Is also quite interesting that they are converting dry machines into immersion machines. Why Nikon and not ASML? Probably Nikon scanners are better suited for immersion conversion or used Nikon scanners are more available.
Chinese semiconductor industry
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This means all the optimists on this forum hold the same view as some guy who is actually a kingpin in the industry.
Suppose they announce somewhere in China, they will start building the EUV machine in 2024 or 2025. It probably will take half a year to build it, then maybe another two years to furnish a fab for this EUV line.
Once they announce they will build an EUV, meaning they have the tools and tech mature enough to do so, then the clock starts, and it will be a few years, maybe three or even four years later that EUV will be in production.
Morris Chang timeline is the timeline for an optimist regarding the speed to market and production for a Chinese made EUV.
Zhejiang Aoshou's new product "photoresist stripping solution for chips above 14nm node" has achieved mass production
The new product "photoresist stripping solution for chips above 14nm node" developed by Zhejiang Aoshou Material Technology Co., Ltd. has achieved mass production.
According to reports, recently, the "photoresist stripping solution for chips above 14nm node" developed by Aushou passed the expert acceptance review, and the experts agreed that the technical level of the product has reached the international advanced level. The new product has the characteristics of strong deglue ability, high cleaning yield, low metal ion content, no phenol or chlorinated solvents, and low metal etching rate. It is mainly used in the field of cleaning residual photoresist after the photolithography patterning process of semiconductor chips, especially the cleaning of chips above the 14nm technology node of large-scale integrated circuits after photolithography.
It is reported that Aoshou was established in 2014. It is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D and production of integrated circuits and advanced display functional chemicals. Ten automated clean production lines.
Ao Shou said that in the future, he will actively carry out technological research around the "stuck neck" materials in strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, advanced display, and aerospace, to build a secure link in the supply chain of my country's integrated circuit industry, and to drive the formation of a local functional electronic chemicals industry. Agglomeration will help Quzhou City to build an electronic material base of "10,000 mu, 100 billion".
According to reports, recently, the "photoresist stripping solution for chips above 14nm node" developed by Aushou passed the expert acceptance review, and the experts agreed that the technical level of the product has reached the international advanced level. The new product has the characteristics of strong deglue ability, high cleaning yield, low metal ion content, no phenol or chlorinated solvents, and low metal etching rate. It is mainly used in the field of cleaning residual photoresist after the photolithography patterning process of semiconductor chips, especially the cleaning of chips above the 14nm technology node of large-scale integrated circuits after photolithography.
It is reported that Aoshou was established in 2014. It is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the R&D and production of integrated circuits and advanced display functional chemicals. Ten automated clean production lines.
Ao Shou said that in the future, he will actively carry out technological research around the "stuck neck" materials in strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, advanced display, and aerospace, to build a secure link in the supply chain of my country's integrated circuit industry, and to drive the formation of a local functional electronic chemicals industry. Agglomeration will help Quzhou City to build an electronic material base of "10,000 mu, 100 billion".
hpvc's point as I understand it is that by the time Chinese EUV enters production in such a timeline TSMC will probably be introducing 1 nm while China is at best *presumably* only still on 5 nm. I'm a bit skeptical of that kind of prognosis though, because what we're seeing with 3nm is that the development time got effectively delayed by a year, and because Apple is basically purchasing all of TSMC's 3 nm capacity for the next year (which btw implies yield limitations), anyone not named Apple won't be able to start getting 3 nm chips until 2024-25. That itself is effectively a 4-5 year cycle time going from 5 nm to 3 nm. TSMC has already started work on their 2 nm process but given delays to their 3 nm process I'm pretty skeptical that they won't see similar if not worse delays for moving onto their 2 nm process given the smaller feature size, more EUV multi-patterning, and new more complex transistor architectures needed, and that's if it even makes economic sense to try to maintain the fastest iteration speed possible given how small the customer base for 2 nm is likely to be given the ever increasing cost per node shrink.
At the same time, if China *really* wants to catch up to the most cutting edge node shrinks irregardless of the business economics, they could very well lean on state funding to maintain R&D on new production process for the most advanced nodes and perhaps do some low yield production to keep pace with industry knowledge and skill while waiting for an adequate EUV scanner to do production at scale, and leap ahead in the node shrink sequence when they're ready to do large scale production. But given the ever more strenuous economics involved in shrinking node processes, I'm not even sure that that's necessary anymore.
I suppose we'll see in a few years where the industry is at but given the delays to 3 nm it really does feel like the game may be up for the 2 year iteration cycle for process node shrinks, and it may even be increasingly overoptimistic to expect slowdown of iterations to stay contained in a 3-4 year time window.
Moore's law is dead. The implications of that are exactly what you said. Longer development cycles, bigger delays to getting the high production yields that came more easily in the past. Higher prices and lower volume demand goes hand in hand with that.
Long term, the question is whether or not the higher cost justifies the lower node. Maybe Apple is continually willing to pay for more expensive CPUs, but at some point, it just doesn't make sense for other players. Of course, size will be larger and power consumption will be worse, but those are your usual trade offs.
In 2 years, I would think that SMIC either has or is close to having fully domestic 12nm process. Since SN2 plant is up and running by Q3 of 2024, I would think by first half next year, they will have maxed out SN1 fab. Maybe I'm optimistic here, but we will see. We know they will have de-americanized 28nm process soon. From @tokenanalyst chart, it seems like most of the domestic tools have reached 14nm node. No idea how many tools are left, but assuming they have enough ASML scanners, de-americanized 14nm process by early next year seems plausible. Once they have that, then they can basically expand 12/14nm process as much as they want. That's why I think in 3 years, they will be able to freely expand improved 7nm process with good yield and they will have some type of lower yielding 5nm process. That to me is enough process in the near/medium. Anything beyond that depends on EUV development
Will there be enough photoresists and high purity chemicals and gases to use ??
At the moment no. The biggest problem being arf photoresists. However, in all cases there are domestic manufacturers who can make them. The problem is their output is tiny tiny compared to need. Of course that being said, they all exist. The problem now is expansion not creation which is vastly simpler. So in 2 years? Probably.
Might be less. Scaling for chemical processes is often more straightforward than for mech e processes, especially if you don’t have to mind very tight cost performance parameters.
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