Chinese semiconductor industry

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Slightly off topic but did anyone else see #havoc trending on Twitter a couple days back?
gadgetcool5 said:

China’s semiconductor industry can’t quit German optics​

"When it comes to the optical systems in its lithography machines, SMEE does not tend to source from foreign firms, according to its website. Instead it uses systems from Chinese optics companies like UP Optotech, Focuslight Technologies, and MLOptic Corp. However, recent documents from these firms in turn showed heavy procurements from German and American suppliers."

UP Optotech’s 2021 annual report revealed that the firm’s top supplier wasn’t Chinese, but in fact the German application-specific integrated circuit company iC-Haus. That year, 11.49% of the company’s procurements came from iC-Haus.

A year later, in its 2022 annual report, UP Optotech directly mentioned the issue of foreign supply chain exposure, writing that independent control and import substitution would be key to solving the “chokehold” (卡脖子) problem. But the same report showed that iC-Haus was the second-biggest supplier for UP Optotech for 2022. UP Optotech’s purchases from the German firm made up 8.5% of its more than $13 million in procurements in 2022."

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There's plenty more in that article (showing SMEE's suppliers reliant on German, Japanese and American glass polarizers, precision motors, resins, etc. ). So before developing its semiconductor industry, China must develop its lithography industry, and before developing its lithography industry, China must develop its optics, precision positioning instruments, and materials science industries. Interesting reading.
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Without actually specifying what components are being bought it's very difficult to gauge the importance of these foreign firms.
The article has the implicit assumption that domestic firms using foreign sourcing for a given technology means that no Chinese firm exists which produces said technology commercially, or even that the MIC can't produce it. It's been discussed ad nauseum on this forum that this isn't how it works.
It's possible if not probable that domestic firms do produce these components but their brands are less well established or their products are not quite the same level of quality. We've already been through this loop before with mature node equipment.

Also id recommend taking any article that quotes economics or business professors on matters of technology with a mountain of salt, even if they're Chinese. They are not actually likely to know anything a dedicated amateur couldn't. And in many cases they know much less.
 
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latenlazy

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Boltzmann said:
Slightly off topic but did anyone else see #havoc trending on Twitter a couple days back?

Without actually specifying what components are being bought it's very difficult to gauge the importance of these foreign firms.
The article has the implicit assumption that domestic firms using foreign sourcing for a given technology means that no Chinese firm exists which produces said technology commercially, or even that the MIC can't produce it. It's been discussed ad nauseum on this forum that this isn't how it works.
It's possible if not probable that domestic firms do produce these components but their brands are less well established or their products are not quite the same level of quality. We've already been through this loop before with mature node equipment.

Also id recommend taking any article that quotes economics or business professors on matters of technology with a mountain of salt, even if they're Chinese. They are not actually likely to know anything a dedicated amateur couldn't. And in many cases they know much less.
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I’ll put it this way. If you don’t know what a BOM is you have no business commenting on whether a domestic supply source exists or not.
 
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tokenanalyst

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tokenanalyst said:
So they reduced their purchase from 12% to 8% in a year that is called progress, thought the point should no be replacement for the sake of it, but to tell Western goverment that they have more to lose if they play the hard ball with China



SMEE was blacklisted so it was reliant of US products, specially the Active vibration isolation ,interferometers and the planar gratings, that development that has been solved by Tsinghua-U-Precision, Harbin and others.

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Yes, that is why 30% of 300 billion from 2021 to 2022 of China investment in semiconductors was going to materials, parts and components.


Is just the same recycle garbage. "China doesn't have this or that, therefore is OK to harm our own companies."

