Chinese semiconductor industry

Doubtful. Given the predicted expansion in the US and Taiwan for 5nm and 3nm for TSMC why would they build more fabs in Germany?
TSMC might make a token fab that would manufacture chips at older process nodes just to placate the EU but this would be counter productive as it would both harm existing EU manufacturer STMicro and would likely duplicate the same processes GlobalFoundries can manufacture already. Let's face it, it would be tens of billions for an EUV fab. A non EUV fab would be cheaper. But GlobalFoundries Dresden can already manufacture at 22nm both SOI and bulk. Plus GlobalFoundries already has 14/12nm FinFET process in their US fab. It would be a lot cheaper to just reconvert that fab to 14/12nm. STMicro is still stuck at 28nm and they use FD-SOI. It is mostly for specialized applications like radio. FD-SOI is also used for rad hard applications like military or space applications.

gelgoog said:

Doubtful. Given the predicted expansion in the US and Taiwan for 5nm and 3nm for TSMC why would they build more fabs in Germany?
TSMC might make a token fab that would manufacture chips at older process nodes just to placate the EU but this would be counter productive as it would both harm existing EU manufacturer STMicro and would likely duplicate the same processes GlobalFoundries can manufacture already. Let's face it, it would be tens of billions for an EUV fab. A non EUV fab would be cheaper. But GlobalFoundries Dresden can already manufacture at 22nm both SOI and bulk. Plus GlobalFoundries already has 14/12nm FinFET process in their US fab. It would be a lot cheaper to just reconvert that fab to 14/12nm. STMicro is still stuck at 28nm and they use FD-SOI. It is mostly for specialized applications like radio. FD-SOI is also used for rad hard applications like military or space applications.

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@gelgoog bro you're right its a 12nm FAB with 20,000 wafer per month. but as you said it's not final and still under consideration.

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13 Jul 2021 — TSMC, the world's leading foundry, may change its policy and agree to set up wafer fabs in Germany and Japan. The additional fabs would be in ...

In the longer term if things like self-driving cars do happen at scale the automotive industry might require millions of highly advanced chips. These would be used for everything from sensors to the processing power to analyze the road condition with the sensors and plan the route. European car companies are slow to this technology in practice but I do know even companies like BMW have had people working on this for years already. I remember seeing a presentation by a BMW research years before Tesla was even founded on this. If that happens then yes an advanced fab might make sense but I think it is likely a decade early.

gelgoog said:

In the longer term if things like self-driving cars do happen at scale the automotive industry might require millions of highly advanced chips. These would be used for everything from sensors to the processing power to analyze the road condition with the sensors and plan the route. European car companies are slow to this technology in practice but I do know even companies like BMW have had people working on this for years already. I remember seeing a presentation by a BMW research years before Tesla was even founded on this. If that happens then yes an advanced fab might make sense but I think it is likely a decade early.

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@gelgoog So bro from what you posted, does it mean that China in pecking order will be more advance node wise compare to Europe within the decade? I mean SMIC had the capability to produce a 7nm chip or even a 7nm 3D stacking chiplet? So in order to stay relevant they are focusing on the next generation chip like 2nm?

ansy1968 said:

@gelgoog So bro from what you posted, does it mean that China in pecking order will be more advance node wise compare to Europe within the decade? I mean SMIC had the capability to produce a 7nm chip or even a 7nm 3D stacking chiplet? So in order to stay relevant they are focusing on the next generation chip like 2nm?

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China is already more advanced than EU in process alone. Best EU fabs are 20/22 nm. SMIC is 14 nm. EU has some incumbent automotive fabs like Infineon though, and a strong equipment industry.

Annihilation98 said:

I wonder if a country like INDIA can defeat China in semiconductor since they have access to ASML technology. This will make China's technology obsolete.

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Why do you mention India? Just because it has a lot of people? That doesn't make it comparable to China; it may have tons of impoverished people but India is known for incompetence and getting nothing done while China is known for the fastest development in human history. ASML and the US is much more formiddable than ASML and India. Hell, ASML plus any first world country is more formidable than ASML and India; they all have access to ASML but the US is still in cold sweats over its inability to stop China's domestic IC development. That should answer your question.

Annihilation98 said:

Zhang Zhongmou, the founder of TSMC, once said: Without TSMC's foundry, mainland China would not be able to produce a piece of high-end chips without the efforts of the whole country.

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So... what, is it illegal to use the efforts of the whole country?

Annihilation98 said:

The Dutch president once said that even if the lithography machine drawings were given to China, the Chinese would not be able to create top-level lithography machines.

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The Dutch president should learn from the ASML president. When politicians go out of their depth to make comments about science, funny things often come out.
VELDHOVEN, Netherlands — Europe shouldn't block exports of high-end tech to China as doing so would only speed up Beijing's efforts to achieve "tech sovereignty," according to the CEO of the bloc’s highest-valued technology company.

Peter Wennink, head of Dutch chip printing giant ASML, said the EU should get tough with China over intellectual property and enforce a level playing field in trade — but not close off exports of high-end tech, a strategy favored in Washington.

"If you shut out the Chinese with export control measures, you'll force them to strive toward tech sovereignty, in their case real tech sovereignty ... In 15 years' time they'll be able to do it all by themselves — and their market [for European suppliers] will be gone," Wennink told POLITICO on the top floor of ASML's towering building in Veldhoven, a town in the southeast of the country."

Moore’s Law Could Ride EUV for 10 More Years​

ASML plans to introduce new extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment that will extend the longevity of Moore’s Law for at least ten years, according to executives at the world’s only supplier of the tools, which are crucial for the world’s most advanced silicon.

Starting in the first half of 2023, the company plans to offer customers equipment that takes EUV numerical aperture (NA) higher to 0.55 NA from the existing 0.33 NA. The company believes that the new equipment will help chip makers reach process nodes well beyond the current threshold (2nm) for at least another 10 years, according to ASML vice president Teun van Gogh, in an interview with EE Times.

Interesting progress on semiconductor OrganoMetallic raw materials in China.

Jinhong Gas: Successfully trial-produced electronic grade tetraethyl orthosilicate for integrated circuits​

According to the news from the micronet, on October 11, Jinhong Gas issued a document announcing that the company's headquarters had successfully conducted the trial production of electronic grade tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) for integrated circuits. This breakthrough indicates that Jinhong Gas has taken another solid step in solving the "stuck neck" problem in the industry, and will launch TEOS market-oriented mass production in the near future. It will replace imports with domestic integrated circuit electronic materials to achieve independence. Controllable and other aspects to make new contribution.

Electronic grade TEOS is a high-end microelectronics chemical that needs to be used in the preparation of epitaxial materials in integrated circuits. It is also an important precursor material for third-generation semiconductor materials and emerging semiconductor industries. The production process requires control of metal ion impurity content and other links. Extremely high. With more than ten years of experience in electronic gas development, Jinhong Gas has overcome many technical problems such as difficult removal of metal ion impurities in the purification process of electronic grade TEOS, difficult detection of trace metals, and easy contamination of equipment, pipelines, and packaging containers, forming independent knowledge The proprietary electronic grade TEOS purification, detection, filtration and filling technology has attracted wide attention in the industry after the successful trial production.

Funny copium article from you know who.


They actually use P:E ratio as a metric for semiconductor industry strength... Not capacity in 200 mm wafer equivalents.

As if P:E ratio is what is produced by fabs, and not wafers.