Chinese semiconductor industry

latenlazy said:

Just double checking, but 50 million RMB is about 7 million USD under the current exchange rate. Is a FPA5550iZ2 only about 3-4 million usd? I thought the NXT 1950i cost about 30 million per unit? Did I get those prices right?

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tokenanalyst said:

I don't believe that SMEE I-line machines are priced at 7 million, I think that guy havok is confusing the price range of KrF machines which is closer to 10 million.

Either way is clear the SMEE needs some domestic competition, in every single segment of China semiconductor industry there is multiple domestic companies competing with each other offering close to same products, ion implantation, CMP, etching, ALD, CVD, PVD, metrology, materials and so on, this competition is forcing establish companies like Naura and AMEC to differentiate their products even more, except lithography, SMEE is the only company that doesn't have a domestic competitor.

Nata was slow with their ArF and ArFi photoresist when they were the only player but now that multiple companies are launching their ArF and ArFi photoresist, NOW they are in a hurry.

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hvpc said:

@tonyget and I are talking about i-line steppers/scanners. SMEE SSB800 i-line stepper is ~$7M according to Havok. FPA5550iZ2 is about $3-4M a few years back.

NXT1950i is ArF immersion scanners and naturally an order of magnitude higher in price than the i-line stepper/scanners. if i remember correctly, the lowest immersion scanner models that ASML still offer is NXT1980E and NXT1980F with the latter twice as expensive as NXT1950i.


I don't think Havok was confused. He is either wrong on the i-Line price or he is right. When he made the comment on SMEE SSB800 price in the beginning of 2023 SMEE had not even ship SSC800 (KrF) yet.

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tokenanalyst said:

I do think he is wrong.

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Xuguang Electronics: Rapid development of aluminum nitride series products.​

Aluminum nitride is an advanced ceramic material with excellent comprehensive properties. Because of its high thermal conductivity (the thermal conductivity is 7-10 times that of current alumina ceramic materials), high thermal expansion coefficient and Si matching, high strength, high volume resistivity, high insulation withstand voltage, chemical stability and other characteristics, it is It is recognized at home and abroad as a key material for third-generation semiconductors and an advanced packaging material for electronic devices.

At present, Asahi Optoelectronics produces its own aluminum nitride powder. Its main performance indicators have been tested and certified by authoritative organizations. It is at the same level as Japan's Tokuyama, which represents the world's advanced level. It meets the requirements of high-end aluminum nitride such as high thermal conductivity packaging materials and structural parts for semiconductor equipment. Powder requirements for products.

In terms of aluminum nitride packaging materials (substrates), the aluminum nitride LED substrates, laser heat sink substrates, power semiconductor module substrates and high-temperature co-fired multi-layer substrates produced by Asahi Optoelectronics have been used by more than 30 companies on the downstream application side. The certification has been passed and supply and sales have been realized; currently aluminum nitride substrates have been used in metallization process fields such as DPC, DBC, AMB and HTCC, and have become the main domestic aluminum nitride substrate suppliers.

In terms of aluminum nitride structural parts, the large-size aluminum nitride structural parts produced by Asahi Optoelectronics have been used in photolithography processes, etching processes, thin film processes, ion implantation and other processes in the semiconductor industry and the pan-semiconductor industry (including the photovoltaic industry). Currently, it has passed the certification and realized supply and sales of many domestic semiconductor (including photovoltaic) equipment companies.​

Maikeru said:

FT article on SMIC earnings call:

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And Reuters:

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- No U-shaped rebound, demand still @ bottom
- SMIC new products in high demand for Chinese customers
- Chinese customers in phone/consumer electronics seeing normal inventory level
- Western customers still seeing very high inventory level
- Even auto customers are seeing high inventory level after being in short supply for 3 yrs
- SMIC customer market share increasing due to geopolitical competition
-> revenue by region see China going up to 84% due to de-stocking timelines
- Display driver revenue grew by 16%
- NOR Flash demand seeing increasing by 27% (specialty memory demand high)
- 12-inch income up to 74% & utilization is higher in 12-inch
- capex $2.1B & $5.3B in first 3Q. higher capex due to stocking up SMEs (expect $7.5B)
- Monthly capacity reached 796k wpm 8-inch, up 82k vs start of 2023
- aside HPC/data center, 3-wafer, advanced packaging, no other segment moving up in demand
- buying foreign equipments require permit, so applying for all at once
- Permits went through & delivery expected this year, so capex will be higher than expected
- Excessive fab capacity around the world, but not in US/China, where domestic fabs not enough for demand
- SMIC’s planned expansion based on demand for domestic customers
- Normally, Specialty platform account for 70% of revenue, standard logic 30% (this Quarter is 60/40)
- Need continued improvement in areas like BCD, CMOS & such to keep up with customer demand
- Each year, has new requirement in power leakage and such
- For CMOS, needing higher pixel density, need to improve in wafer bonding
- Working with small customers to achieve top level performance -> higher wafer ASP
- Significant focus on NEV & auto grade chips (will add support for all chip types, HV, power, RF SOI)
- 40nm capacity still very high demand, specifically in 2 areas:
- CMOS image back end - requiring hybrid bonding & other multi-step bonding - bond multiple layers
- MCU & HV DDIC driver have specific requirement requiring certain additional tools
- 55nm capacity also not sufficient in certain areas for DDIC and CIS
- 55nm BCD power process also having insufficient capacity (needed for GPU data center for power supply)
- 55nm Nor Flash memory also in high demand
- Most 12-inch capacity increases is in 40/55nm at Jingcheng/Shenzhen
- Most 8-inch capacity increases is in 0.15/018um BCD process at Tianjin

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hvpc said:

sorry, man. I'm with Havok on this one.

Havok may be wrong, but I think he is closer to the truth than what you proposed.

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hvpc said:

@tonyget and I are talking about i-line steppers/scanners. SMEE SSB800 i-line stepper is ~$7M according to Havok. FPA5550iZ2 is about $3-4M a few years back.

NXT1950i is ArF immersion scanners and naturally an order of magnitude higher in price than the i-line stepper/scanners. if i remember correctly, the lowest immersion scanner models that ASML still offer is NXT1980E and NXT1980F with the latter twice as expensive as NXT1950i.


I don't think Havok was confused. He is either wrong on the i-Line price or he is right. When he made the comment on SMEE SSB800 price in the beginning of 2023 SMEE had not even ship SSC800 (KrF) yet.

The SMEE SSB800 is a prototype. All parts are not in volume yet so it would be normal for it to have a high price tag. Once volume production kicks in and SMEE buys all parts in bulk then the price will drop.

It's more believable that a SMEE i-line prootype is $7M and more expensive than Canon than what you are proposing. SMEE prototype KrF at $7M and cheaper than Canon is not plausible at all.

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