country.
People cry foul against these export bans against China because it doesn't uphold true free market principles, but the reason the export bans exist is because China isn't upholding free market principles.
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