ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) are both looking to ramp up their chip output with substantial production yield rate improvements this year, and may start contributing meaningfully to the global memory industry bit output as early as year-end 2021 or 2022, according to industry sources.
Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
- Start date
- Status
Gigadevice sold 200 million pieces of MCU microcontroller in 2020.
It got be the number 1 MCU supplier in China.
Unfortunately it uses TSMC 40nm tech.
兆易创新2020年MCU出货量近2亿颗：揭秘MCU市场需求暴增原因
据兆易创新发布近期投资者调研信息显示，2020年该公司MCU出货量接近2亿颗，同时，该公司还解析了MCU市场需求量大增背后的原因！兆易创新披露，目前国际市场MCU主流供应厂商来讲缺货状况也是非常严重，现在很多国外大的厂家也在导入公司的MCU，所以我们认为在2021年相较2020年还会有一个更大的提高，目前看到整个MCU的成长还会有相当长的一段持续时间。此外，公司也是为了控制市场上的乱象，在2021年第一季度对MCU进行了一次调价
It got be the number 1 MCU supplier in China.
Unfortunately it uses TSMC 40nm tech.
兆易创新2020年MCU出货量近2亿颗：揭秘MCU市场需求暴增原因
据兆易创新发布近期投资者调研信息显示，2020年该公司MCU出货量接近2亿颗，同时，该公司还解析了MCU市场需求量大增背后的原因！兆易创新披露，目前国际市场MCU主流供应厂商来讲缺货状况也是非常严重，现在很多国外大的厂家也在导入公司的MCU，所以我们认为在2021年相较2020年还会有一个更大的提高，目前看到整个MCU的成长还会有相当长的一段持续时间。此外，公司也是为了控制市场上的乱象，在2021年第一季度对MCU进行了一次调价
Last edited:
I don't know why they still using TSMC fab...Even Zhao Xin made CPU also using TSMC. Didn't china already have 14nm technology? China urgently needs to produce chips by using their own fab.. Stop enriching Taiwan. Never learn a lesson from Huawei sanction
Last edited:
They were like Huawei before the sanction , trusting outsiders more than domestic players. One can do is to report their action to central and local government and have them put pressure on this type of companies.
Wait and see if government put pressure on them.@Oldschool bro you're right especially 40nm is within China tech competency.
One thing you have to learn about US politics is that every voice exists, but you shouldn't take every voice seriously. Take Tom Cotton, Republican Senator from one of the poorest redneck states. He says a lot of things, but don't take him seriously because he has no power or influence on Biden administration foreign policies. Republicans can only block major legislation in Senate via filibuster, they hold little or zero power on foreign policy issues. They can make a lot of noise, but that's a democracy, you can't take everything that is said by every loonie Senator seriously.
from AsiaTimes so the SMIC bought ASML DUVL is sanction proof since the machine is not the latest (NXT1980Di). They will sell their latest DUVL (NXT2000i) if the SMEE 28nm DUVL had been successfully put in used.
from onebyone (Pakistan Defense Forum)
China takes first baby step towards chip self-reliance
Top Chinese chipmaker SMIC in deal with Holland's ASML to equip new semiconductor plants with UV lithography technology
By MARCH 23, 2021
China has launched a path to become more self-reliant in semiconductor production. Image: Twitter
China’s leading chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) plans to build a new US$2.35 billion factory in Shenzhen after striking a deal with ASML Holding of the Netherlands, according to news reports.
The Shanghai-based SMIC foundry disclosed in filings to the city’s bourse that it had secured a $1.2 billion volume procurement deal with ASML’s Shanghai subsidiary to source critical equipment from the Dutch firm.
ASML is the world’s leading supplier of optical lithography systems used in semiconductor production. SMIC is key to China’s plans to become self-sufficient in semiconductor production amid rising tensions with the US, which imposed a ban on exporting chips to the company in December as part of an escalating tech war with Beijing.
