Chinese semiconductor industry

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manqiangrexue

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Annihilation98 said:
This forum is actually overestimated China's capabilities. China's semiconductor technologies are 10 or 15 years behind western counterpart. This is a fact.
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Yeah, sorry, but people who see a picture of an EUV lithograph and say, "Wow, that's so big. It must take 10 years to build," don't get to declare what the facts are in a tech-intensive debate.

@Hadoren , if you don't like this thread, just go. No need to limit yourself to two weeks, no need to announce anything. Nothing's gonna change after 2 weeks. There are plenty of threads I don't ever check because I'm not interested and I don't start drama on them like this.
 
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gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Annihilation98 said:
This forum is actually overestimated China's capabilities. China's semiconductor technologies are 10 or 15 years behind western counterpart. This is a fact.
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It depends on what you are talking about. There is more to semiconductors than lithography tools.

SMIC isn't behind on process technology to, say, Intel in the US. They have a 10nm process in production already.
If SMIC wasn't barred from buying EUV tools they would likely surpass Intel over the next two years.

If you are talking about world leadership in chip manufacture. Then you are talking about TSMC and Samsung. Everyone else is much further behind. No contest.

If we are talking about tools, China does have some segments where it is a leader like in etching tools. TSMC uses Chinese etching tools.
We had reports of news here recently about how China is now able to manufacture its own masks for DUV. That is important to prevent trade sanctions from grinding Chinese industry to a halt quickly since masks are basically one of the more expensive consumables.

South Korea has also been buying chemicals from China they used to import from Japan which later got sanctioned by Japan to South Korea. So the industry has made progress. The problem is manufacturing requires many steps and China needs to be able to do everything to be sanctions proof. No one else in the sector has to work under such conditions and if they had they wouldn't be able to produce anything. No single country has a 100% semiconductor manufacture chain in it.
 
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ansy1968

Brigadier
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
The point of this thread is for us to know which of the milestones have been met and which haven't been met.

A cursory review of the thread over the last year does point to some pretty obvious milestones and an overall trajectory -- if one is able to filter out the mainstream "news language articles".


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I would add however -- @ansy1968 , while I appreciate your enthusiasm for the thread and for various developments, how many of the articles are properly assessed to be accurate?
If we continue with the PLA watching and Chinese semiconductor watching parallels -- there are also many Chinese language articles and videos that are either inaccurate, or overenthusiastic or not saying anything new about PLA matters, and I think there are also enough articles and videos that are the similar for Chinese semiconductors as well.

Consider using a bit more discretion to be a bit more selective.


Alternatively, I am also not opposed to @WTAN articulating his thoughts and positions more clearly, but at the same time I recognize that people here who know more about the details may choose to avoid giving a full and clear picture for general opsec reasons.
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@Bltizo Sir happy to respond and thanks for the compliment, I had been browsing the net looking for information, due to my over enthusiasm ;)and after being forewarned by our esteem members I try to fact check most of those sources before posting, BUT with recent development and post by other esteem members, my info collaborated with what they posted, For me it enhanced the credibility of my source and therefore wishes to share with the rest and I'm glad @WTAN is there to explain things in more detail, cause it confirmed what he predicted in his previous post.

An example @Hendrik_2000 post about Huawei chip plan had connected the dot with a Mainland article about 14nm 3D chiplet breakthrough, I had that article for 4 days withholding it until I see his post. Sir thanks for the reminder and The joy of PLA watching sometimes a rumor had some truth in it, Its up to us to search and confirm it. ;)
 
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dingyibvs

Junior Member
Bltizo said:
The point of this thread is for us to know which of the milestones have been met and which haven't been met.

A cursory review of the thread over the last year does point to some pretty obvious milestones and an overall trajectory -- if one is able to filter out the mainstream "news language articles".


=====

I would add however -- @ansy1968 , while I appreciate your enthusiasm for the thread and for various developments, how many of the articles are properly assessed to be accurate?
If we continue with the PLA watching and Chinese semiconductor watching parallels -- there are also many Chinese language articles and videos that are either inaccurate, or overenthusiastic or not saying anything new about PLA matters, and I think there are also enough articles and videos that are the similar for Chinese semiconductors as well.

Consider using a bit more discretion to be a bit more selective.


Alternatively, I am also not opposed to @WTAN articulating his thoughts and positions more clearly, but at the same time I recognize that people here who know more about the details may choose to avoid giving a full and clear picture for general opsec reasons.
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Heh, he kinda reminds me of SinoSoldier back in the days, wonder what happened to him?
 
