Chinese semiconductor industry

I don't know if this is a good strategy, but this is what they have done. Keep in mind that mining is a very small industry revenue wise. Even if we include all metals, it represents a small fraction of China's exports. Exactly reasons why nobody else gets involved. When other countries (not guaranteed) build up alternative supply chain in 5 years, China loses some exports, but China will remain the lowest cost operation out there.

In the mean time, when you take actions like this, you must have the correct strategy of leveraging your position to achieve end results. That could be quid pro quo with Dutch like you approve this & i approve yours. Or with explicit goals of kneecapping certain American or Japanese companies.

Chinese gov't need to have clear knowledge of what they are trying to do here.

tphuang said:

Chinese gov't need to have clear knowledge of what they are trying to do here.

Click to expand...

I fully agree here.

What we are witnessing now is just the tip of the iceberg, a small piece in a far bigger and complex puzzle. A single step in a long term and deep plan that China must have already analyzed in detail, with a lot of what-if conditions and a lot of plan-b fallback, because they bit the bullet and there is no turning back now.

My two cent bet is that US will double down with sanctions.

US politicians of both parties will happily jump on the react-to-China bandwagon. Just one year before the elections and after US citizens have been "pumped up" for years with anti-china propaganda, now it's the time to reap the benefits. I'm not inclined to hope that US politicians have a view, a vision beyond these basic and short-term political goals...at the end of the they believe that any problem may araise can always be fixed printing more money.

OTH I'm also inclined to think that if China did this, they evaluated to be self-reliant enough, so may be this is an indirect hint for us in this forum that SMEE DUVi litho machine is developing well. It' impossible they did this withouth considering the effect of a total ban on ASML as a retaliation.

tphuang said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1675809319164715010

This seems like China's big retaliation. Keep in mind that China has 95% market share in Gallium production.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

similarly in Germanium.

I wonder how this will play out

Seems like this will be huge for large GaN producers

Click to expand...

It's about time... I don't think that it is just because China has gotten fed up with US Alliance countries imposing semiconductor and IC materials, chips, and equipment restrictions on China and China responding by demonstrating that it actually has ways in which to hurt US Alliance countries significantly, it might also be because China possesses much tech to satisfactory levels (moderately high tech) capability and is very likely to be able to reach a similar capability to what the US Alliance had in terms of most semiconductor and IC related materials and tech. It will take at least a few years before US Alliance countries can ramp up their productivity levels from non Chinese sources to meet the major hit that they are going to take Chinese major Chinese restrictions and even probably all out embargoes...

tphuang said:

I don't know if this is a good strategy, but this is what they have done. Keep in mind that mining is a very small industry revenue wise. Even if we include all metals, it represents a small fraction of China's exports. Exactly reasons why nobody else gets involved. When other countries (not guaranteed) build up alternative supply chain in 5 years, China loses some exports, but China will remain the lowest cost operation out there.

In the mean time, when you take actions like this, you must have the correct strategy of leveraging your position to achieve end results. That could be quid pro quo with Dutch like you approve this & i approve yours. Or with explicit goals of kneecapping certain American or Japanese companies.

Chinese gov't need to have clear knowledge of what they are trying to do here.

Click to expand...

Well like I said before, export controls doesn't meant that is not gonna be exported but that is going to be reviewed by bureaucrat before being exported, how fast is reviewed will determine the scarcity and price.

But let suppose the worst, that will lead to scarcity and price price rises,then yes alternatives become more profitable but that is dangerous because as soon alternatives appear Chinese companies could dump their materials a lower prices, killing billions of dollars on investment overnight.

The Same could happen with EUV in China, as Chinese companies develop their EUV supply Chain from mirrors, to vaccum parts, to high power EUV light sources. ASML could just dump their EUV machines in the Chinese market basically killing the competition overnigth.

tokenanalyst said:

Well like I said before, export controls doesn't meant that is not gonna be exported but that is going to be reviewed by bureaucrat before being exported, how fast is reviewed will determine the scarcity and price.

But let suppose the worst, that will lead to scarcity and price price rises,then yes alternatives become more profitable but that is dangerous because as soon alternatives appear Chinese companies could dump their materials a lower prices, killing billions of dollars on investment overnight.

