Chinese semiconductor industry

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tphuang

tphuang

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The reality is that ramping up production of equipments and supply chain will take time. China will need whatever it can get from asml and Nikon during this time. Whether people want asml machines or not, that's the reality.

Trying to understand what current restrictions will mean and continuing to import does not stop domestic progress.

At this point, Chinese fabs have gotten the message and are pretty committed toward adopting domestic tools
 
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tokenanalyst

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tphuang said:
The reality is that ramping up production of equipments and supply chain will take time. China will need whatever it can get from asml and Nikon during this time. Whether people want asml machines or not, that's the reality.

Trying to understand what current restrictions will mean and continuing to import does not stop domestic progress.

At this point, Chinese fabs have gotten the message and are pretty committed toward adopting domestic tools
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Well the good news is that looks like the Chinese companies had been stockpiling advanced immersion DUV machines and probably components since 2018, including the 1980i, the 2000i and probably the 2050i. I saw the post of someone saying that numbers of advanced immersion machines that China has been buying doesn't match to the numbers of fabs that they have been building.​
 
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tphuang

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okay people.

ASML dry Arfi machines, krf, i-line lithography machines are all still available. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please post that.

Saying that ASML or Nikon machines are not available to China is simply not factual.

So unless you think SMEE can ramp up overnight to fill all that demand, China will be buying ASML and Nikon machines, regardless of what you may want.

Given all of that, you may want to think about what SMEE can supply in the event immersive scanners aren't importable for any fab. The answer to that is pretty clear. It needs to first focus on filling the demand for immersive scanners. It has limited resources, so it needs to focus on where the demand is first.

Now, if that is not enough to satisfy the needs of fab expansion, then those fabs just aren't expanding.

tokenanalyst said:
Well the good news is that looks like the Chinese companies had been stockpiling advanced immersion DUV machines and probably components since 2018, including the 1980i, the 2000i and probably the 2050i. I saw the post of someone saying that numbers of advanced immersion machines that China has been buying doesn't match to the numbers of fabs that they have building.​
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of course not, they just made up 46% of ASML's Q3 revenues when they have otherwise being around 15%. They are clearly stockpiling.

But realistically speaking, we just don't know how new US imposed sanctions will affect things on a Dutch company. If America can stop all ASML immersive sales, then why do they still need to pressure Dutch gov't? America could've done this a year ago. And why is it after all this pressuring of Dutch gov't, the Dutch gov't still allows 1980i and below?

I'm not saying that we should assume that Dutch criteria won't change going forward, but we can't talk about ASML like it's an American company. It's not. As long as it's a European company, it has the choice to de-americanize if it wants. If it does not de-americanize and lose the sales, that's it's own problem
 
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gelgoog

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ArF dry means being stuck at 45nm fabrication. And even then you have to use double-patterning. Without double-patterning you are stuck at 90nm.

While this won't affect, for example, Hua Hong's expansion at Wuxi, it will affect CXMT, YMTC, SMIC's expansions at 28 nm (Jingcheng, Lingang, Shenzhen, and Xiqing fabs). SMIC's expansion to 28nm is the largest fab expansion project ongoing in China. All these SMIC fabs put together are like 340000 wafers per month of expected future capacity which goes down the drain. CXMT and YMTC put together might be another 100000-200000 wafers per month. At the same time the US is allowing TSMC to do its 28 nm expansion at Nanjing. And allowing Samsung and SK Hynix to also upgrade their facilities for DRAM and NAND Flash. Thus increasing Western competition to Chinese companies inside China.

ASML claiming these sanctions won't affect their sales in China is just plain delusional. Most of the capacity expansion in China is being done by SMIC with the 28 nm expansion. That expansion alone is larger than all the other Chinese players expansions and new builds put together. And ArFi machines, as used in 28 nm, are much more expensive than older models.

I also see little reason to expect that the US sanctions legislation changes won't be passed to Japan and the Netherlands in the future. The legislators in the Netherlands certainly tried to drag their feet to prevent the sanctions affecting most existing sales to China, but I doubt this will continue for much longer. The US can just cut their access to light sources if it comes to it.

IMHO the only reason the US ban on tool sales isn't even more pervasive is because SMEE already has an ArF dry machine.
 
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tokenanalyst

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tphuang said:
of course not, they just made up 46% of ASML's Q3 revenues when they have otherwise being around 15%. They are clearly stockpiling.