Negotiations on the ASML deal reportedly went down to the wire and the hard-won contract, an extension of an expiring one in place since 2018, will secure shipments until the end of the year with no other strings attached other than a down payment of 30% for each transaction, Shanghai newspapers quoted SMIC CEO Zhao Haijun as saying.
It was also expected that Chinese authorities would give quick approval and inspection processes for ASML to import photolithography devices to Shanghai and its plants across the nation as part of the deal.
So far scant details have been given about the type of gear covered by the deal. Taiwanese observers – including former engineers with SMIC’s arch-rival TSMC – have claimed that the chip manufacturing technology to be shipped by ASML are “several curves behind” the current frontier technologies.
The deal was entered into in February and ASML is legally bound by US sanctions banning the sale of advanced technologies to China made with American know-how.
An employee walks past an ASML logo at the company’s headquarters in Veldhoven on April 17, 2018. Photo: AFP/Emmanuel Dunand
ASML has reputedly assured Amsterdam and Washington that only deep ultraviolet lithography technology, or DUV, used in making less-speedy processors will be sold to the partially state-owned SMIC under the deal.
Higher stakes are attached to ASML’s proprietary extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, used in making more advanced chips. The technology is accessible only to a handful of manufacturers including TSMC to make refined chips like the ones used to power Apple’s latest flagship handsets and laptops.
The ASML deal will give SMIC the technological boost it needs to start expansion programs amid a global chip shortage, including the new production plant in Shenzen. SMIC signed its deal with an investment vehicle controlled by Shenzhen’s municipal government last week to break ground on the sprawling new $2.35 billion complex in the southern Chinese tech hub.
SMIC is critical to Beijing’s newly-announced indigenous tech drive. A new roadmap toward greater self-sufficiency featured in China’s 14th Five-year Plan and 2035 Vision and was endorsed by the Chinese parliament, which has identified indigenous chip design and manufacturing as a staple part of the nation’s self-innovating renewal.
The national tech was designed to supercharge state and private entities like SMIC in Shanghai and telecom giant Huawei in Shenzhen. Both companies are expected to lead the pack in breaking the US’ tech iron curtain against China.
The ASML deal will help but not immediately bridge the gap in China’s advanced semiconductor production capabilities. Shenzhen officials in charge of industrial development said in reports that the bulk of the new plant’s ASML-enabled production would be dedicated to less-advanced 28-nanometer (nm) chips.
To put that into perspective, Apple’s latest A14 chip, the world’s fastest in smartphones and which are assembled by TSMC, belongs to the precedence-setting 5-nm category, hailed as the current apex of innovation of the global chip industry.
An electronic circuit board containing chips and components. Photo: AFP/Tek Image/Science Photo Library
Still, the vast majority of chips in current industrial and consumer use are of the 28-nm or wider variety. That includes those used in the automotive industry.
The semi-official China Semiconductor Industry Association also made a candid admission in its annual report of 2020 that it would take at least two more years for Chinese foundries to acquire and master all the technologies behind 28-nm chip production.
SMIC is also revving up construction for another 28-nm chip plant in suburban Beijing, which is reportedly also backed by local governments with guaranteed access to public funds.
Wu Hanming, the dean of Zhejiang University’s Institute of Micron and Nanometer Electronic Engineering and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Asia Times that even 28-nm chips are in tight supply and SMIC was moving in line with soaring demand to launch new semiconductor plants across China.
“Chips of 28-nm configurations are found in cars and there has been talk that some Chinese firms are exploring ways to put these mid-range chips into electronic gadgets to power them, when it’s getting challenging to buy more advanced ones from abroad,” he said.
China is importing UV lithography technology used in semiconductor production from the Netherlands. Image: AFP
“SMIC is pragmatic with what kind of equipment it can buy from ASML and is taking baby steps toward more self-reliance when its technicians and universities have been developing homemade alternatives for some years already,” he said.
China is importing UV lithography technology used in semiconductor production from the Netherlands. Image: AFP
“SMIC is pragmatic with what kind of equipment it can buy from ASML and is taking baby steps toward more self-reliance when its technicians and universities have been developing homemade alternatives for some years already,” he said.
