Who is this guy, why is he a SME on semiconductor equipment?
Chinese semiconductor industry
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US hits China with sweeping tech export controls
Restrictions will limit Chinese companies’ access to advanced computer chips and slow their progress in artificial intelligence.The US has introduced sweeping export controls that will severely complicate efforts by Chinese companies to develop cutting-edge technologies with military applications, in one of the toughest actions President Joe Biden has taken against China. The commerce department on Friday announced restrictions that will make it extremely hard for Chinese companies to obtain or manufacture advanced computer chips and will slow their progress in artificial intelligence.
The measures are also designed to make it much tougher for China to develop supercomputers with military applications that range from modelling nuclear weapons to developing hypersonic weapons.
The controls mark a new attempt to decouple China from the US in cutting-edge technologies. They come days before the Chinese Communist party holds its 20th national congress at which President Xi Jinping is expected to seal a third term as leader.
Paul Triolo, a China and tech expert at Albright Stonebridge, a consultancy, said the action was a “major watershed” in US-China relations and in the increasingly intense technology competition between the two countries. “The US has essentially declared war on China’s ability to advance the country’s use of high-performance computing for economic and security gains,” said Triolo.
The controls will hit Chinese companies in multiple ways. They will bar US companies from exporting critical chip manufacturing tools to China, which will affect groups such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co and ChangXin Memory. The restrictions will also prohibit “US persons” — American citizens and companies — from providing direct or indirect support to Chinese companies involved in advanced chip manufacturing.
Kevin Wolf, an expert on export controls at Akin Gump, said the US persons provision was the “most significant and expansive” element of the broad package of measures announced. He said it was a “novel” approach because it threatened a form of sanctions even if the underlying technology was not subject to existing export controls.
The US also put YMTC — along with 30 other Chinese entities — on a list of “unverified” companies, paving the way for possible inclusion on a separate blacklist called the “entity list” that would effectively bar US companies from supplying them with technology.
The administration’s strategy is to deny China the capability to indigenise its semiconductor industry. If the US is successful, this causes a huge problem for Beijing’s strategy to be a world-class player,” said Martijn Rasser, a security and technology expert at the Center for a New American Security, a think-tank.
Underscoring the scope of the controls, the US is using a far-reaching mechanism called the “foreign direct product rule” to make it harder for China to develop and maintain supercomputers and AI technology.
The rule — which was first used by the administration of Donald Trump against Chinese technology group Huawei — in effect bars any US or non-US company from supplying targeted Chinese entities with hardware or software whose supply chain contains American technology.
But in an effort to reduce supply chain disruptions, the administration will carve out an exception for chipmaking facilities in China owned by companies from the US or allied countries that are exporting chips.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has poured resources into developing supercomputing capabilities and seeks to become a world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. It is using these capabilities to monitor, track and surveil their own citizens, and fuel its military modernisation,” said Thea Kendler, a senior commerce department official. “Our actions will protect US national security.”
Analysts said China’s memory chipmakers, including YMTC and ChangXin Memory, would feel the most immediate blow.
“They are basically doomed,” said Mark Li, a semiconductor analyst at Bernstein in Hong Kong. “It will be very difficult for them to get the equipment they need.
But the ban on the export of semiconductor tools could significantly hurt Chinese chipmakers more broadly because US equipment makers have a stranglehold in a few crucial niches.
Triolo said there would be “many losers”, including US chip design leaders such as Nvidia and AMD, and tool makers including Applied Materials and Lam Research. He said the rules would also hit non-US players, including ASML, the Dutch company that produces the most advanced semiconductor tools, and TSMC, the Taiwanese contract foundry company.
One chip industry executive said the US was attacking China “from all angles”.
“The stunning thing about this move is that they have assembled a whole array of tools,” the executive said. “They are not just targeting military applications, they are trying to block the development of China’s technology power by any means.”
The Semiconductor Industry Association, the main US lobby group for the chip industry, said it was “assessing” the effect of the controls and working with its members to ensure compliance.
