Chinese semiconductor industry

Maikeru said:

Just found this, haven't read yet.

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tokenanalyst said:

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Great, another article from the overpaid National Security clowns.

I find weird that for an administration that like to brag every single China "victory" with bombastic headlines they have to keep hide this one, I feel that they don't have a deal sign on paper but some sort of hand shake agreement probably with just the most cutting edge tools and even that will depend on the tools that Chinese companies already produce, it will difficult to convince Japan to ban TEL track tools if Kingsemi and ACMR already produce similar products.
My guess if they say the details Biden will get grilled from both sides, the Republicans and the Industry groups.

Look how these overpaid clowns always default to SMEE, they never mention Naura or AMEC or Piotech or Leadmicro or Wanye or another Chinese tool company, is always SMEE, first because they don't know crap about this topic and second because they are bullies that prey on "perceived weakness". I could agree with some of the guys here that SMEE should post some progress and post their upgraded dual stage frontend machines in their website even if they infringe every single ASML patent. they haven't even posted their upgraded packaging machines yet. But that will make the narratives of these clowns less palatable.

The narrative in favor these sanctions are not SMIC 7nm nodes or YTMC 232L NAND or Biren GPUs. The Narrative for this overpaid circus has always been China is weak on tools and therefore they think that they can get away with it. It will be no consequences because it will take a million years to China "catch" on X or Y tools. So until EVERYONE in China from the CEO to the janitor, from the chairman to the official, from the Phd to the undergrad get into their brains that is all about TOOL, TOOLS, TOOLS NOTHING BUT TOOLS this crap will never end.
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the stupidest thing is comparing TEL, AMAT and LAM to SMEE. they're not in the same market. That's how you know it's a useless paper.

latenlazy said:

The aspiration is nice but the only thing preventing Chinese fabs from making their own replacement parts and doing 3rd party servicing is the servicing contract. Kill those and there’s absolutely no reason why Chinese engineers couldn’t and wouldn’t do the servicing on their own. It doesn’t need to be to the same quality of the OEM for self servicing to be viable.

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You shouldn't listen to what the politicians say - that's just for public consumption: "we're not trying to crush China's economy; we are trying to prevent China's military modernization; we stand with the Chinese people who want peaceful development and democracy."

The actual fact is that US sanctions are designed specifically to shape the industrial environment in a certain way, so as to make it not profitable for Chinese companies to pursue R&D or high-end work.

The intent is equivalent to the tactic of leaving an escape route for enemy troops during an encirclement campaign - if you close up all the routes, they'll fight tooth and nail, because they have nothing to lose; and the human spirit, thus motivated, could perform miracles. But if you leave a path for retreat, then more likely they'll take the easy way out.

There is also the equally important concern of ensuring that Western, Japanese, South Korean, etc. companies can still profit off of China. If the US banned the export of all chips and equipment to China, those companies would have to pull out. And Chinese companies would take their place and gain a monopoly.

But if they only ban the export of high-end chips and equipment, then those companies can still compete against Chinese domestic companies on the lower-end. Helped by US subsidies and profits from high-end sales else where, they can even achieve competitive success in mature technologies, simply by brand prestige ("why would you work with a Chinese manufacturer who is banned from working on high-end chips and so have no global presence, when you can work with a global leader like us?").

In conclusion, you should never assume that the US is being merciful or restrained in its approach to sanctions, but that, like their preferred strategy in war, they prefer to hide behind precision strikes and targeted attacks, both for the sake of maintaining appearance, and because they discourage the opponent from going all-out in retaliation.

The best counter to such tactics is to 1. deny US & allies significant market access in China for lower-end sectors and 2. actively push for market share in lower-end sectors globally (to prevent complacent monopolies from developing in China) and 3. engage in all-of-society propaganda and mobilization campaigns at home to counter US efforts; don't allow Chinese companies to "take the easy way out" the US is offering.

What do you think of this?


Beijing can make more missiles for less with breakthrough for chip-based gyroscopes: paper

Chip-sized optic gyroscope paves way for mass production of low-cost missiles, say defence industry engineers

Arms producers must ‘further cut the cost, reduce size and greatly increase shipment volume to meet the military’s urgent demand’, say authors

China has developed a low-cost fibre-optic gyroscope that can be mass-produced in an old-fashioned computer chip plant, speeding up the delivery of tactical missiles and other guided weapons to the Chinese military stockpile, according to defence industry engineers. The technology is available in only two countries – China and the United States – according to the research team led by Mao Yuzheng, a senior engineer with the Xian Flight Automatic Control Research Institute under the Aviation Industry Corporation of China. China was moving fast but remained about two years behind the US in this “disruptive” chip race, said Mao and his co-authors from the People’s Liberation Army equipment department in a paper published in the Journal of Chinese Inertial Technology on Monday. The gyroscope enables a missile to automatically correct its turn and pitch motion in flight, even when its GPS is down.

Chinese engineers built a fibre-optic gyroscope on a grain-sized chip – compared to the bowl-sized ones in present use. Photo: Xian Flight Automatic Control Research Institute, Aviation Industry Corporation of China
Mechanical gyroscopes have in recent decades been replaced mainly by fibre-optic gyros that are accurate without using moving components. A typical fibre-optic gyro is the size of a rice bowl, and making the device is onerous for missile producers, according to Mao’s team.