“SMIC and Huawei may still get the short end of the stick in global competition, but they are making headway in R&D and by dint of hard work as well as Beijing’s policy blessing, breakthroughs can be expected in a smaller, more advanced 14-nm category in the next few years,” predicted Wu.
SMIC’s largest source of income in the last quarter of 2020 came from sales of 150 and 180-nm chips, with only 5% of its revenue generated by 28-nm or smaller-sized chips. In comparison, Taiwan’s TSMC earned a fifth of its $12.67 billion in revenues from technologically advanced 5-nm chips, underscoring the firm’s still wide technological lead on SMIC.
asiatimes.com
from onebyone (Pakistan Defense Forum)
China takes first baby step towards chip self-reliance
Top Chinese chipmaker SMIC in deal with Holland's ASML to equip new semiconductor plants with UV lithography technology
By MARCH 23, 2021
China has launched a path to become more self-reliant in semiconductor production. Image: Twitter
China’s leading chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) plans to build a new US$2.35 billion factory in Shenzhen after striking a deal with ASML Holding of the Netherlands, according to news reports.
The Shanghai-based SMIC foundry disclosed in filings to the city’s bourse that it had secured a $1.2 billion volume procurement deal with ASML’s Shanghai subsidiary to source critical equipment from the Dutch firm.
ASML is the world’s leading supplier of optical lithography systems used in semiconductor production. SMIC is key to China’s plans to become self-sufficient in semiconductor production amid rising tensions with the US, which imposed a ban on exporting chips to the company in December as part of an escalating tech war with Beijing.
Negotiations on the ASML deal reportedly went down to the wire and the hard-won contract, an extension of an expiring one in place since 2018, will secure shipments until the end of the year with no other strings attached other than a down payment of 30% for each transaction, Shanghai newspapers quoted SMIC CEO Zhao Haijun as saying.
It was also expected that Chinese authorities would give quick approval and inspection processes for ASML to import photolithography devices to Shanghai and its plants across the nation as part of the deal.
So far scant details have been given about the type of gear covered by the deal. Taiwanese observers – including former engineers with SMIC’s arch-rival TSMC – have claimed that the chip manufacturing technology to be shipped by ASML are “several curves behind” the current frontier technologies.
The deal was entered into in February and ASML is legally bound by US sanctions banning the sale of advanced technologies to China made with American know-how.
An employee walks past an ASML logo at the company’s headquarters in Veldhoven on April 17, 2018. Photo: AFP/Emmanuel Dunand
ASML has reputedly assured Amsterdam and Washington that only deep ultraviolet lithography technology, or DUV, used in making less-speedy processors will be sold to the partially state-owned SMIC under the deal.
Higher stakes are attached to ASML’s proprietary extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, used in making more advanced chips. The technology is accessible only to a handful of manufacturers including TSMC to make refined chips like the ones used to power Apple’s latest flagship handsets and laptops.
The ASML deal will give SMIC the technological boost it needs to start expansion programs amid a global chip shortage, including the new production plant in Shenzen. SMIC signed its deal with an investment vehicle controlled by Shenzhen’s municipal government last week to break ground on the sprawling new $2.35 billion complex in the southern Chinese tech hub.
SMIC is critical to Beijing’s newly-announced indigenous tech drive. A new roadmap toward greater self-sufficiency featured in China’s 14th Five-year Plan and 2035 Vision and was endorsed by the Chinese parliament, which has identified indigenous chip design and manufacturing as a staple part of the nation’s self-innovating renewal.
The national tech was designed to supercharge state and private entities like SMIC in Shanghai and telecom giant Huawei in Shenzhen. Both companies are expected to lead the pack in breaking the US’ tech iron curtain against China.
The ASML deal will help but not immediately bridge the gap in China’s advanced semiconductor production capabilities. Shenzhen officials in charge of industrial development said in reports that the bulk of the new plant’s ASML-enabled production would be dedicated to less-advanced 28-nanometer (nm) chips.