But realistically speaking, we just don't know how new US imposed sanctions will affect things on a Dutch company. If America can stop all ASML immersive sales, then why do they still need to pressure Dutch gov't? America could've done this a year ago. And why is it after all this pressuring of Dutch gov't, the Dutch gov't still allows 1980i and below?

I'm not saying that we should assume that Dutch criteria won't change going forward, but we can't talk about ASML like it's an American company. It's not. As long as it's a European company, it has the choice to de-americanize if it wants. If it does not de-americanize and lose the sales, that's it's own problem
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Of course they could remove US made components from their scanners, changing Cymer excimer laser for Gigaphoton or better yet for RSLaser. Increasing their spending in Shenzhen for software development, I think they use Zygo interferometers so that have to be replaced and I think the vibration isolation comes from TMC so that also has to be replaced. But even after that they use heavy use of US made software like matlab and Zemax, so the stooges in DC can still use that. They will have to design and manufacture their machine inside China to completely de-Americanize.

tonyget said:
CETC also makes lithography machine，Arf dry
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No commercially, their lithography commercial branch mainly do automatic mask aligners, similar to what EV Group does.
 
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gelgoog

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tokenanalyst said:
Of course they could remove US made components from their scanners, changing Cymer excimer laser for Gigaphoton or better yet for RSLaser.
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If the US legislation is extended to the Netherlands and Japan this will be of little consequence. And there is no known effort by ASML to do this i.e. use other light sources. You are just running on hypotheticals.
RS Laser simply currently lacks the production capacity to fabricate as many advanced light sources as required in the first place as well. Why isn't SMEE making their machine in serial production if that wasn't the case? Neither the suppliers nor SMEE are ready for serial production.

tokenanalyst said:
Increasing their spending in Shenzhen for software development, I think they use Zygo interferometers so that have to be replaced and I think the vibration isolation comes from TMC so that also has to be replaced. But even after that they use heavy use of US made software like matlab and Zemax, so the stooges in DC can still use that. They will have to design and manufacture their machine inside China to completely de-Americanize.
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The US has plenty of pressure points they can apply towards both the Netherlands and Japan. The current EU Commission is also highly unlikely to support ASML's attempts to resist this legislation since they have basically bought the US party line hook line and sinker.

SMEE needs to get their machine working and in serial production. And the Chinese fabs better start buying more tools from SMEE. They won't even buy i-line or KrF machines, which SMEE can already fabricate, and they insist on buying imported tools.
 
sunnymaxi

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tokenanalyst said:
I do think in the other hand the there is need in China for a second domestic step and scan lithography company that compete with SMEE, like Canon and Nikon in Japan. A competitor of the size of SMEE not like ASML which is way too big of a competition.
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SMEE can only do work on DUVi as per the contract/agreement.

don't forget. for EUV. China have CIOMP/SIOMP institutes. both institutes are working on prototypes.

so SMEE don't have monopoly when it comes to lithography machines.
 
sunnymaxi

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gelgoog said:
RS Laser simply currently lacks the production capacity to fabricate as many advanced light sources as required in the first place as well. Why isn't SMEE making their machine in serial production if that wasn't the case? Neither the suppliers nor SMEE are ready for serial production.
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how do you know this.. ?

RSLaser has already leased a factory for production. new production base has not yet started. the Leased factory can produce 12 light source annually. havok confirmed this .

components manufacturing of DUVi...2.jpg


Lens supplier, Guowang started to move employees in September month. so production will gradually increase..

components manufacturing of DUVi.jpg

as you see, suppliers gearing up for production. but now complete blockade from USA will speed up the process and production base. just wait and watch.

gelgoog said:
SMEE needs to get their machine working and in serial production. And the Chinese fabs better start buying more tools from SMEE. They won't even buy i-line or KrF machines, which SMEE can already fabricate, and they insist on buying imported tools.
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talk about lithography machine in public is prohibited in mainland.

this is the reason why Havok deleted his account. he revealed too much information.

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there are many inside source indicate. 5 units of SSA800i will produce this year. but nobody knows the exact information.

SMEE wasn't serious until 2018-19.. they went from some 200 people in R&D to 2300+ now.

Edit - i believe, total blockade from USA will now speed up the SMEE process and production base. same with RSLaser and Guowang as well. just wait and watch.
 
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