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Two of the companies that he mentions are not involved in China lithography project. Doti Micro and Optowave looks like they do optics for VR, cameras and lidar applications not lithography.
Boltzmann said:
Without actually specifying what components are being bought it's very difficult to gauge the importance of these foreign firms.
The article has the implicit assumption that domestic firms using foreign sourcing for a given technology means that no Chinese firm exists which produces said technology commercially, or even that the MIC can't produce it. It's been discussed ad nauseum on this forum that this isn't how it works.
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To add to that in development stages I have seem that Chinese tool makers may use components from very reliable source that allow them to reach max specs and serve as benchmarks, then they replace those with local alternatives as those become more reliable, for example Zygo interferometers was use in the development stages of SMEE lithography machines these are going to be replaced with even more advanced Chinese made ones.

Some Chinese companies have second businesses apart from the lithography project because the have bills to pay, in those products is maybe not critical the use of foreign components.
 
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tokenanalyst

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Gulun Electronics and Hongzhiwei reached a strategic cooperation based on TCAD​



This strategic cooperation aims to strengthen the comprehensive cooperation between Gulun Electronics and Hongzhiwei in the core technology of integrated circuits and product TCAD, promote product innovation and technological breakthroughs of both parties, and achieve win-win development. This cooperation is also another major cooperation after the EDA solution of Guilun Electronics landed on Hongzhi Weiyun in April this year to realize EDA on the cloud and start the acceleration of chip design.

Since its establishment in 2010, Guilun Electronics has been committed to creating an application-driven EDA full-process solution covering integrated circuit design and manufacturing based on the DTCO concept, supporting the continuous development of various high-end chip research and development, and combining the upstream and downstream of the industry chain with EDA partner, build a competitive and vital EDA ecology. The cooperation with Hongzhiwei this time is an important part of the strategic layout of the EDA map of Gulun Electronics. The cooperation between the two parties will inject strong impetus into enhancing the overall market competitiveness of integrated circuit companies, continuously improve chip design efficiency, optimize chip design, and ensure chip function, thereby further enhancing the overall market competitiveness of integrated circuit enterprises.

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european_guy

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FairAndUnbiased said:
This is also a tacit admission of failure. if they're having to go after the suppliers (passive optical components) of suppliers (optical modules) of suppliers (lithography tools) of suppliers (fabs) of suppliers (chip designers) of the end user (software companies) it means they can't do much to anyone else in the chain. The further you get from the end user, the more other uses and buyers come into the picture.
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Yes, they are really scraping the barrel...and hoping for Germany to start banning technology too, becasue US has almost dried up their ammo.

They made half of the article on the supposed "stuckneck" issue of UP Optotech regarding a German ASIC design company (!) there are literally tens if not hundred of Chinese firms that can replace that specific part. The reason why you keep a supplier in most cases is just because you started with it and it works for you, not because you can't.

The article is chock-full of clueless cope on SMEE, but it's ok, nothing new. The only useful info is about SMEE's optical suppliers. In particularly I didn't know about
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Fun fact, the article author works for Radio Free Asia, I briefly checked their website: an embarrassingly low quality propaganda outpost. When you see words like "free", "democracy", "independent", etc in the title of a news site / NGO, you can almost be sure it is a CIA funded propaganda asset....in this case it happens to be also significantly low quality.
 
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staplez

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european_guy said:
Yes, they are really scraping the barrel...and hoping for Germany to start banning technology too, becasue US has almost dried up their ammo.

They made half of the article on the supposed "stuckneck" issue of UP Optotech regarding a German ASIC design company (!) there are literally tens if not hundred of Chinese firms that can replace that specific part. The reason why you keep a supplier in most cases is just because you started with it and it works for you, not because you can't.

The article is chock-full of clueless cope on SMEE, but it's ok, nothing new. The only useful info is about SMEE's optical suppliers. In particularly I didn't know about
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Fun fact, the article author works for Radio Free Asia, I briefly checked their website: an embarrassingly low quality propaganda outpost. When you see words like "free", "democracy", "independent", etc in the title of a news site / NGO, you can almost be sure it is a CIA funded propaganda asset....in this case it happens to be also significantly low quality.
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And this is exactly why China is hiding what it's doing. I know it's frustrating for all of us not to know how far China has gotten except for rumours from engineers. But what your seeing US media doing is exactly why China has to keep it all hush hush.