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antiterror13

Brigadier
Annihilation98 said:
This forum is actually overestimated China's capabilities. China's semiconductor technologies are 10 or 15 years behind western counterpart. This is a fact.
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Who is "Western counterpart" ? the US ?

Taiwan and South Korea and Japan are not western countries ?

The US is obviously leading in some areas (EDA tools, light source) and lag very behind in many other areas

ASML is "only" integrator from thousands of suppliers, including from China .. in fact most of suppliers are non "western counterpart"

So, really you are comparing China with the best in the world from many many countries (not only western counterpart) ... is it fair comparison ? ... I reckon China is behind 7-10 years from the best in the world (from many countries)

How about America? ... Intel is way behind TSMC as well .. can we say the US is 6 years behind Asian counterpart ?

How about US compare to ASML .. don't even think about it ... perhaps 30 years? I am not sure whether the US even has a company that make DUV machine? .. heyyy, only Japan, Netherland and China that can produce modern DUV machine. And obviously Netherland is the top dog currently, it was Japan in 1980s and 90s
 
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ansy1968

Brigadier
Registered Member
antiterror13 said:
Who is "Western counterpart" ? the US ?

Taiwan and South Korea and Japan are not western countries ?

The US is obviously leading in some areas (EDA tools, light source) and lag very behind in many other areas

ASML is "only" integrator from thousands of suppliers, including from China .. in fact most of suppliers are non "western counterpart"

So, really you are comparing China with the best in the world from many many countries (not only western counterpart) ... is it fair comparison ? ... I reckon China is behind 7-10 years from the best in the world (from many countries)

How about America? ... Intel is way behind TSMC as well .. can we say the US is 6 years behind Asian counterpart ?

How about US compare to ASML .. don't even think about it ... perhaps 30 years? I am not sure whether the US even has a company that make DUV machine? .. heyyy, only Japan, Netherland and China that can produce modern DUV machine. And obviously Netherland is the top dog currently, it was Japan in 1980s and 90s
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@antiterror13 Sir you had been triggered, that is the purpose of his post. We know from this thread the progress China is making why give him the satisfaction of providing more evidence to convince him since he already had an opinion. ;)
 
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tokenanalyst

Brigadier
Registered Member
Annihilation98 said:
This forum is actually overestimated China's capabilities. China's semiconductor technologies are 10 or 15 years behind western counterpart. This is a fact.
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I find is the contrary, people here really underestimate China capabilities and don't understand the market forces the drive the industry. If you look at the dynamics of the industry, big companies have lost the market in the blink of an eye. The Western analysts who most underestimate the Chinese semiconductor industry do not work in the industry, they are financial analysts or national security analysts. That is why the CEO of ASML says that the export controls against China will not work, he does not say it because he wants to sell more machines but because he knows the dynamics of the industry, A 10 year gap can become 5 years in 2 years with the correct market forces. To think that only three companies in the world can make an Arf lithography machine and SMEE is one of them and Nikon will die in 5 years if doesn't enter the Chinese market. People and even the Chinese look down SMEE because doesn't sell EUV machines but look at their offerings, i think they have the most complete line of products in the industry, from advanced packaging, to frontend lithography, to display panels, to TFT, to power electronics. Canon only sell the backend and ASML and Nikon only sell the frontend. SMEE in a few years will serve the Chinese industry with immersion lithography, dry lithography, advance packaging lithography, TFT lithography, display panels lithography, Mems Lithography, power electronics and so on. The most complete company in their area.

People here underestimate the other side of the Chinese semiconductor industry, companies like Amec, Naura, ACM research, the US should fear those companies more than SMEE which compete with Holland and Japan, those compete against US companies and they had been better positioned to take over the market share of U.S. companies closing the tech gap faster than SMEE, they have grown 3 fold in the last few years. In other words U.S. sanctions will hurt U.S. companies more than any other companies in the world.
The semiconductor industry is an iceberg on the ocean and people here only see the flashy things in headlines news like EUVL or meaningless numbers like 3nm or ARM IP. But there is a lot of things beneath the waters that are as important.​
 
ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
WTAN said:
Just waiting for the Precision Machine Tools to be made available for prototype manufacture.
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Thanks for the response. I certainly don't want you to name names given the sensitivity of the topic, but how is progress on those tools? I remember Havok posted that there was a breakthrough in Chinese precision tools before his account was nuked from orbit. Was he referring to just tools for DUV or is this breakthrough applicable to both EUV and DUV?
 
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