Chinese semiconductor industry
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China's lithography machine has made a major breakthrough, Foxconn adopts domestic lithography machine on a large scale
Foxconn's investment in Qingdao New Core Technology's first wafer-level packaging and testing plant was officially put into production, which introduced 46 sets of 28nm lithography machines from Shanghai Microelectronics. This is the largest order for lithography machines produced in mainland China and represents mainland China. The lithography machine has achieved great results.
Maybe they are referring to their new SSB520 which is going to be more dedicated to advanced packaging.
Why do they call them lithography machines, if they are for packaging?
According to the guancha.cn report I gave, it was the Taiwanese media that made the mistake thinking these machines as "28nm lithograpy machines" hence claimed that China has made the breakthrough.
But what Foxconn is getting is still a type of lithography machines. I am not familiar with semiconductors, maybe our experts in house can explain the differences.
EDIT: fixed typo.
Because they all are lithography machines. They use the same principles and their function is the same, to print a pattern in a photoresist, the main difference is that packaging lithography machines are allowed to have wider tolerances than frontend lithography machines and their field of view is bigger. But in theory you can make chips with them, the new packaging machine of SMEE SSB520 has a resolution of 600nm and overlay error of 150nm, i think you can build a 90s CPU with that resolution.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Well seem like China will now have their own home grown Loci chip replacing the legacy X86 and Arm chip via emperor
China's road to homegrown chip glory looks to be going for a RISC-V future
The RISC-V Summit is over - here's what you need to know
Agam Shah Thu 9 Dec 2021 // 20:45 UTC
China's been scammed for billions by rogues in its chase to become a chip powerhouse, though ironically, a free, open-source CPU architecture is emerging as its best bet to create a powerful homegrown chip.
China was a winner at this week's RISC-V Summit, with many organizations introducing CPUs based on RISC-V, an open-source chip architecture sometimes called the Linux of chips. The government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is on the US Entity List, and StarFive Technology released new RISC-V chip designs for PCs and servers.
The profile of RISC-V is growing with backing from companies including Apple, Intel, Google and Nvidia. And RISC-V development is especially picking up in China, with Alibaba in October opening code of the XuanTie custom-built processors based on RISC-V instruction, and is porting Android 10 to RISC-V ISA.
The country has poured billions into making homegrown chips with the aim of being self-sufficient in the technology. Another goal is to cut the reliance on foreign countries, with chip technology being used as leverage by US in its trade war against China.
For example, the US is limiting chip technology exports to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has now turned to RISC-V for CPU development. The organization in 2010 developed the MIPS-based Loongson chip, and the latest chip release earlier this year mixes MIPS with RISC-V.
Former Broadcom engineer accused of pinching chip tech to share with new Chinese employer
RISC-V is attractive to China because it is a borderless architecture, and it isn't controlled by a single company or government entity, Nathan Brookwood, chip analyst at Insight 64, told The Register. Other open-source efforts like OpenPower, which is led by IBM, are concentrated around vendors.
RISC-V provides a chance to break away from the monolithic structure driving the development, production and distribution of chips, and to create a level playing field for smaller chip makers, Brookwood said.
Move fast and break stuff
"We take advantage of the community. We break down corporate barriers, country barriers, cultural barriers, timezone barriers, and we all share that piece because we all know is that we are part of this community," Mark Himelstein, chief technology officer at RISC-V International, told The Register.
The newer Chinese chip designs introduced at RISC-V Summit aren't as advanced as the fastest x86 and Arm CPU cores, though the goal is to produce a competitive alternative with richer features, if not the latest and greatest eventually.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences announced the latest addition to the open-source XiangShan 64-bit chip family, dubbed Nanhu, which will tape out next year. This second-generation design operates at 2GHz, and is close to twice as fast as its first-generation predecessor, the Yanqihu, which was released six months ago and targets a 28nm process.
Nanhu is designed for a 14nm process, which means the chip could be made inside China at a fab run by SMIC, which operates at that node. While not as advanced as the cutting-edge 5nm and 4nm nodes run by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Nanhu does close the manufacturing gap.
Just 30 people – 25 graduate students and five engineers – worked on the RISC-V-compatible Yanqihu, said Yungang Bao, a professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology, during a presentation at the RISC-V Summit in San Francisco. Given the cooperative nature of RISC-V, some of Nanhu's features draw from open-source blueprints, such as SiFive's Block Inclusive Cache, the professor said.
"For us, we will not launch a startup to commercialize, but we hope there are some other companies to do that," Yungang said, adding: "We would like to see a company like Red Hat for RISC-V."