We don't know what foreign machines are in other processes. What about photoresists, what about the backend packaging lithography, what about the etchers. We know China can make all that now, but we don't know the percentage of foreign machines used to make them.

What we do know now to the minute detail is what components go into the front-end lithography machines. Down to the German lenses. Since USA has no idea what is being made anymore they just keep focusing on the unimportant details of the front-end lithography machine. This is what China WANTS. USA to not know what to focus on, and this article shows it's working in all it's glory.
 
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tokenanalyst

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The third phase of Xinmi Technology was put into production, and the production capacity was expanded by 60% to effectively meet the demand for semiconductor perfluorinated seals​

According to news from Shanghai Lingang Industrial Zone, the second phase of Xinmi Technology's project will be put into operation in December 2021. In order to further expand production capacity and increase the proportion of high-tech products, the third phase of project construction was launched at the end of last year. The production of this project will expand the production capacity by about 60% on the existing basis, and the production capacity will reach 1 million sealing rings of various sizes, effectively meeting the demand for perfluorinated sealing parts in the domestic semiconductor industry.

It is reported that Xinmi Technology was established in January 2020 and is located in the Lingang New Area of Shanghai. It is an enterprise focusing on high-end sealing materials and product solutions. It integrates R&D, design, manufacturing and sales capabilities. Industry customers provide comprehensive products and technical solutions.

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tokenanalyst

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Jingsheng Electromechanical successfully developed 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxial equipment​

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Recently, Jingsheng Electromechanical successfully developed an 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial growth equipment with an internationally advanced level, leading the technological upgrade of the domestic silicon carbide industry. This equipment can achieve epitaxial quality within 4% doping uniformity, which is another important technological breakthrough of Jingsheng Electromechanical in the field of third-generation semiconductor equipment.
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Group photo of the 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial growth equipment team
Prior to this, Jingsheng Electromechanical has successfully developed 6-inch silicon carbide epitaxial equipment, and its technical performance and market share are both in the forefront of the country, and it has achieved an important market position. The successful research and development of the 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial growth equipment marks that Jingsheng Electromechanical's technology research and development capabilities in the silicon carbide industry have reached a new level, providing sufficient equipment support for the domestic silicon carbide industry's technology and production capacity upgrades .
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8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial equipment

As a third-generation semiconductor material, silicon carbide has excellent properties such as high temperature resistance, high voltage, high frequency, and high power, and is widely used in fields such as electric power, communication, optoelectronics, and new energy. Compared with 6-inch silicon carbide wafers, the edge loss of 8-inch silicon carbide wafers is smaller and the usable area is larger. In the future, through the improvement of output and economies of scale, the cost is expected to be reduced by more than 60%. Jingsheng Electromechanical's 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial growth equipment can provide more advanced technical support for the industry and promote the rapid development of the silicon carbide industry.

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It is reported that the 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxy equipment is compatible with 6-inch and 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxy production. Based on the original technology of the 6-inch epitaxy equipment, high-precision closed-loop control of temperature and precise flow control of process gas, it solves the problem of cavity The temperature field uniformity, flow field uniformity and other control problems in the design have realized a mature and stable 8-inch silicon carbide epitaxy process. At present, on the basis of the 8-inch substrate of the subsidiary Jingrui, the independent research and development and debugging of the 8-inch monolithic silicon carbide epitaxial growth equipment has been realized. The thickness uniformity of the epitaxy is within 1.5%, and the doping uniformity is within 4%. Has reached the industry-leading level.

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tokenanalyst

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european_guy said:
The article is chock-full of clueless cope on SMEE, but it's ok, nothing new. The only useful info is about SMEE's optical suppliers. In particularly I didn't know about
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I don't think UP-Optotech is part of the lithography project either, they are more into aerospace and remote sensing than lithography.
CASTECH seems to be more in the lithography applications side of things alongside CNEPO (now known as Guowang optical) and MLOptic.
 
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