Chinese semiconductor industry

tinrobert said:

Nvidia Reportedly Asks TSMC to Rush Lucrative GPU Orders Before US-China Sanctions Bite​

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This article hit the press today quoted as a source by a Taiwanese business journal. Reddit's Nvidia moderator has removed all comments. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

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"Nvidia is seeking to fast-track some high-end GPU orders. The reasoning behind the need for speed is that Nvidia wishes to fulfill some lucrative Ampere and Hopper GPU orders to China before the US-imposed sanctions kick in."

This is the original article:


How this matches with the official statement that the ban has immediate effect for Chinese companies?


"the USG has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the Company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 integrated circuits"

I looked at NVIDIA official followup statement of September 1


"
The U.S. government has authorized exports, reexports, and in-country transfers needed to continue NVIDIA Corporation’s, or the Company’s, development of H100 integrated circuits after the Company filed its Current Report on Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 31, 2022. The authorization also allows the Company to perform exports needed to provide support for U.S. customers of A100 through March 1, 2023. Additionally, the U.S. government authorized A100 and H100 order fulfillment and logistics through the Company’s Hong Kong facility through September 1, 2023."

It is not clear what order fulfillment means. It means already received orders will be delivered even to Chinese customers? If this is the case why NVIDIA forecast a 400M $ loss in next quarter?

There is something slippery here....I smell a watering down of the ban just one day(!) after its publication. If this is the case then the kindest thing we can say is that all this is just a political stunt....otherwise it would mean US administration really gropes in the dark.

Maybe they even not informed NVIDIA beforehand, and only after NVIDIA was able to clarify them on the real situation of the AI market in China, and tell them that now is going to lose 90% of China market within 2 years.

....or maybe it means that soon TSMC will be blocked from selling advanced nodes to China, and NVIDIA is running before the timeline...but in this case why there is not a speed up of orders also from the other US companies?

North Huachuang won the bid for an 8-inch dielectric layer etching equipment from Yandong Microelectronics​

According to micronet news, on September 20, Beijing Yandong Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. announced the winning bid for the procurement of 8-inch dielectric layer etching equipment.

The successful bidder of this project is Beijing North Huachuang Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "North Huachuang"), and the target is an 8-inch dielectric layer etching equipment, which is used to realize the 200mm semiconductor integrated circuit silicon wafer manufacturing process. Dielectric layer etching process.

According to the official news of NAURA, in the field of etching, in August 2005, NAURA’s first ICP etching machine entered the large production line; in November 2017, NAURA launched its first metal etching machine; in 2022 On August 12, NAURA released the CCP media etching machine, which has been verified and mass-produced in 5 customers. So far, NAURA has achieved full coverage of the etching process.

On September 2, NAURA won the bid for 1 deep Si etching equipment in Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory; on August 30, NAURA won the bid for 2 ICP etching equipment in Xidian University.

the launch ceremony of Zhongsil TTAIS™300 and the world's first 6-polishing disc CMP equipment was grandly held in Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City.

The full name of CMP equipment is chemical mechanical planarization (ChemicalMechanicalPlanarization, CMP) equipment. The world's first CMP equipment with 6 polishing discs was developed by Hangzhou Zhongsi Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. According to the relevant person in charge of the R&D department, "the equipment adopts 6x independent grinding modules and 2x independent cleaning modules. The new and compact structure of the CMP can be used for the process of 2 polishing discs or 3 polishing discs. It is currently the only multi-process compatible CMP equipment in the world." He said that the equipment has high output efficiency per unit area. , which is about 20%~60% higher than the output rate of the currently known international advanced equipment. It has the advantages of high maintainability, high production efficiency, and low comprehensive use cost, which can not only save costs, but also greatly speed up research and development. speed.

At present, the domestic high-end integrated circuit chip manufacturing equipment industry and key material industry are still relatively backward, and most of the manufacturing equipment and key materials used for mass production still need to be imported from Europe, America, Japan and other countries. Therefore, at the beginning of its establishment in 2018, Zhongsil Technology began to conceive and produce an internationally leading CMP equipment to solve the problem of "stuck neck" of high-end equipment. During this period, through the patent layout in the world, the key technology of CMP was continuously conquered. After three years, Zhongsil Technology finally developed the world's first 12-inch CMP equipment with 6 polishing discs, and contributed to the acceleration of the localization process of CMP equipment.

