SMIC and Huawei, will never get a US license... that's why these two companies and CPC invest a lot in China's semiconductor supply chain since 2020....
Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
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Yes. What the US government did was idiotic. The legislation was clearly done by people with only superficial knowledge of the field.
What will no doubt happen is the US companies will try, for now, to redesign any tools they want to export to China to have some kind of way to limit the physical characteristics of the tool. They might use lower machine tolerances when fabricating the physical components of the tools or put some kind of software limitation on the tools when possible. But this will be expensive to do and certify. Even if China is a third of your sales. Non-US companies will likely just design out US components altogether. And unless the US can convince the other Western aligned countries to join them in the ban it is quite likely the US tool companies will fade away.
Well, these companies were just operating under the conditions of the regular market economy. There are currently a huge amount of semi fabs being built in China. But most of these companies lack the capital and talent to make significant investments in tool R&D in the first place. So what do you expect? You have a mix of tools the government funded for the strategic enterprises, and tools the private sector has been developing on a shoestring budget to meet current market demand. Once the Chinese semi market gets larger you will see more investments of the industry into the tools sector but right now this is difficult. Even though it does happen. For example SMIC has done small investments into the semi sector.
Yeah Huawei even closed their smartphone stores in Russia, unlike Xiaomi who kept them open. But AFAIK Huawei R&D facilities in Russia are still open.
Huawei is in the US government blacklist so they have to ask for permission to use each US component. So far they basically have been given access to buy Micron memory chips and Qualcomm 4G SoCs and the like. But HiSilicon cannot fab anything outside China. If they can inside China.
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This is the latest report released by Huahong，as you can see their most advanced node is 55nm.
According to this old 2018 news，Huahong started to make 28nm back in 2018. So why there is no 28nm on their report？Do Huahong still making 28nm or the have they stalled the production？Huahong cannot ramp up 28nm production in four years time？
According to this old 2018 news，Huahong started to make 28nm back in 2018. So why there is no 28nm on their report？Do Huahong still making 28nm or the have they stalled the production？Huahong cannot ramp up 28nm production in four years time？
Can you provide links.
ASML still sells DUV to China. If lithography machine is the only bottleneck，and all other domestic equipments are up to task for 14nm，that means China already achieved non-American 14nm production line. But I'm skeptical about it，especially regarding testing equipments.
I swear, you really seem to have an innate ability to take any innocent looking news and put the most negative spin possible.
SMIC doesn't need to build more 14nm fabs. It is building out its SN2 fab right now (as we saw in a new article from January). And we know from Lam employee interview that SMSC fab does not use American tools (or use very little). The reason is because American gov't have not been allowing tools to be sold to this fab. A large part of the slowness in their SN1 production increase is due to the need to buy non-American tools.
On top of that, these comments are being said in a way to assure that they do not lose their American clients. SMIC is being very careful about not letting the world know how much advanced node chips they are producing.
But we do know the following:
1) Report earlier this year that Shanghai company (SMIC) is fully capable of 14 nm process, which means they have achieved very high yield and able to handle complex 14nm production.
2) We do know they were already doing N+1 production (their 10nm process that got described as 7nm by techinsight) on small bitmining chip as early as July of 2021. By this point, we are all expecting that they have started mass producing much more advanced chips with N+1 process. Remember, they only got NXT-2050i scanners since H2 of last year and only NXT-2100i scanners since this past quarter. So the machines they have access to has also gotten more sophisticated since those initial bitmining chips.
3) We know they have changed the phrasing from 14nm as their most complex process to FinFet. An indication that they've moved beyond 14nm, but don't want to disclose where they are at.
4) We know that SMSC fab revenue has continued to increase based on their H1 report, which indicates their capacity has continued to increase this year to probably 30k wpm.
5) We also hear from Chinese social media that SMSC capacity is all booked up.
6) We know that Phytium's 14nm chips are produced at SMIC and their sales numbers are much higher this year than last year.
But at the end of the day, everyone on this forum is just as anxious as you are to see firm evidence that SMSC is in fact producing CPUs and GPUs for Chinese chip designers using its N+1 and N+2 process. That's why I'm personally eager to find out more about Moore Threads's new S80 GPU (which refuses to disclose fab or process). And I'm also eager to find out if the rumored 10nm process chip from this week (which will probably be SMIC N+1 process) will finally come out. I think we are just going to have to wait and see.