“At present, the core components of traditional fibre-optic gyroscopes all come in discrete packages which are large. Making and assembling these components requires many procedures that are time consuming and demand lots of manpower,” Mao’s team said in the paper.
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“The manufacturing cost is high while production scale and capacity remains small.” They added that China’s defence industry must “further cut the cost, reduce size and greatly increase shipment volume to meet the [military’s] urgent demand”. Mao’s team created optic fibres and other components on a silicon chip about the size of a grain of rice.

The chip technology reduces the size of the gyroscope to 1/12th of the original product, according to their paper.
PLA missile performance announcement read as warning to US
2 Feb 2023

Laboratory testing showed that the accuracy of chip-based gyros surpassed that of mainstream products used in China’s short-range missiles by about 30 per cent. “With the help of photolithography technology, hundreds or even thousands of photonic chips can be processed on a single wafer at one time,” Mao’s team said.

Consistency of product quality and scale production effect was also “greatly improved”. “The traditional fibre-optic gyroscope manufacturing mode will be turned upside down,” they added.
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The chip was made with deep ultraviolet (DUV) photolithography at 248 nanometres (nm), a mature process in semiconductor fabrication that has been around for more than two decades.

Mao’s team said it had worked with a foundry in China, but did not name it. The US government is reportedly seeking to expand the sanctions list on China’s semiconductor industry to target older technologies such as DUV. Japan and the Netherlands agreed last month to join the US in banning the export of DUV photolithography machines to China, although companies in these two countries said earlier that the measure would have limited effect on China, which had the mature technology.

Chinese AI reveals surprising tactic for winning hypersonic air battle
28 Feb 2023

The 248nm fabrication process was more reliable than newer fabrication technology, such as those using 7nm technology, but it took a toll on the chip gyroscope’s performance, Mao’s team said, adding that the tiny chip consumed more electricity than desired, and its positioning accuracy was lower than similar products received by the US military in 2020. As chip-making technology advances in China, the cost and size of missile gyroscopes “is expected to be further reduced in mass production”. “There will also be a huge demand in other fields such as civil aviation, autonomous driving and intelligent robots,” the paper said.



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Stephen Chen
Stephen Chen investigates major research projects in China, a new power house of scientific and technological innovation. He has worked for the Post since 2006. He is an alumnus of Shantou University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Semester at Sea programme which he attended with a full scholarship from the Seawise Foundation.
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tokenanalyst said:

Zhongwei Company (AMEC): CCP capacitive high-energy plasma etching equipment continues to receive bulk orders from many customers​

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According to news from Jiwei.com, recently, China Microelectronics said in an institutional survey that according to the company's preliminary statistics, the composition of operating income in 2022 is mainly based on etching equipment and MOCVD equipment.

It is reported that the company's CCP capacitive high-energy plasma etching equipment continues to receive batch orders from many customers, and its market share continues to increase. A total of 2,320 reaction tables have been operating in the production line. In the world's most advanced 5nm chip production line and the next-generation more advanced production line, the company's CCP etching equipment has achieved multiple batch sales, and more than 200 reaction tables have been operating in the production line. Since the company's ICP inductive low-energy plasma etching machine was launched, it has continuously approved more etching applications, rapidly expanded the market and received bulk orders from leading customers, and has been used in more than 20 customers including logic, DRAM and Mass production of more than 100 ICP etching processes has been carried out on various chip production lines such as 3D NAND, and it has continued to expand to the verification of more etching applications, with a strong development momentum. The 8-inch and 12-inch deep silicon etching equipment, which also uses ICP technology, continues to receive bulk and repeated orders in the etching markets such as advanced system packaging, 2.5-dimensional packaging and micro-electromechanical system chip production lines.

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AMEC ICP etching machine, which is more flexible and powerful than the CCP type, has been introduced in , exactly 5 years ago. At that time AMEC was already a well established market leader and was already selling the CCP version since many years. Nevertheless today, 5 years later, AMEC is still expanding the process coverage of the ICP machine. I'd guess process coverage refers to the different etching "recipes" for different materials/nodes/etc. Currently 100 processes have been developed and it seems there are still many more, especially for advanced nodes / 3D NAND.

This is a testament to how difficult and how much time is needed to develop a local supply chain in semiconductor equipment.


Also in the article:
"AMEC said that the company attaches great importance to the localization of components. Up to now, the etching machine has a localization rate of about 60% of parts, and MOCVD has a localization rate of about 80%."

The U.S. Department of Commerce blacklisted 28 Chinese entities including Loongson Zhongke and Inspur Group

On March 2, a document from the U.S. Department of Commerce showed that the United States once again added 28 Chinese entities to the "Entity List" for unreasonable reasons such as national security, including 4Paradigm Technology Co., Hong Kong BGI Research, Inspur Group Co., Ltd., Loongson Technology, Suzhou Centec Communications Co., Ltd., etc. Companies included in the so-called Entity List must obtain authorization from the U.S. government to obtain U.S. products and technologies. The Commerce Department said the new Entity List rules will take effect on March 2, 2023.

The entity list is as follows:

What is china missing now for mass producing DUVi?

The

resistance said:

What is china missing now for mass producing DUVi?

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DUVi has not been fully tested for production even at 55nm. The sub components are not being mass produced

pbd456 said:

The

DUVi has not been fully tested for production even at 55nm. The sub components are not being mass produced

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stop using words like even when you are describing this.

The DUVi project is going to be qualified by different fabs. It just happens that ICRD Jiading is qualifying all domestic tools at 55nm process and putting it into production. In other fabs like SMIC, SSA800 would likely be qualifying for 28nm or 40nm, depending on what they are comfortable with and where they are looking to add capacity.

America continues to use CHIPS act and sanction threats to kneecap competition for its domestic chipmakers like Micron