Well，semiconductor industry as a whole is heading into down turn. You saw news about Intel and Micron layoffs，and memory price collapsing. So even if we hear news of layoff at CXMT or YMTC，we would not know whether it's due to the macro-environment or US sanctions
Chinese semiconductor industry
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Well，semiconductor industry as a whole is heading into down turn. You saw news about Intel and Micron layoffs，and memory price collapsing. So even if we hear news of layoff at CXMT or YMTC，we would not know whether it's due to the macro-environment or US sanctions
I suspect some processes had to be redesigned, but who knows, let see what happens. I think US companies are going to have some troubles entering the Chinese market again, they way the pull out of the Chinese market even breaking contracts was outstanding to say the least.
I think it is good that the Dutch minister spoke out here (after already speaking out in November), because rumors kept swirling from Bloomberg of impending sanctions in January. It's quite clear at this point that certain people were just doing releasing rumors to Bloomberg editors in order to put pressure on Dutch & Japanese gov't officials. At this point, I still think it's more likely than not that some form of sanctions will happen later this year, but at least they have a few more months. And depending on how things get worded in implementation, they might have some grace period on top of that. Which will give them enough time to qualify their domestic lines and lithography machines.
All the major foundries are cutting back capex this year vs original 2022 projection while ASML has been increasing production. From what I can see, the one that's most affected here is SMIC. They just have to stock up as much of the foreign stuff as possible. Any non-American sanction will just stop future sales. They are not going to stop after service support. Have SMIC's local gov't JV partner foot the bills for as many needed tools as can be delivered and then you are shielded for a couple of years. They really don't need that much time.
The Huawei whisperer stated in that infamous 12/14 nm weibo post that 7nm chip (which I would assume is referring to SMIC N+2 process, or somewhere between TSMC N7P and Samsung 5nm) will be ready in 2025. That tells me N+2 production for SMIC is likely to be fully up and running by middle of 2024 (not just some trial production). To get there, they need a lot more tools for their SN2 factory.
If can guess what is happening is:
- The US want a ban in the entire ASML immersion line.
- The Dutch probably are offering NXT2050i and the NXT2000i at worst.
-The US want ASML to stop servicing immersion machines in China.
-The Dutch just said, nee, "that is excessive".
-The US wants the Netherlands and Europe in general to adopt the same US person rule that they adopted.
-The Dutch just said, NEE, "that is even more excessive".
I think YMTC will be shielded more, because 3D NAND is more forgiving on lateral dimensions and you can relax the lateral dimensions somewhat in exchange for higher layer count.
A ~45 nm cell CD, while not ideal, is achievable with lower end immersion tools or multipatterning dry ArF, and has been used for earlier Samsung 3D NAND processes. If YMTC has to go back to that, it might be a setback, but in the context of all foreign tools and chips being banned from the Chinese market, something like a 300+ layer, 40 nm CD chip would be a good transition product while lithography catches up.
They did use KLA tools for the metrology, they will have to work with current and coming Chinese metrology companies. In terms of etching 3DNAND has very high aspect ratio requirements, I don't know if they used LAM etching tools or AMEC tools, they don't mention in the literature, either way now they will have to work with Naura or AMEC..
Metrology is the big one, but 3D NAND metrology is GI-SAXS which is part of the X-ray metrology complex that China already has.
In particular, SAXS is a technology highly related to XRD, which means that once XRD instruments are created, SAXS is just a matter of improving the source and getting the correct interpretation software.
I hope the Dutch (and other countries) realize that the US war on the semiconductor industry has put anyone with a monopoly/quasi-monopoly in the supply chain at risk. Even though there was incentive to be less dependent on foreign suppliers in the early 2010s, it is nothing compared to the hundreds of billions invested into building a brand new supply chain free of American influence.
all domestic semiconductor industry will have to wait until 2025, when the 7nm process will be mass-produced...
None sense. Infrastructure and skilled labor are a rare combination and only China offer competitive one. Example includes EV. Otherwise US can make Tesla move to Africa where labor are cheaper. Chinese industrial infrastructure is the best in the world even ahead of developed country. This is a irreplaceble advantage not easily overcome with money(see the American trillion dollar infrastructure plan). The cheap labor was never about some cheap slave labor but about skilled labor like electricians. There is no shortage of country with cheaper labor for the past 2 decades but thanks to unique advantage of strong education China offer these skilled labor at low cost.
So in the end it comes down to education and extensive infrastructure. Both of which requires decades of planning to achieve and very few could do it anyways. The few that does invariably are developed country with exception of China, and China is ahead of these so called 'developed country' anyways in these area. So no, China advantage cannot be replaced and is unique.
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