Is the slow port activity an attempt to discredit Chinese or even all non US capital equipment suppliers?
Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
- Start date
- Status
Is the slow port activity an attempt to discredit Chinese or even all non US capital equipment suppliers?
No it's just US incompetence and self sabotage, it's US importer and consumers that's paying for it, not Chinese exporters since it's FOB terms.
The US has messed up its port infrastructure and downstream transport chain. As transport ships keep increasing in size they haven't expanded their port facilities to cope. They lack port automation. The port operators make money and can always jack up the price so they seldom are interested in expanding capacity.
Makes sense now why US wanted to know Samsung and TSMC order books. Now that Intel got the exclusive deal, rip Korean and Taiwan.
They will now start contacting Samsung's and TSMC customers and make a deal those two can't make. Also makes sense why Intel was talking about getting Apple as a fabrication customers in the future.
Because without Apple and Intel does TSMC have a customer for their high end nodes that can fill up that capacity to make further capital investment in more advance nodes viable?
Maybe it will be different since Pat Gelsinger is now the CEO of Intel. But Intel also was an initial client of the first batches of EUV machines and they basically fiddled with them for research purposes but never put them into production at all.
I doubt Intel will have exclusivity once those High-NA machines becomes production capable. But I agree that this "exclusivity" deal if true just smacks of anti-competitive behavior. Intel isn't below doing that, they have a long history of undermining their competition, have been fined several times even.
I doubt Intel will have exclusivity once those High-NA machines becomes production capable. But I agree that this "exclusivity" deal if true just smacks of anti-competitive behavior. Intel isn't below doing that, they have a long history of undermining their competition, have been fined several times even.
This is not about stabbing Samsung and TSMC in the back or abandoning them. That is the way the Americans will view it.
This is about the coach in American football, telling a player to sit on the bench so that another player can get into the game. Those are the rules to Pax Americana and the National Football League.
I think the Detroit Lions will be the turkeys again tomorrow on US Thanksgiving, although I hope that the Chicago Bears will take that role of being the turkeys this year.
It is a team sport. Time for everyone, including Samsung and TSMC, to sing God Bless America. Time for the game.
This is a good article and has a couple of important points, even though I am not a tech guy either.
The important points relate to two issues, 1) the specs and timeline, and 2) the costs.
1) In the article, they need a lens to produce a laser light of a certain wavelength, to etch the circuitry onto the silicone chip.
The current state of the art ASML machine has,
0.33 NA lens, ---> 13.5nm wavelength ---> fab 7nm & 5nm chip
By 2025 at the earliest, the state of the art AMSL will have,
0.55 NA lens, ---> 8nm wavelength ---> fab 3nm chip at TSMC etc.
A clear conclusion here is that the 5nm chip will be here with us for a while as the best chip.
2) The costs involved are huge, with the current state of the art ASML machine $153.4 million then the new machine will double in price to $318.6 million.
Then there are more increased costs to the equipment and materials needed to fab at 3nm.
What this means is the cost to produce the cutting edge chips rising exponentially, while the actual performance improvements are merely incremental. In economics, we call this the law of diminishing returns.
In short, the 3nm chip is not going to be cost effective compared to the 5nm or 7nm chip.
In other words they are reaching limits to what they can do technically and financially to make money. Given these type of economic constraints, the prize at the end of this race, for being the best node at 3nm, that prize could be not as big as we would think. The risks are huge. The fab can make a bundle of money, or over expand and get crushed.
(A side note, that is why there is so much collaboration and coordination in the IC industry. Companies must know who they will be selling to before they make the massive capital expenditures for plant and equipment.)
No, China does not have any of this type of equipment now. Clearly China is behind.
In four or five years, maybe China can fab a 3nm with EUV on its own, because that is the scheduled date for the ASML machine to appear.
This is the complicated part, because this is a business decision too. ASML can get that 3nm capable machine to the market in 2 years, that is 2 years earlier, but they won't.
It is too expensive. The semiconductor industry, if you are TSMC or Samsung, is different that almost all other types of businesses.
You make a capital expenditure on a machine. After TSMC decides it earned enough from that machine, then TSMC will buy the next one.
ASML coming out with their most advanced machine 4 to 6 years from now, indicates when TSMC feels ready to buy that, after they earned enough money from the old machine they bought cranking out chips.
Bottom line for Chinese Communist Party, is that TSMC and Samsung at 5nm, but SMIC at 7nm, with 3nm in the distant future. And they all know that 90% of chip demand is at the mature nodes of 14nm or above.
That is how the CCP would view this battle or race. It is a whole new ball game.
Last edited:
They can manufacture lower than 5nm with existing 0.33 NA equipment. It is just that it requires multiple exposures and is hence much slower and defect prone. It is also expected that regular FinFET won't work properly at those sizes so you need a new transistor design like GAA.
ASML and TSMC originally teamed up to cut out Nikon, Canon and the Japanese producers. Now it's time for the Taiwanese and South Korean producers to be cut out. Basically the game is to cut out Asia from high tech and leave the entire supply chain in European/White American hands. Unfortunately for Asia, it is badly divided by internal rivalries while the US and Europe are heavily integrated and teamed up.
- Status