Chinese semiconductor industry

gelgoog said:

Well it is not like they can take back the production line that YMTC already had. But the sanctions mean YMTC cannot easily scale its fab space and compete in the wider market. YMTC basically have a product better than everyone else at this point but if they cannot manufacture it at huge scale they cannot pay back the R&D costs to develop this easily.

This puts a nail on the coffin of the US claims Chinese semi companies cannot innovate though. YMTC's dual stack memory architecture is more advanced than their competitors in terms of bandwidth and now they have more density than them as well. The truth is US squashed HiSilicon and is trying to squash YMTC precisely because they are competitive against their own companies like Qualcomm (quasi-monopoly) and Micron (oligopoly).

Click to expand...

I'm still a little concerned about how well they can run their fabs without US toolmakers support. Looks like they are doing well so far. I'm hoping it's playing out as that Lam employee said (laid off Lam employees joining YMTC/CXMT and such), but let's wait a while longer.

We do know that they did heavy stocking up of American tools prior to the sanctions. From this link
They should be at 100k wpm from their first fab. The second fab was originally expected to start production at end of this year in the best case scenario. Let's wait and see if that second fab does get started over the next few months. If they do start production at second fab, then that would indicate they stocked up enough tools to withstand sanctions for a while.

they seem to be a very ambitious and capable company. Let's see how well they can work with domestic tool makers to get through this. But given the gov't help they will be getting, I'm not concerned about YMTC.

supersnoop said:

This is especially true for Qualcomm.
Despite Apple's near infinite resources (as far as companies go), they were not able to develop a viable integrated 5G modem.
As such, Apple has great CPU/GPU power, but no integrated modem.

Click to expand...

well Apple, like many other American companies, went for the higher margin hardware designing and software product rather than manufacturing and hardware tooling. That's what happens when wall street encourages American tech companies to always go for higher margin product line. So, that has worked out great for Chinese hard tech firms, because lower cost Chinese competition drove a lot of American companies to higher margin business.

I want to emphasize this point, because this has huge implication in semi tools industry as the sanctions have now opened up the door for Chinese competition to do the same to Lam/Amat.

@WarAndPeace
Yes, most recent Russian chip designs are either 28nm planar or 16nm FinFET. So 28nm planar and 14nm FinFET should work.
A lot of companies in China can produce 28nm chips, not just SMIC and Hua Hong, so I expect the Russians to start fabbing chips with that technology in China sooner rather than later. There are also lots of fabs outside China which can produce such chips so there is plausible deniability in making them I think. Especially 28nm without HKMG.

@tphuang
It is not just Apple who failed at getting a 5G modem. Intel failed as well.
But other companies like UNISOC and MediaTek have done it.

YMTC's second fab building is in advanced state of construction:

tphuang said:

well Apple, like many other American companies, went for the higher margin hardware designing and software product rather than manufacturing and hardware tooling. That's what happens when wall street encourages American tech companies to always go for higher margin product line. So, that has worked out great for Chinese hard tech firms, because lower cost Chinese competition drove a lot of American companies to higher margin business.

I want to emphasize this point, because this has huge implication in semi tools industry as the sanctions have now opened up the door for Chinese competition to do the same to Lam/Amat.

Click to expand...

Wall Street also reflects American attitudes towards wealth generation in my opinion. American attitudes tend to favour equity growth, whereas a lot of HK investors like dividends. This makes them more tolerant of lower margin businesses that are still profitable.

theorlonator said:

This news of YMTC and Chinese semis in general just tell me that Chinese toolmakers need to hurry hurry hurry.

Click to expand...

This happens to be the most opaque part of the sector as well

gelgoog said:

The truth is US squashed HiSilicon and is trying to squash YMTC precisely because they are competitive against their own companies like Qualcomm (quasi-monopoly) and Micron (oligopoly).

Click to expand...

In China, more things happen in 5 years than does in 50 years for most countries. That HiSilicon episode is unlikely to repeat here with YMTC. It may slow them down somewhat, but I don't think they will be prevented from becoming a clear market leader.

mossen said:

In China, more things happen in 5 years than does in 50 years for most countries. That HiSilicon episode is unlikely to repeat here with YMTC. It may slow them down somewhat, but I don't think they will be prevented from becoming a clear market

Click to expand...

mossen said:

In China, more things happen in 5 years than does in 50 years for most countries. That HiSilicon episode is unlikely to repeat here with YMTC. It may slow them down somewhat, but I don't think they will be prevented from becoming a clear market leader.

Click to expand...

What is the limiting factor in their expansion?

supercat said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

a little more on this. 悟空 (WuKong) quantum computer can be mass produced soon with this new machine available.
This is expected to be the top commercial quantum computer in China.
Origin Quantum came out with a 6-qubit and 24-qubit quantum computer first.

According to other sources, quantum chips currently use 100nm process.

Origin Quantum is quite ambitious. Looking to achieve 1024 Qubits computer by 2025 and 144 by this year. It's unclear how many qubits are in this first commercialized WuKong computer

A good post on history of gigadevice
It's nor flash are produced by smic, hlmc and huahong wuxi fab. I believe it's the largest domestic customer of smic. It is now the world's 3rd largest nor flash seller and has sold over 10 billion unit of flash card.

For dram production, it's interesting to see how the sanctions affect them. Cxmt was at 60k wpm at end of 2021 and supposed to reach 120k wpm by end of this year. Goal is to reach 360k wpm when all 3 phases are completed which would be quite big. But with sanctions, it's unclear how much equipment they have stocked up and whether they can continue their expansions even if they have the factories built.

Back in September, they unveiled the GDA32A503 MCU, their first auto grade MCU. Probably ARM based? It uses 40nm process. No idea who is ordering from them. Probably produced by TSMC. I see SMIC producing mostly NorFlash for them.

CR Micros has received investment from 41 institutions. It has achieved 400 million RMB of IGBT sales this year and expect it to increase multiple folds next year.

CR Micros expect very high Capex next year for Shenzhen 12-inch fab and test/packaging base. Also more Capex for raising Chongqing 12-inch fab next year.

Currently they have 130k wpm of 8-inch production. Should continue to increase production next year. The major capacity increase will be in the Chongqing 12-inch fab (eventually raising to 30k wpm) and the new Shenzhen fab planning for 40k wpm in phase 1.


CR Micros looking to start providing 40nm and high end mask foundry service by Q1 2024. They already provide it for major domestic fab and design house.

New 12-inch fab in Shenzhen will focus on specialty process in the 40nm and higher segment

Q3 earning was 2.486 billion RMB with margin of 37.36%. This is another Chinese chip maker that's generating over $1 billion in revenue a year and massively expanding their production. Quite a few of these.

Netherlands beat the US, keep selling lithography machines!