After all, we had to wait until this year to find out that 02 project succeeded last Q2. It's quite possible we will not find out SMSC's current progress until a year from now.
Yes, Huahong Grace only produces 55nm and more mature chips in its Wuxi and 8-inch fabs. It has two separate fabs in the Huali JV that does more advanced proceses. HLMC apparently is capable of producing 14nm chips now. But we hear very little about it, because Huahong never reports on the progress of HLMC! This is obvious from their previous quarterly earning reports. From what we know, HLMC fab 6 (the one doing 28 to 14 nm process) is finally getting close to reaching its capacity of 40k wpm. There is also speculation now of a new HLMC advanced node fab. We will have to see. Overall, Huahong is growing a lot and their margins are getting much better. All great signs.
btw, do me a favor and not turn this thread into a bunch of bad takes + china grievance. It's really annoying and not helpful for people trying to learn more information.
I have no idea how you got that from reading that link. Honestly, where do you see that they have stopped increasing their 14nm process. They are continuing to buy a bunch of NXT 2050i and 2100i. Do you think those are needed for 28nm production? Or do you think those are used for the most important process of producing N+1/N+2 chips like ASML has said? Do you think they need to raise their capex by 60% in second half to get ASML scanners faster if they were only content on producing 28nm and more mature node?
SMIC doesn't need to build more 14nm fabs. It is building out its SN2 fab right now (as we saw in a new article from January). And we know from Lam employee interview that SMSC fab does not use American tools (or use very little). The reason is because American gov't have not been allowing tools to be sold to this fab. A large part of the slowness in their SN1 production increase is due to the need to buy non-American tools.
You do realize that SMIC using any non-American tools is also in full compliance of relevant regulations right? As long as there are no Americans working at SMIC or servicing advanced SMIC process or selling 14nm and below techs, SMIC is in full compliance.
On top of that, these comments are being said in a way to assure that they do not lose their American clients. SMIC is being very careful about not letting the world know how much advanced node chips they are producing.
But we do know the following:
1) Report earlier this year that Shanghai company (SMIC) is fully capable of 14 nm process, which means they have achieved very high yield and able to handle complex 14nm production.
2) We do know they were already doing N+1 production (their 10nm process that got described as 7nm by techinsight) on small bitmining chip as early as July of 2021. By this point, we are all expecting that they have started mass producing much more advanced chips with N+1 process. Remember, they only got NXT-2050i scanners since H2 of last year and only NXT-2100i scanners since this past quarter. So the machines they have access to has also gotten more sophisticated since those initial bitmining chips.
3) We know they have changed the phrasing from 14nm as their most complex process to FinFet. An indication that they've moved beyond 14nm, but don't want to disclose where they are at.
4) We know that SMSC fab revenue has continued to increase based on their H1 report, which indicates their capacity has continued to increase this year to probably 30k wpm.
5) We also hear from Chinese social media that SMSC capacity is all booked up.
6) We know that Phytium's 14nm chips are produced at SMIC and their sales numbers are much higher this year than last year.
But at the end of the day, everyone on this forum is just as anxious as you are to see firm evidence that SMSC is in fact producing CPUs and GPUs for Chinese chip designers using its N+1 and N+2 process. That's why I'm personally eager to find out more about Moore Threads's new S80 GPU (which refuses to disclose fab or process). And I'm also eager to find out if the rumored 10nm process chip from this week (which will probably be SMIC N+1 process) will finally come out. I think we are just going to have to wait and see.
After all, we had to wait until this year to find out that 02 project succeeded last Q2. It's quite possible we will not find out SMSC's current progress until a year from now.
Yes, Huahong Grace only produces 55nm and more mature chips in its Wuxi and 8-inch fabs. It has two separate fabs in the Huali JV that does more advanced proceses. HLMC apparently is capable of producing 14nm chips now. But we hear very little about it, because Huahong never reports on the progress of HLMC! This is obvious from their previous quarterly earning reports. From what we know, HLMC fab 6 (the one doing 28 to 14 nm process) is finally getting close to reaching its capacity of 40k wpm. There is also speculation now of a new HLMC advanced node fab. We will have to see. Overall, Huahong is growing a lot and their margins are getting much better. All great signs.
btw, do me a favor and not turn this thread into a bunch of bad takes + china grievance. It's really annoying and not helpful for people trying to learn more information.
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