Chinese semiconductor industry

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tokenanalyst

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Wrought said:
My point is that people are criticizing contributors like @hvpc unfairly because he is feeding them uncomfortable truths. Foreign equipment from KLA is superior to domestic alternatives right now, and that's a fact. It won't always be that way, but it will probably stay that way for the next few years. People need to realize that progress takes lots of time and effort, and not be discouraged by bad news. Complaining about the truth does not make it a lie.
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I and nobody have never criticize @hvpc for his point of views, in fact many people here agree with his viewpoints and that is ok. What it looks like that we are not tuned to same frequency because looks like he was talking about a more present and superficial situation in the Chinese semiconductor industry and I am talking about a more near future under the iceberg situation in the Chinese semiconductor industry.

At least for me is logical and makes sense that SMIC and Huawei would start testing, improving and verifying metrology tools from Raintree, Jingce, Angstrom-e, DJEL and others for their 14nm and below process nodes years ago than wait until their KLA tools supply drains up and then start verifying those tools, that way in the near future they could continue to expand albeit at a lower pace.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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Wrought said:
It worked because Chinese manufacturers managed to leverage foreign equipment to achieve outcomes the US didn't want or expect, despite all their efforts at sanctioning and enforcement. Unless you somehow think Huawei's supply chain is already full domestic?

My point is that people are criticizing contributors like @hvpc unfairly because he is feeding them uncomfortable truths. Foreign equipment from KLA is superior to domestic alternatives right now, and that's a fact. It won't always be that way, but it will probably stay that way for the next few years. People need to realize that progress takes lots of time and effort across the whole spectrum from lithography to metrology and so on, and not be discouraged by bad news. Sometimes the news will be good and sometimes it will be bad. But complaining about the truth does not make it a lie.
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The part I bolded is the issue -- the problem people have with the likes of hvpc isn't that he is making "uncomfortable truths" but rather that he is making statements for the present and the future from a perspective where information about the Chinese semiconductor industry has had a clampdown in openness over the past few years.

The parallels with PLA watching are frankly getting closer and closer -- just as how competent and up to date PLA watching has been highly dependent on the ability the parse and review credible rumours and to make sense of disparate pieces of incomplete information, competent tracking of the Chinese semiconductor space is dependent on credible rumours and making sense of circumstantial indicators and evidence to build up a picture of the state of things.


That isn't to say the opinions of people like hvpc aren't valued or are a waste of time -- but it just means that information needs to be calibrated and assessed in context of the sheer extent of information deficit that has been imposed on the industry.


So when you wrote "But this is not the PLA, or some super top secret government project." on the last page, I would actually disagree somewhat. For many stages and aspects of the industry, I would say that comparisons with the PLA are not only useful as a framework for reviewing it, but rather it should compulsory for everyone to start thinking of it in that framework. Just as we wouldn't dare to think about the PLA without the grapevine of rumours, indicators and incomplete statements, we shouldn't be thinking about the Chinese semiconductor space without it either.
 
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gelgoog

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tokenanalyst said:
"In new rules announced last week, the Biden administration has lowered the minimum requirement for certain devices or equipment to be considered ‘American’ to zero percent. This means ASML will now have to get Washington’s approval to sell certain tools to Chinese entities."
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Told you this would happen. They did this to Russia with the MC-21's composite wing. There was supposed to be a certain threshold of 10% or whatever of US content until sanctions kicked in, but then the US switched that to 0%. This was for carbon composite fabric mats fabricated in Europe with Japanese fiber and US adhesive. The thing is, Russia made adhesive at least as good as the US. So next the US just convinced Japan to sanction sales of carbon fiber to Russia knifing the product altogether. Russia ended up making their own carbon fiber and mats at UMATEX. But it took them a couple of years to get the factory operational and certify everything again thus further delaying the project.

Expect this to happen to semiconductor tools sold to China and in the future it might also happen to aircraft components, or semiconductors used in electric cars.
 
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tokenanalyst

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Wrought said:
But this is not the PLA, or some super top secret government project. This is a public commercial industry full of public commercial players who are trying to turn a profit. Yes there is for sure secret research with tight security being done here, but the product of that research will eventually be revealed to companies who actually use it to fabricate things that people buy and sell on the open market. Like with SMIC/Huawei, we heard the rumors for months beforehand that something big was coming before the phones were in people's hands. There is a chain of information which goes from complete secret->industry secret->public knowledge and you can't skip steps.
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We are in the part of "public knowledge" and there a more question than answers than before the Huawei announcement, the secrecy of this 7nm production facilities is bigger than in 2022, people are speculating left and right, Raymondo is saying that this is a limited production facility according to intelligence provided to her but Huawei is talking about more smartphones, GPUs and server processors. It could be that SMIC found a way to incorporate mature tools in their advanced process or could be Chinese tools are more advanced than most people think.​
Wrought said:
And just because you can technically do something on one sample in a lab does not mean you can do it on a production line in a factory.
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That will depend of the necessity and the access of easier alternatives. Huawei wouldn't even consider to enter semiconductor manufacturing if wasn't for the fact that is restricted from buying 5G chips elsewhere. As someone said If there is a need there is a way. That 7nm process started in a lab somewhere, I have been seeing a lot of research in China of extending immersion tools since 2020 into 7 and even 5nm process to circumvent the need for EUV.​
 
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gelgoog

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tokenanalyst said:
It could be that SMIC found a way to incorporate mature tools in their advanced process or could be Chinese tools are more advanced than most people think.​
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I wouldn't be surprised if they found some way to upgrade existing machine tools. And then you have announcements like the new Loongson chip that is supposed to be at 12nm and made in China. So that would mean the SMIC N+1 process. There are several products being made arguably at SMIC by several companies. It would be hard to believe this was the case if they had not found some way to boost fab capacity.
 
