ICRD is a production line, albeit a small one. The purpose is to test domestic equipment in an actual production environment.
As long as they have one llne that is using all domestic equipment, then they are capable of using expanding that to more. Production capacity, staffing are all needed. Now, they will have latter and maybe the former can get accelerated with gov't help.
I do wonder what that one small production line can produce. Even 5k 300-mm wafer a month can produce enough sever chips for Huawei.
Thanks for finding this. Indeed the link already disappeared. So very good timing from your side!
US equipment is a clear long term liability, especially for advanced firms like YMTC. The sooner they get rid of it, the better. This ideologically obsessed neocon administration just gave them a little push to jump into the cold water....now they have to swim.
There will be some issue in the short term, maybe their developing plan will slowdown now, but they will free themselves from this toxic dependency once and for all. Most importantly, they will do it before their big capacity expansion starts and new fabs are built. YMTC is still a small actor in world market, but it will grow and gain market share in the future. It is critical that it is able to grow in a safe way.
Chinese firms plan huge capacity expansions in the next 2/3 years. It is a key point IMO that those fabs should be be sanction-proof. It is more important than starting volume production 1 year sooner, because the continuous threat to remain withouth service and spare parts is not acceptable for any kind of factory, not only in semiconductors. You must be sure of your production capacity and have it fully in your hands.
yeah, I don't know what happened to that one. It's inevitable there will be some issues in the short term with expansion. We will be able to see the effect on YMTC by how quickly they can scale up.
The problem with these American sanctions is that it makes hard for fabs to even use American tools for less advanced tools. That seem quite silly. Non-American companies will really make a killing on this while Chinese tool makers are still scaling up. I don't see how a company like Lam can sustain presence in China when nobody from America can even be part of maintenance process for Chinese fabs. That makes servicing just impossible.
The no-American clause kills all American company in China. I think European and Japanese should take advantage of this. Chinese companies just simply don't have the scale to service everyone.
Hygon will switch to SMIC 14nm process.
Thanks for posting the Hygon financial update. Didn't realize they generate this much more revenue than Phytium. I thought Phytium was supposed to be the largest player. But a couple of months ago, you mentioned that SMIC is building chips for Phytium, Zhaoxin and Hygon on N+1 process. Is that still happening?
SMIC and HLMC don't need to use American tools?
So are we sure SMIC doesn't need American tools and in fact has a 0% American line?
Okay, nobody said that. We know American tools were not allowed to be used in 14 nm or more advanced nodes. As such, SMSC fabs (SN1) could not use American tools. Based on
@PopularScience, difficulty in procuring tools was part of the reason why ramp up was slow.
Normally, it takes some time for a new fab to test up new production lines. In this case, my guess is that SMIC needed even longer time because it was using non-American tools for its SN1 fab. But now that they were able to announce 14 nm mass production, I think SMIC has probably sorted those issues out. The tools themselves are workable for SMIC's 14 nm and N+1 production. HLMC stands to benefit since it doesn't need to take more time than usual to try out new Chinese tools.
