Chinese semiconductor industry

Recently, the scientific research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully developed a new type of nonlinear optical crystal full-band phase-matched crystal, which realizes the laser output in the entire light transmission range, which can meet the major needs of my country's semiconductor wafer inspection and other fields.
Nonlinear optical crystals are the material conditions and sources for obtaining lasers with different wavelengths. It is generally considered to be one of the important technical challenges to realize the phase matching of the applied bands in the crystals, which determines the power and efficiency of the final laser output. Among them, the birefringent phase matching technology using crystal anisotropy is the most widely used effective way to compensate for phase mismatch.

coolgod said:

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ASML Faces Tighter Dutch Restrictions on Servicing Chip Equipment in China​

• ASML will be limited in repairing restricted machines in China
• China’s production capabilities and capacity to be affected

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They are capitulating to US along all the line.

Banning spare parts and maintenance is clearly aimed at SMIC's 7nm and 14nm nodes. I'd guess is related to stopping Huawei in manufacturing AI Ascend chips and crippling Chinese AI efforts.

If SMEE machines materialize somehow in the real world, they can save the 28nm node and above, but nothing can be done for 7/14nm for at least 2/3 years.

Instead banning ASML for 28nm and above (what US wants to do, and will do, unilaterally) aims at pushing ASML out of the Chinese market: US companies are already out, so it must be out also ASML.

On the coping side, they don't have any other ammo to spend, this will be the last one effective, but is a heavy one.

european_guy said:

On the coping side, they don't have any other ammo to spend, this will be the last one effective, but is a heavy one.

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No, they can do more. They can ban exports of semiconductor materials just like Japan did to South Korea several years ago. Masks, photoresist, and other chemical products. Which is why China needs to grow to self-reliance in semis ASAP.

gelgoog said:

If they ban ASML immersion DUV tool sales altogether it will have a major impact on the SMIC expansion. SMIC is building 3 huge fabs all designed to make 28nm chips. Alternative Chinese tools are not ready yet.
Someone needs to light a fire under the ass of SMEE and however else is working on the immersion litho machine.

If the West does this, China should ban exports of neon gas.

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According to the inside of that video I posted above, repairs to equipment already purchased by China have to be approved by the US.

do3jack said:

According to the inside of that video I posted above, repairs to equipment already purchased by China have to be approved by the US.

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Yeah, well, maybe they should just get the neon gas to run their excimer lasers somewhere else then. Russia already banned exports to the West. And China is the only major supplier left in the market. Good luck getting it from Ukraine.

China already gave them notice with the restrictions on sales of gallium and germanium. But they still did not get it.

The West keeps breaking contracts willy nilly like this. They sell machines which cost tens of millions each and then just decide not to service them? That needs some kind of response.

Then there is the impact on SMIC's expansion plans. This is a multiple billion program. SMIC is investing over 26 billion USD in a massive capacity expansion to build four (not three like I said before) 28nm fabs at Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin. Sanctions like these can break a company. Land has been bought, and I know at least three of the fab buildings have been erected at this point. Workers have been recruited and are in training ahead of time to work in the factories. Money was given to Western tool makers to deliver these tools and orders were booked years in advance.

China should just nip this in the bud and demand that ASML opens up their documentation to allow 3rd party machine servicing companies to operate. And companies which break existing tool contracts need to be sued to hell and back for damages.

In a war everything is allowed.
Just counter-sanction/ban and move on

I would like to call this just a trade war. But it has gone way over that. The US is basically applying CoCom sanctions to contain China just like they did to the Soviets in the Cold War. And while restricting China from certain technologies is bad enough, they want to restrict Chinese economic development, doing it retroactively and breaking existing contracts is just a shitty move by the US and its cohorts.

Japan, South Korea, and Europe are joining the bandwagon, but I think this will end in tears for them.

I see a bleak future for the Japanese semi tools industry. It is a dead man walking at this point. The Japanese semi market has also been largely bought out by US companies. The memory business being the most striking example. Over the last decade US vulture funds took advantage of the malaise of the Japanese semi sector to buy companies on pennies on the dollar. Texas Instruments basically bought a Japanese chip factory, tore it down, packed the tools, shipped them to the US, and used them on a fab in the US. Micron basically bought the Taiwanese memory sector out with the exception of Nanya.

Intel is expected to be a major investor in ARM, which had a prior takeover attempt by NVIDIA. Where ARM chip core design used to be made either in the UK or France, now these institutions are vestigial, and most of their core designs are made in the US. The largest chip fab in Germany, it is owned by Globalfoundries which has a US HQ. The European computer companies are also basically long gone at this point.

gelgoog said:

If they ban ASML immersion DUV tool sales altogether it will have a major impact on the SMIC expansion. SMIC is building 3 huge fabs all designed to make 28nm chips. Alternative Chinese tools are not ready yet.

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gelgoog said:

Then there is the impact on SMIC's expansion plans. This is a multiple billion program. SMIC is investing over 26 billion USD in a massive capacity expansion to build four (not three like I said before) 28nm fabs at Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin. Sanctions like these can break a company. Land has been bought, and I know at least three of the fab buildings have been erected at this point. Workers have been recruited and are in training ahead of time to work in the factories. Money was given to Western tool makers to deliver these tools and orders were booked years in advance.

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bro you are exaggerating.

28nm entire domestic supply chain has completed. tools makers expanding the production.

the real bottleneck of Chinese tools are scale up production. same with 28nm immersion machine.

lets suppose, ASML cut off supply of all machines. the impact still will not be huge. expansion will be slow down for 1/2 years.

SMIC newly constructed fabs will mostly use domestic tools for 28nm other than lithography machines.

sunnymaxi said:

bro you are exaggerating.

28nm entire domestic supply chain has completed. tools makers expanding the production.

the real bottleneck of Chinese tools are scale up production. same with 28nm immersion machine.

lets suppose, ASML cut off supply of all machines. the impact still will not be huge. expansion will be slow down for 1/2 years.

SMIC newly constructed fabs will mostly use domestic tools for 28nm other than lithography machines.

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How about the materials like photoresist?

sunnymaxi said:

28nm entire domestic supply chain has completed. tools makers expanding the production.
the real bottleneck of Chinese tools are scale up production. same with 28nm immersion machine.
lets suppose, ASML cut off supply of all machines. the impact still will not be huge. expansion will be slow down for 1/2 years.
SMIC newly constructed fabs will mostly use domestic tools for 28nm other than lithography machines.

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This is overly optimistic. The 28nm lithography tool for example is not in use in production anywhere and they haven't built the production lines to make the main components nor the assembly factory for the whole machines. The tools have also not been validated in actual production conditions. Heck, SMEE has had a 90nm tool for like a decade, and no one uses it because it is basically not production ready.