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tinrobert

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Registered Member
tokenanalyst said:
What I did say? Months of negotiations for nothing at the end they did whatever they want.

New US export restrictions sideline Dutch government​


Not satisfied with Dutch export curbs, Washington is imposing restrictions of its own on ASML.
By redefining what ‘US technology’ means, the US is restricting ASML’s sales in China more than the Dutch government is prepared to do. In new rules announced last week, the Biden administration has lowered the minimum requirement for certain devices or equipment to be considered ‘American’ to zero percent. This means ASML will now have to get Washington’s approval to sell certain tools to Chinese entities.
The new rule applies to all scanners with a dedicated chuck overlay (DCO) of 2.4 nanometers or better, whereas the Dutch restrictions allow for 1.5 nanometers. DCO is a measurement of overlay performance, the ability to align one chip layer to the next. A low overlay is essential to perform double or multipatterning, which is currently China’s only option to domestically manufacture advanced chips. A recently launched Huawei smartphone is reportedly powered by a 7nm chip, well below the 14nm capability that the US considers ‘safe’ for China to have.
It’s not yet clear which companies the curbs target. In an initial assessment, ASML CEO Peter Wennink suggested that only a limited number of Chinese chipmakers will be cut off from ASML’s complete immersion DUV product line. “The NXT:1980 is off limits for a handful of fabs, but not for the vast majority of our Chinese customers, for which we don’t need an export control license,” he told analysts on a conference call discussing Q3 results. The NXT:1980Di is the only immersion scanner that isn’t covered by the current Dutch restrictions. It has a DCO of ≤ 1.6 nanometers. An ASML spokesperson said on Monday that the company is still studying the extent of the new rules.

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In other news.

US semiconductor making tools exports to China are their lowest level since 2017 AND STILL China makes the biggest market share,
27% for AMAT, 30% for KLA and 48% HALF for Lam.
​
Is either that the downturn induced by the stooges in Washington D.C. is really really bad.
Or US companies are moving production to outside the United States to South East Asia faster than anyone expected.
Or a combination of both.
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Here's an article I just wrote on the growth of domestic equipment, called

"ACM Research: Benefiting From China Sanctions"​

you can read it here:
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antiterror13

Brigadier
gelgoog said:
Told you this would happen. They did this to Russia with the MC-21's composite wing. There was supposed to be a certain threshold of 10% or whatever of US content until sanctions kicked in, but then the US switched that to 0%. This was for carbon composite fabric mats fabricated in Europe with Japanese fiber and US adhesive. The thing is, Russia made adhesive at least as good as the US. So next the US just convinced Japan to sanction sales of carbon fiber to Russia knifing the product altogether. Russia ended up making their own carbon fiber and mats at UMATEX. But it took them a couple of years to get the factory operational and certify everything again thus further delaying the project.

Expect this to happen to semiconductor tools sold to China and in the future it might also happen to aircraft components, or semiconductors used in electric cars.
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And the consequences are very clear that nobody would risk any big investment by having the US components in the big items .. the impact won't be instant ... will be a few years
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
Wrought said:
It worked because Chinese manufacturers managed to leverage foreign equipment to achieve outcomes the US didn't want or expect, despite all their efforts at sanctioning and enforcement. Unless you somehow think Huawei's supply chain is already full domestic?
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How did Chinese manufacturers continue building new facilities this year after they got slapped with a broader round of critical equipment bans last year? How come the indigenization rate in production has shot up from single digits to almost 50% in just the last 3 years?

Wrought said:
My point is that people are criticizing contributors like @hvpc unfairly because he is feeding them uncomfortable truths. Foreign equipment from KLA is superior to domestic alternatives right now, and that's a fact. It won't always be that way, but it will probably stay that way for the next few years. People need to realize that progress takes lots of time and effort across the whole spectrum from lithography to metrology and so on, and not be discouraged by bad news. Sometimes the news will be good and sometimes it will be bad. But complaining about the truth does not make it a lie.
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Hvpc gets criticized but he also criticizes. It’s all part of the flow of discussion. Critiquing what he has to say is not complaining about the truth. We’ve all been discussing this topic long enough now to know that Hvpc isn’t always right, even if he’s also not always wrong (despite being quite knowledgeable about the general industry). It wouldn’t be the first time where he’s been overtly doubtful about rumors that have turned out to be true, so it’s not exactly being obtuse to raise questions with his claims.
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
Wrought said:
Certainly, and I have been to similar facilities. That's not the point. My point is that, for any commercial product, you will eventually need to release either the input/output to upstream/downstream partners in your supply chain. The specific technical details of how you do it can stay secret, but the fact that you are doing it will be known because the final product is being bought and sold. And that's when industry workers will know that X company is doing Y thing now, which will eventually become public knowledge. Otherwise your product is not commercial.

So when someone from the industry says their company is not using some product for some reason, it is wrong to say that doesn't matter because of secret this or that. Because if the secret is useful for making some product work, then it will be known to someone in the industry (maybe not the same person, of course).
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Yes, but with the way Chinese industry works that kind of disclosure is a lagging indicator. By the time we found out about the Kirin 9000 and 9000s SMIC was already making chips for Huawei for a year and they still won’t come out in the open and say it was them or talk openly about the process node they use. If we want to get a good read of the state of industry and where it’s headed we should probably strive to do better than doubt rumors for a year and do a 180 when the rumors are proven to have been right a year after the developments have already happened and are only disclosed as a retroactive fact.
 
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