Chinese semiconductor industry

tphuang · Jul 4, 2023

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目前，镓的世界总储量约为 23 万吨，中国储量约占世界总储量的 8 成以上。

类似的，而根据美国地质调查局( USGS )的数据，全球已探明的锗资源储量达 8600 吨，中国储量占全球的 4 成以上。

China has 80% of the world's reserves on Gallium
over 40% on Germanium

Again, not as abundant as people think. Since America has weaponized the concept of calling anything semiconductor "national security" issue, then China can use this claim also to take control of industries that require these metals. Of course, it's up to China to figure out and decide which countries/companies it will grant license to.

这是因为绝大多数的镓，是生产氧化铝（ Al2O3 ）时的“ 赠品 ”，而世界上最大的氧化铝产能国是哪儿呢？

没错，还是中国。

去年我们占到了全球氧化铝产量 57%，再凭借着全球最完善的镓提取技术，可不就把全球的镓需求给包圆了吗？

most of China's gallium production comes as by product of alumina production

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Gallium is commonly recovered as a by-product from alumina or zinc processing, but probably the purpose of processing gallium-contained minerals is not to get gallium. More than 95% of China’s primary gallium was sourced from bauxite for alumina production via the Bayer process, with the remaining produced from the hydrometallurgical process during the extraction of zinc

China has 57% of world's alumina production along with most complete gallium extraction technology

锗这边情况也差不多，前面我们说了中国是世界上第二大锗资源国，排第一的其实就是美国。

可美国的锗矿质量不行，大都是铅锌伴生矿为主，你要产锗就得靠铅锌的开采。

结果美国的铅锌行业规模又很小，所以锗的开采量自然提不上去。

America will have to really increase production in lead & zinc to increase its Germanium production

coolgod · Jul 4, 2023

tphuang said:
guys, let's stop getting off topic

One question for people. Is China just looking to dominate new areas like Gallium nitride

I noticed the huawei whisper writing

he said china has 42% market share in GaN which made me look into it

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View attachment 115431
Here is the Chinese Gallium Nitride supply chain. Pretty deep. It makes sense to have this given the extensive use case for charger, EVs & renewables and such.

If China has the choice of having monopoly over Gallium production vs having a dominant position in Gallium Nitride. Which one would it take? It would obviously take the latter since there is more money to be made long term when you are further downstream

Consider Innoscience. It was said to me #3 in the world in GaN back in Q3 2021 (Navitas was #1 with 29% market share)

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but became top dog by end of 2022

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It's moving so fast, that it got sued by US competitor EPC recently. Guess who won't be getting Gallium anytime soon

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thus far, the market in China likes these moves

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Why do you present such a weird scenario, why would China have to choose between having monopoly over Gallium production vs having a dominant position in Gallium Nitride in the first place? China is dominant in Gallium production and Gallium Nitride downstream industries. You seem to somehow suggest if China uses export control China's Gallium Nitride downstream industries will somehow lose or something.

If the west is dead set on decoupling with China and is willing to bear the cost of building an alternate supply chain for Gallium Nitride chips they will do it, regardless of Chinese export controls.

daifo · Jul 4, 2023

Loongson 3a6000 is getting Simultaneous Multi-Threading which allows a core to execute 2 task concurrently. The OS support has been added to the Linux Kernel . This has been something available on x86 for decade+. Maybe we will see some competitive performance in the near future or at least be "mid" tier rather than near modern Celeron level.

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tphuang · Jul 4, 2023

coolgod said:
Why do you present such a weird scenario, why would China have to choose between having monopoly over Gallium production vs having a dominant position in Gallium Nitride in the first place? China is dominant in Gallium production and Gallium Nitride downstream industries. You seem to somehow suggest if China uses export control China's Gallium Nitride downstream industries will somehow lose or something.

If the west is dead set on decoupling with China and is willing to bear the cost of building an alternate supply chain for Gallium Nitride chips they will do it, regardless of Chinese export controls.

well, since China is going to implement these export controls, then the West is definitely going to have to start the process of finding alternate supply chain. As such, this is a great time to achieve GaN dominance while American companies like Navitas & EPC are struggling to source Gallium

As for the rest of what you are saying, I don't really know what you are talking about.

dingyibvs · Jul 4, 2023

tphuang said:
guys, let's stop getting off topic

One question for people. Is China just looking to dominate new areas like Gallium nitride

I noticed the huawei whisper writing

he said china has 42% market share in GaN which made me look into it

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
View attachment 115431
Here is the Chinese Gallium Nitride supply chain. Pretty deep. It makes sense to have this given the extensive use case for charger, EVs & renewables and such.