“We understand the goal of ensuring national security and urge the US government to implement the rules in a targeted way — and in collaboration with international partners — to help level the playing field and mitigate unintended harm to US innovation,” the group said.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic majority leader, welcomed the controls but said the US need to go further. He said the Senate was looking at ways to include measures in an upcoming defence spending bill to counter Chinese efforts to undermine the US chip industry.
Source:
Non paywall source:
I share his last viewpoint about Asia in general.
Heard this before. Didn't work out for the trade war, won't work out for the tech war
Old article that already posted. This remind me of this two fabs that Huawei is building.
He says 28nm is the dividing line between low and mid-range IC manufacturing and the mid-to-high end. China desperately needs to move towards the mid-to-high end chip production, and being able to produce 28nm chips means it can meet most of the demand for chips without relying on others, he says.
28nm – the figure in nanometres is the dimension used to design the latest chips – has clear advantages and is key to developing IC processes. “It performs much better than its predecessors though costing roughly the same to produce,” says Li. “For example, compared with the 40nm technology, 28nm has a higher gate density and its transistors are about 50% faster, while using half the power. The economic and technical aspects of 28nm will keep it a mainstream mid-end process for a long time.”
On 4 August China’s State Council issued its new policies for facilitating the high-quality development of the IC industry and software industry. This policy in part outlines new tax incentives for fabs and companies that use 28nm – or smaller – technologies.
The new strategy includes tax advantages for using the newest chip technology. The rule says: “Qualified integrated circuit projects or enterprises that have operated for more than 15 years shall be exempt from corporate income tax for the first 10 years if they employ the 28nm process or more advanced nodes.”
According to Li, there are two obstacles to mid-to-high-end IC production: semiconductor equipment and strategic materials. After more than a decade, China has a presence at every part of the 28nm-technology industry chain.
There are Chinese companies all across the equipment sector, such as wafer manufacturing, lithography, etching, cleaning, and testing. The same is true for the strategic materials – Chinese companies are involved in every major aspect, including special gases and high-purity reagents. This lays the foundation for a move towards mid-to-high-end production.
At present, Chinese companies with 28nm or smaller fabs include HLMC and CXMT, and companies whose equipment can be used in 28nm or smaller wafer production lines include Hwatsing, Piotech, Shengmei Semiconductor, NAURA Technology, AMEC, Kingsemi, E-Town Semiconductor, Zhongkexin, RSIC and Semitronix.
In 2018, NAURA Technology produced and sold China’s first atomic layer deposition (ALD) system that supports 28nm to 14nm FinFET technology. Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment announced that they would deliver China’s first homegrown immersion lithography machine for 28nm technology. Medium-current ion implanters by Shuoke Zhongkexin are now as advanced as their foreign counterparts, and have been mass produced. And, the company’s high-current ion implanters now support technology down to 28nm.
“Overall, China already has the ability to mass produce 28nm chips completely on its own,” says Li. “Specifically, some companies have made great progress in R&D, while others have even had their products applied to production lines in China.”
He adds: “Breakthroughs have been made in China in some segments, such as AMEC’s medium-based etching technology, which is one of the most advanced in the world.”
It is worth mentioning, he says, “that both national-level projects and enterprises’ joint efforts are advancing in key parts of China’s 28nm chip industry chain such as lithography machines.”
Bai Chunli, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has said that CAS would concentrate on the technologies that China is most concerned about, which include lithography machines.
Li notes: “This means that China’s governmental organisations will help the domestic chip industry in tackling the challenges chip manufacturers face.”
He adds: “With breakthroughs in key technologies, we believe that entirely Chinese 28nm chips, unfettered by foreign restrictions, will be mass produced in one or two years. China will have a completely domestic industry chain and become independent in chip manufacturing. By then, China’s integrated circuit industry will have advanced dramatically.”
He says 28nm is the dividing line between low and mid-range IC manufacturing and the mid-to-high end. China desperately needs to move towards the mid-to-high end chip production, and being able to produce 28nm chips means it can meet most of the demand for chips without relying on others, he says.
