Chinese semiconductor industry

I think you are mixing up a couple of things here. There are several metrics used to define a process and transistors/area is one of them. Historically TSMC has made more half node processes in small incremental steps while Intel likes to do a Big Bang approach where they only upgrade the process less frequently but it has bigger changes in it. Intel 10nm might have similar transistor density to TSMC early 7nm but TSMC 10nm has much worse density than TSMC 7nm. Also TSMC has two 7nm processes one with EUV and another without. One with EUV has more density. It has more density than Intel 10nm. Same deal with SMIC. Do not expect SMIC 10nm N+1 process to be same as Intel 10nm.

Does it matter that Intel 10nm (2019) slightly better than TSMC N7FF (2018) which is available one year earlier, when TSMC N7FF+ (2019) process available in same year that Intel 10nm is better than Intel? If Intel process was that good, why do you think they want to outsource CPU manufacture to TSMC?

Another difference is TSMC process is more suitable for low power than Intel. Even if Intel might have more density in some process it does not mean it will have same power draw per transistor. This is important for mobile or smartphone processors. Also, does it matter if Intel 10nm is similar to TSMC early 7nm if TSMC can manufacture their 5nm at better volume than Intel can do their 10nm?
TSMC N5 (2019) has almost twice the transistor density of Intel 10nm (2019).

10nm process is not the same as 7nm. Comparing processes across manufacturers is a crap shoot and a lot of it is marketing but it isn't meaningless. Design can make a large difference, sure, but it takes time, experienced staff, and you can't easily paper over a two generations process difference.

gelgoog said:

I think you are mixing up a couple of things here. There are several metrics used to define a process and transistors/area is one of them. Historically TSMC has made more half node processes in small incremental steps while Intel likes to do a Big Bang approach where they only upgrade the process less frequently but it has bigger changes in it. Intel 10nm might have similar transistor density to TSMC early 7nm but TSMC 10nm has much worse density than TSMC 7nm. Also TSMC has two 7nm processes one with EUV and another without. One with EUV has more density. It has more density than Intel 10nm. Same deal with SMIC. Do not expect SMIC 10nm N+1 process to be same as Intel 10nm.

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Does it matter that Intel 10nm slightly better than TSMC N7FF which is available one year earlier, when TSMC N7FF process available in same year that Intel 10nm is better than Intel? If Intel process was that good, why do you think they want to outsource CPU manufacture to TSMC?

Another difference is TSMC process is more suitable for low power than Intel. Even if Intel might have more density in some process it does not mean it will have same power draw per transistor. This is important for mobile or smartphone processors. Also, does it matter if Intel 10nm is similar to TSMC early 7nm if TSMC can manufacture their 5nm at better volume than Intel can do their 10nm?

10nm process is not the same as 7nm. Comparing processes across manufacturers is a crap shoot and a lot of it is marketing but it isn't meaningless. Design can make a large difference, sure, but it takes time, experienced staff, and you can't easily paper over a two generations process difference.

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yes ! TSMC is the fake node !

It is not fake node, TSMC has multiple 7nm processes.

If you compare Intel processes available at same introduction date, TSMC beats Intel. Intel 10nm (2019) has 100.76 MTr/mm² while TSMC 7nm (2019) has 113.9 MTr/mm² and 5nm (2019) has 173 MTr/mm². Intel can't compete.

jfcarli said:

Isn`t Huawei going to use Harmony OS in their laptops, too?

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HarmonyOS is currently designed and open-sourced as a Linux distribution. It's more important to get the eco system up and running to compete with the Apple and Google eco system.

BTW is there a Chinese software thread? Maybe it's less noisy if software and semi conductor are seperated?

BlackWindMnt said:

HarmonyOS is currently designed and open-sourced as a Linux distribution. It's more important to get the eco system up and running to compete with the Apple and Google eco system.

BTW is there a Chinese software thread? Maybe it's less noisy if software and semi conductor are seperated?

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Don't think so or there was one but it asked a single question in the title, I think one should be made toto, to the effect of "Chinese OS/Software industry"

BoraTas said:

Nah... Nobody would feel a difference. Most people watch videos, play simple games and use social media apps. None of them need much computing power anyway. 12 nm is enough for a lot of things.

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My 28nm phone is still working pretty well for those. I think the market for 28nm could still be huge especially in the "global south". I read africa is still mainly on featured phones.

I think this is the second GPU company producing a competitive chip at 7nm rivaling Nvidia I forgot the name of the other one but as always China provided us gift that keeps on giving. And its perfect timing for SMIC N+1 or N+2, all of these is godsend for SMIC, it had to wait until late 2022 for the ingenious 7nm line and see it grow exponentially, the future looks promising and bright for SMIC.

from CnTechPost

Chinese firm's 7nm GPU expected to tape out in Q3​

June 25, 2021
Chinese chip design company Biren Technology's first 7nm GPU is expected to tape out in the third quarter of this year and will be officially released next year, jiemian.com reported Friday.
Founded in September 2019, Biren Technology set a new funding record in China's chip design sector with a Series A round of 1.1 billion yuan ($170 million) in 2020.
It completed its Series B funding in March this year, with cumulative funding of RMB 4.7billion.
A GPU (Graphics processing unit), also known as a display chip, is a microprocessor that specializes in image graphics-related computing work.
Mike Hong, CTO and chief architect of Biren Technology, said in an interview with Chinese media last week that the company's first 7nm chip, which supports both AI training and reasoning, is progressing well and is expected to be formally taped out this year.

Its performance will rival that of NVIDIA's next-generation GPU, Hong said.
By using high-end packaging technology, Biren Technology's 7nm chip is targeted for use in high-end general intelligent computing.
The chip competes with Nvidia's next-generation 5nm GPU, which is still in the pipeline, Hong said, adding that the company's second chip has also started architecture design.
Biren Technology specializes in general-purpose AI training and reasoning capabilities, stripping away designs such as graphics rendering that are unrelated to AI acceleration and focusing more on how to rationally arrange more computing and storage units on its own chips.
Traditional GPUs mainly do vector operations, but for AI acceleration, matrix operations require less bandwidth for data than vector operations.
Instead of sticking to the traditional vector stream processing architecture, Biren Technology will add other elements such as data stream processing units and near-storage computing architecture to its concept to enable it to handle various data types.

Don’t expect Chinese GPU in markets outside of China any time soon. Nvidia, AMD, and other incumbents have plenty of patents. They’ll sue you to death

vincent said:

Don’t expect Chinese GPU in markets outside of China any time soon. Nvidia, AMD, and other incumbents have plenty of patents. They’ll sue you to death

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@vincent so bro for it to survive need to focus in the China market? or can they export it to Russia , Iran and the 3rd world?

ansy1968 said:

@vincent so bro for it to survive need to focus in the China market? or can they export it to Russia , Iran and the 3rd world?

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markets where established players don’t have patents registered.