The Same could happen with EUV in China, as Chinese companies develop their EUV supply Chain from mirrors, to vaccum parts, to high power EUV light sources. ASML could just dump their EUV machines in the Chinese market basically killing the competition overnigth.

Click to expand...

ASML would never be allowed to do so. If they tried, expect to see more of their machines catch on fire before becoming ready to ship. Courtesy of imperialist spooks.

tphuang said:

I don't know if this is a good strategy, but this is what they have done. Keep in mind that mining is a very small industry revenue wise. Even if we include all metals, it represents a small fraction of China's exports. Exactly reasons why nobody else gets involved. When other countries (not guaranteed) build up alternative supply chain in 5 years, China loses some exports, but China will remain the lowest cost operation out there.

In the mean time, when you take actions like this, you must have the correct strategy of leveraging your position to achieve end results. That could be quid pro quo with Dutch like you approve this & i approve yours. Or with explicit goals of kneecapping certain American or Japanese companies.

Chinese gov't need to have clear knowledge of what they are trying to do here.

Click to expand...

I think they know what they are doing. The fact that retaliation is only occurring now after years of escalating sanctions by the US means they have thought this one through carefully. And considering gallium export restriction to MIC providers is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what China can do wrt its overwhelming dominance of rare earths, it's a relatively cautious way of 'testing the waters' so to speak. Completely unlike US clumsy and heavy handed attempts to crush Huawei, Chinese IC industry and Chinese tech in general.

I actually see this as a perfect example of "crossing the river by feeling the stones". CPC will collect data and tweak policy accordingly so as to inflict maximum damage to US whilst minimizing damage to itself. It's the classic cautious, gradual, rational, surgical and iterative approach to problem solving they've employed many times before. The knife is in. Now China needs to twist it in the most painful way possible.

tphuang said:

I don't know if this is a good strategy, but this is what they have done. Keep in mind that mining is a very small industry revenue wise. Even if we include all metals, it represents a small fraction of China's exports. Exactly reasons why nobody else gets involved. When other countries (not guaranteed) build up alternative supply chain in 5 years, China loses some exports, but China will remain the lowest cost operation out there.

In the mean time, when you take actions like this, you must have the correct strategy of leveraging your position to achieve end results. That could be quid pro quo with Dutch like you approve this & i approve yours. Or with explicit goals of kneecapping certain American or Japanese companies.

Chinese gov't need to have clear knowledge of what they are trying to do here.

Click to expand...

China doesn’t need to kneecap Western countries permanently. It just needs to kneecap them long enough for the domestic semi supply chain to be completed. Can China achieve its goal in 5-6 years? Maybe, maybe not. But can Western countries build up an alternative Gallium supply within the same timespan? Heck no.

Sanan SiC project received 10 billion capital injection​

Recently, Sanan's Chongqing SiC project "big moves" have frequently appeared:

● Construction of a 22.8 billion silicon carbide project with STMicroelectronics (.link.)

● Today, Sanan Optoelectronics announced that they received a capital injection of 10 billion yuan from Chongqing.


On July 4, Sanan Optoelectronics issued the "Announcement Regarding Changes in the Equity Structure of Controlling Shareholders". The announcement stated that Fujian Sanan Group and Chongqing Gaoyong Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) signed the "About Xiamen Sanan Electronics Co., Ltd. capital increase agreement."

The agreement stipulates that Chongqing Gaoyong will increase the capital of Sanan Electronics by 10 billion yuan. After the completion of the capital increase, Chongqing Gaoyong will hold 23.13% of the shares of Sanan Electronics, becoming the second largest shareholder.

As of the disclosure date of this announcement, Sanan Electronics has received all the funds for the capital increase, and the industrial and commercial change registration is in process.

I do think import controls are a more effective form of retaliation than export controls, that last one can be evaded but import controls cannot.

mst said:

Is it difficult to make Gallium and Germanium?

Click to expand...

Not really, you just need to be able to control stellar supernovae and harvest them from remnants of stars. Or constitute them one atom at a time in a particle accelerator. Simple stuff for 歌者 civilization.