28nm – the figure in nanometres is the dimension used to design the latest chips – has clear advantages and is key to developing IC processes. “It performs much better than its predecessors though costing roughly the same to produce,” says Li. “For example, compared with the 40nm technology, 28nm has a higher gate density and its transistors are about 50% faster, while using half the power. The economic and technical aspects of 28nm will keep it a mainstream mid-end process for a long time.”
On 4 August China’s State Council issued its new policies for facilitating the high-quality development of the IC industry and software industry. This policy in part outlines new tax incentives for fabs and companies that use 28nm – or smaller – technologies.
The new strategy includes tax advantages for using the newest chip technology. The rule says: “Qualified integrated circuit projects or enterprises that have operated for more than 15 years shall be exempt from corporate income tax for the first 10 years if they employ the 28nm process or more advanced nodes.”
According to Li, there are two obstacles to mid-to-high-end IC production: semiconductor equipment and strategic materials. After more than a decade, China has a presence at every part of the 28nm-technology industry chain.
There are Chinese companies all across the equipment sector, such as wafer manufacturing, lithography, etching, cleaning, and testing. The same is true for the strategic materials – Chinese companies are involved in every major aspect, including special gases and high-purity reagents. This lays the foundation for a move towards mid-to-high-end production.
At present, Chinese companies with 28nm or smaller fabs include HLMC and CXMT, and companies whose equipment can be used in 28nm or smaller wafer production lines include Hwatsing, Piotech, Shengmei Semiconductor, NAURA Technology, AMEC, Kingsemi, E-Town Semiconductor, Zhongkexin, RSIC and Semitronix.
In 2018, NAURA Technology produced and sold China’s first atomic layer deposition (ALD) system that supports 28nm to 14nm FinFET technology. Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment announced that they would deliver China’s first homegrown immersion lithography machine for 28nm technology. Medium-current ion implanters by Shuoke Zhongkexin are now as advanced as their foreign counterparts, and have been mass produced. And, the company’s high-current ion implanters now support technology down to 28nm.
“Overall, China already has the ability to mass produce 28nm chips completely on its own,” says Li. “Specifically, some companies have made great progress in R&D, while others have even had their products applied to production lines in China.”
He adds: “Breakthroughs have been made in China in some segments, such as AMEC’s medium-based etching technology, which is one of the most advanced in the world.”
It is worth mentioning, he says, “that both national-level projects and enterprises’ joint efforts are advancing in key parts of China’s 28nm chip industry chain such as lithography machines.”
Bai Chunli, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has said that CAS would concentrate on the technologies that China is most concerned about, which include lithography machines.
Li notes: “This means that China’s governmental organisations will help the domestic chip industry in tackling the challenges chip manufacturers face.”
He adds: “With breakthroughs in key technologies, we believe that entirely Chinese 28nm chips, unfettered by foreign restrictions, will be mass produced in one or two years. China will have a completely domestic industry chain and become independent in chip manufacturing. By then, China’s integrated circuit industry will have advanced dramatically.”
There are a few key breakthrough nodes that aren't simple die shrinks. 28 nm and 14 nm are some of the critical nodes.
14 nm is the first FinFET process which many companies are unable to do because it is more challenging in many ways: it has a disproportionately smaller minimum feature size than the planar process - the fin width. The diffusion rate of photoinitiators in the resist becomes important at such small resolutions. This means hard mask rather than polymeric resist, which introduces challenges in resist development and removal.
28 nm and associated classes like 20 nm, 22 nm, etc on the other hand is the smallest planar node. It combines all the experience of prior nodes: high k dielectric replacing gate oxide, tungsten gate metal, copper interconnect, SiGe use, strain engineering, immersion lithography, etc. It is basically the highest development of the prior processes in development since the 1950s.
Each of these critical nodes has a ton of companies drop out and no longer keep up with the leading edge.
This is a very huge bet tho. If total supply chain is achieved, then by virtue of being the biggest market US would lose any leverage about semi towards China. Imagine China managed to make supercomputers locally, they'd probably sells access to Russia, Iran or even NK. In the past there's even a claim that DF-ZF wasn't given access to Sunway Taihulight.
antiterror13
Brigadier
I don't think Japan even has 28nm chip production, let alone completely on its own .. like China very soon
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