Behind the fruitful results, the local government's strong support for innovative enterprises is inseparable. It is understood that Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City has been focusing on the needs of enterprises and providing comprehensive assistance in supporting aspects such as industrial funds and talent recruitment. "For companies like Zhongsil Technology, we will adopt the method of special class specialists to continuously track services and help them solve business development problems such as production sites and technology research and development." The relevant person in charge said that in the future, Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City will continue to be active. Build an innovation platform, promote the integration of innovation resources, and make every effort to contribute to the localization of high-end integrated circuit equipment.

european_guy said:

"Nvidia is seeking to fast-track some high-end GPU orders. The reasoning behind the need for speed is that Nvidia wishes to fulfill some lucrative Ampere

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and Hopper

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GPU orders to China before the US-imposed sanctions kick in."

This is the original article:

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How this matches with the official statement that the ban has immediate effect for Chinese companies?

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"the USG has imposed a new license requirement, effective immediately, for any future export to China (including Hong Kong) and Russia of the Company’s A100 and forthcoming H100 integrated circuits"

I looked at NVIDIA official followup statement of September 1

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"
The U.S. government has authorized exports, reexports, and in-country transfers needed to continue NVIDIA Corporation’s, or the Company’s, development of H100 integrated circuits after the Company filed its Current Report on Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 31, 2022. The authorization also allows the Company to perform exports needed to provide support for U.S. customers of A100 through March 1, 2023. Additionally, the U.S. government authorized A100 and H100 order fulfillment and logistics through the Company’s Hong Kong facility through September 1, 2023."

It is not clear what order fulfillment means. It means already received orders will be delivered even to Chinese customers? If this is the case why NVIDIA forecast a 400M $ loss in next quarter?

There is something slippery here....I smell a watering down of the ban just one day(!) after its publication. If this is the case then the kindest thing we can say is that all this is just a political stunt....otherwise it would mean US administration really gropes in the dark.

Maybe they even not informed NVIDIA beforehand, and only after NVIDIA was able to clarify them on the real situation of the AI market in China, and tell them that now is going to lose 90% of China market within 2 years.

....or maybe it means that soon TSMC will be blocked from selling advanced nodes to China, and NVIDIA is running before the timeline...but in this case why there is not a speed up of orders also from the other US companies?

Click to expand...

B2B payment terms often look something like 30% payment on PO submission, 70% payment upon delivery (or a variation of this). The 400 million dollar loss is likely from making those 30% upfront payments disappear.

Microwave assisted ALD equipment from Fudan and the Shanghai ICRD

Italian techies believe that actual price ranges for new nvidia rtx 4000 cards are really out of scale. Green light for chinese graphic cards.

european_guy said:

It is not clear what order fulfillment means. It means already received orders will be delivered even to Chinese customers? If this is the case why NVIDIA forecast a 400M $ loss in next quarter?

Click to expand...

As per the articles I read it is immediate cut off for Chinese customers. What's allowed is to supply to US customers operating in China for another year and using Hong Kong for exporting to other countries / supplying to US customers in mainland. Nvidia is also allowed to do R&D for H100 in China for another 6 months.

This allows Nvidia to perform the exports needed to support U.S. customers that use A100 chips. The U.S. is also allowing A100 and H100 order fulfillment through next September, which means Nvidia can ship to customers outside China from Hong Kong.

Click to expand...

huemens said:

Nvidia is also allowed to do R&D for H100 in China for another 6 months.

Click to expand...

Excellent. A lot of talent soon to be hired by Chinese competitors

CMP said:

B2B payment terms often look something like 30% payment on PO submission, 70% payment upon delivery (or a variation of this). The 400 million dollar loss is likely from making those 30% upfront payments disappear.

Click to expand...

If 400M$ refer not to revenues but to missed down payment then the extrapolation that I did some days ago and that @tphuang expanded on the needed 7nm capacity to satisfy China AI demand is grossly underestimated and should be redone.

huemens said:

As per the articles I read

Click to expand...

Yes, many articles report the thing in slightly different way. That's why I went to the source, the official SEC fillings:

"The U.S. government has authorized exports, reexports, and in-country transfers needed to continue NVIDIA Corporation’s, or the Company’s, development of H100 integrated circuits after the Company filed its Current Report on Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on August 31, 2022. The authorization also allows the Company to perform exports needed to provide support for U.S. customers of A100 through March 1, 2023. Additionally, the U.S. government authorized A100 and H100 order fulfillment and logistics through the Company’s Hong Kong facility through September 1, 2023"

Here there one first part "The authorization also allows .....to provide support for U.S. customers ...."

But then "Additionally, the U.S. government authorized A100 and H100 order fulfillment ....."

It is not written that Hong Kong facility is allowed to send material only to non Chinese firms. This part appears in some news article but not in the official declaration.