To put that into perspective, Apple’s latest A14 chip, the world’s fastest in smartphones and which are assembled by TSMC, belongs to the precedence-setting 5-nm category, hailed as the current apex of innovation of the global chip industry.
An electronic circuit board containing chips and components. Photo: AFP/Tek Image/Science Photo Library
Still, the vast majority of chips in current industrial and consumer use are of the 28-nm or wider variety. That includes those used in the automotive industry.
The semi-official China Semiconductor Industry Association also made a candid admission in its annual report of 2020 that it would take at least two more years for Chinese foundries to acquire and master all the technologies behind 28-nm chip production.
SMIC is also revving up construction for another 28-nm chip plant in suburban Beijing, which is reportedly also backed by local governments with guaranteed access to public funds.
Wu Hanming, the dean of Zhejiang University’s Institute of Micron and Nanometer Electronic Engineering and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Asia Times that even 28-nm chips are in tight supply and SMIC was moving in line with soaring demand to launch new semiconductor plants across China.
“Chips of 28-nm configurations are found in cars and there has been talk that some Chinese firms are exploring ways to put these mid-range chips into electronic gadgets to power them, when it’s getting challenging to buy more advanced ones from abroad,” he said.
China is importing UV lithography technology used in semiconductor production from the Netherlands. Image: AFP
“SMIC is pragmatic with what kind of equipment it can buy from ASML and is taking baby steps toward more self-reliance when its technicians and universities have been developing homemade alternatives for some years already,” he said.
China is importing UV lithography technology used in semiconductor production from the Netherlands. Image: AFP
“SMIC is pragmatic with what kind of equipment it can buy from ASML and is taking baby steps toward more self-reliance when its technicians and universities have been developing homemade alternatives for some years already,” he said.
“SMIC and Huawei may still get the short end of the stick in global competition, but they are making headway in R&D and by dint of hard work as well as Beijing’s policy blessing, breakthroughs can be expected in a smaller, more advanced 14-nm category in the next few years,” predicted Wu.
SMIC’s largest source of income in the last quarter of 2020 came from sales of 150 and 180-nm chips, with only 5% of its revenue generated by 28-nm or smaller-sized chips. In comparison, Taiwan’s TSMC earned a fifth of its $12.67 billion in revenues from technologically advanced 5-nm chips, underscoring the firm’s still wide technological lead on SMIC.
China’s leading chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) plans to build a new US$2.35 billion factory in Shenzhen after striking a deal with ASML Holding of the Netherlands, …
Tom Cotton, believe it or not, has been sanctioned by China i believe.
That is why he is enraged and really pissed off with China.
His plans for a big Payday after stepping down from Politics has been dashed by China.
I expect his Xenophobic and Anti-China rants to continue.
There are many scenarios and possibilities with this news.
South Korea is already making good progres with the development of 3nm Chips and so it feels it has nothing to lose by supplying Huawei 5nm Chips.
Samsung and the SKorean Government realises that they dont want to be unfairly restricted by the US Govt when doing business with Chinese companies. So they are pushing the boundaries in this matter of Samsung supplying Huawei with 5nm Chips. I expect the SKorean Govt to intervene on behalf of Samsung.
Samsung also realises that they could be put on the Entity List in China if they dont supply Huawei. So they are making an effort.
I dont believe that Samsung will ultimately be allowed to supply 5nm EUV Chips to Huawei as ASML and the US Govt will object.
But however i believe Samsung will try to supply Huawei with 5nm or 7nm Chips made using a De-Americanised Production Line using a Nikon DUVL or an ASML DUVL. The latest Nikon DUVL and latest ASML 2050i DUVL can be used to produce 5nm Chips with Multiple Patterning.
It may cost more to produce the Chips but Huawei may be willing to pay a premium.
There were reports 1-2 years ago that Samsung had built a small De-Americanised production line with an eye to supplying Huawei with 7nm Chips.
I think this Samsung plan is still in the Works.
- Status