China is far, far away from self sufficiency in the >= 28nm chip supply. Theoretically it needed not even bother too much about <= 14nm to reach the 70% localized production. The 5% indigenous automotive chips is proof of this.
China needs to be going full spectrum... this is not an either / or proposition... including leapfrog technologies and new materials... think outside the box... under 1nm too not just 5nm....
Just my 2 cents, I think Huawei should go full tilt into Graphene while leaving enough resources in Photonics to move forward. The multitude of potential applications of graphene is just too immense and could affect way more industries than photonics could for the foreseeable future… if they can crack mass graphene and/or carbon nanotubes production as well as the sorting of the carbon nanotubes into their specific necessary structures that alone would already guarantee their survival.
This article is pretty vague on how indigenous the production line will be
@ILikeChina so bro I hope @WTAN and @foofy will back me up with my hypothesis that the verification of 14nm equipment is successful and this report confirmed it? and if its true then 2023 timeline for 7nm domestic production line is achievable. I don't want to jinx it but I'm excited, China as always never cease to amaze me.
The last news we had on SMEE 28nm lithography machine was that it was yielding around ~30%. Now, they say they expect 12-14nm commercial mass production in 2022? 14nm requires immersion lithography for double patterning. That means they must have already successfully brought 28nm yields well above >75% for decent 14nm yields to be commercially viable for mass production by 2022.