If China has the choice of having monopoly over Gallium production vs having a dominant position in Gallium Nitride. Which one would it take? It would obviously take the latter since there is more money to be made long term when you are further downstream

Consider Innoscience. It was said to me #3 in the world in GaN back in Q3 2021 (Navitas was #1 with 29% market share)

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but became top dog by end of 2022

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It's moving so fast, that it got sued by US competitor EPC recently. Guess who won't be getting Gallium anytime soon

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thus far, the market in China likes these moves

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Umm, I thought GaN is the doping material, so it wouldn't "replace" silicon, right?

paiemon · Jul 4, 2023

supersnoop said:
Seems to me that this is clear to stop any loopholes from offering nVidia GPUs over cloud to get around export restrictions. The article says as much.

There is no other point for Chinese companies to use American cloud providers other than to service North American customers.

Chinese cloud computing offerings have become very robust the last few years.

If the goal is to stop cloud providers from offering computing services using nvidia GPU's to Chinese end users, you would have to go after pretty much every cloud provider in existence since technically anyone with the skills can buy those GPUs, setup some servers outside of China, load the software stack and rent it out. Going after AWS and Azure won't do, it would have to be something along of the lines of no cloud providers who buy nvidia GPU's can rent to Chinese end users which would be super clunky. Even if you do that, there's nothing stopping someone in China from paying someone offshore to train and compile the model offshore and then send it back. We are getting into six degrees of separation territory now.

paiemon · Jul 4, 2023

xypher said:
That's a typical white boy copium, in reality:

1) Building mines takes time and it would have to be fully subsidized because it is not economically feasible. Moreover, every single product made from non-Chinese gallium\germanium would have to be subsidized to be cost-competitive against products made from Chinese rare earths, otherwise all that effort is going to be useless.

2) China dominates rare earths refining even more than mining - both in terms of capacity and the necessary equipment. Simply building refineries is going to take years, building it without Chinese equipment? Decades, if ever, considering the "Western speed" where they spend several years on boasting and puffing their chests before even starting to do any work.

There is a big difference between having the ability to do something, and the ability to do it well. Yes, many people out there can access wikipedia or read some science papers on rare earth extraction and come up with a functioning extraction and refining process, the question is it efficient and does it yield enough output? China has had years to refine (no pun intended) their processes to achieve optimum results, any new rare earth refineries that spawn without that knowledge base will have to build it from scratch, and it will take years to get it to the right point. So yes, western rare earth refineries will be spun up, no they won't be very efficient and the cost will just be passed down to the end user or taxpayers. In the meantime expect disruptions and workarounds. Its basically the inverse of the Chinese IC industry.

tphuang · Jul 4, 2023

dingyibvs said:
Umm, I thought GaN is the doping material, so it wouldn't "replace" silicon, right?

There are a lot of applications for GaN power chips. GaN can be grown on silicon or sapphire substrates

FriedRiceNSpice · Jul 4, 2023

paiemon said:
If the goal is to stop cloud providers from offering computing services using nvidia GPU's to Chinese end users, you would have to go after pretty much every cloud provider in existence since technically anyone with the skills can buy those GPUs, setup some servers outside of China, load the software stack and rent it out. Going after AWS and Azure won't do, it would have to be something along of the lines of no cloud providers who buy nvidia GPU's can rent to Chinese end users which would be super clunky. Even if you do that, there's nothing stopping someone in China from paying someone offshore to train and compile the model offshore and then send it back. We are getting into six degrees of separation territory now.

Its just an excuse for the US to legitimatize and attempt to gain control over the world's computing resources and data.

nemo · Jul 4, 2023

dingyibvs said:
Umm, I thought GaN is the doping material, so it wouldn't "replace" silicon, right?

substrate -- use instead of silicon. Either grow a big crystal then slice, or grow on top of insulator medium like sapphire, diamond, silica, etc.

Chinese semiconductor industry

tphuang

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coolgod

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daifo

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tphuang

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dingyibvs

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paiemon

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paiemon

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tphuang

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FriedRiceNSpice

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nemo

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