StarFive meanwhile introduced Dubhe, an out-of-order mainstream computing chip design that operates at 2GHz on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s 12nm process.
The microprocessor includes various RISC-V extensions, such as the bit manipulation one also implemented in XiangShan, plus an implementation of the newly ratified RISC-V hypervisor extension. That's the virtualization extension SiFive's top-end P650 RISC-V CPU core also supports.
There are challenges. If Nvidia doesn't acquire Arm, a merger that now looks highly unlikely, this failure could be a temporary roadblock in RISC-V's expansion, Brookwood said.
Arm is more like a Switzerland of the semiconductor world with its neutral stance. Companies were ready to ditch Arm if Nvidia took control, and that exodus may slow if the takeover doesn't happen, Brookwood said.
Meanwhile, some SiFive executives told us that, in their mind, it doesn't matter if Nvidia absorbs Arm or not: if it does, RISC-V looks more attractive, and if it doesn't, Arm will be left facing off against a growing number of RISC-V processor designers, they argued. ®
China's road to homegrown chip glory looks to be going for a RISC-V future
The RISC-V Summit is over - here's what you need to know
Agam Shah Thu 9 Dec 2021 // 20:45 UTC
China's been scammed for billions by rogues in its chase to become a chip powerhouse, though ironically, a free, open-source CPU architecture is emerging as its best bet to create a powerful homegrown chip.
China was a winner at this week's RISC-V Summit, with many organizations introducing CPUs based on RISC-V, an open-source chip architecture sometimes called the Linux of chips. The government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences, which is on the US Entity List, and StarFive Technology released new RISC-V chip designs for PCs and servers.
The profile of RISC-V is growing with backing from companies including Apple, Intel, Google and Nvidia. And RISC-V development is especially picking up in China, with Alibaba in October opening code of the XuanTie custom-built processors based on RISC-V instruction, and is porting Android 10 to RISC-V ISA.
The country has poured billions into making homegrown chips with the aim of being self-sufficient in the technology. Another goal is to cut the reliance on foreign countries, with chip technology being used as leverage by US in its trade war against China.
For example, the US is limiting chip technology exports to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has now turned to RISC-V for CPU development. The organization in 2010 developed the MIPS-based Loongson chip, and the latest chip release earlier this year mixes MIPS with RISC-V.
Former Broadcom engineer accused of pinching chip tech to share with new Chinese employer
RISC-V is attractive to China because it is a borderless architecture, and it isn't controlled by a single company or government entity, Nathan Brookwood, chip analyst at Insight 64, told The Register. Other open-source efforts like OpenPower, which is led by IBM, are concentrated around vendors.
RISC-V provides a chance to break away from the monolithic structure driving the development, production and distribution of chips, and to create a level playing field for smaller chip makers, Brookwood said.
Move fast and break stuff
"We take advantage of the community. We break down corporate barriers, country barriers, cultural barriers, timezone barriers, and we all share that piece because we all know is that we are part of this community," Mark Himelstein, chief technology officer at RISC-V International, told The Register.
The newer Chinese chip designs introduced at RISC-V Summit aren't as advanced as the fastest x86 and Arm CPU cores, though the goal is to produce a competitive alternative with richer features, if not the latest and greatest eventually.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences announced the latest addition to the open-source XiangShan 64-bit chip family, dubbed Nanhu, which will tape out next year. This second-generation design operates at 2GHz, and is close to twice as fast as its first-generation predecessor, the Yanqihu, which was released six months ago and targets a 28nm process.
Nanhu is designed for a 14nm process, which means the chip could be made inside China at a fab run by SMIC, which operates at that node. While not as advanced as the cutting-edge 5nm and 4nm nodes run by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Nanhu does close the manufacturing gap.
Just 30 people – 25 graduate students and five engineers – worked on the RISC-V-compatible Yanqihu, said Yungang Bao, a professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology, during a presentation at the RISC-V Summit in San Francisco. Given the cooperative nature of RISC-V, some of Nanhu's features draw from open-source blueprints, such as SiFive's Block Inclusive Cache, the professor said.
"For us, we will not launch a startup to commercialize, but we hope there are some other companies to do that," Yungang said, adding: "We would like to see a company like Red Hat for RISC-V."
StarFive meanwhile introduced Dubhe, an out-of-order mainstream computing chip design that operates at 2GHz on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s 12nm process.
The microprocessor includes various RISC-V extensions, such as the bit manipulation one also implemented in XiangShan, plus an implementation of the newly ratified RISC-V hypervisor extension. That's the virtualization extension SiFive's top-end P650 RISC-V CPU core also supports.
There are challenges. If Nvidia doesn't acquire Arm, a merger that now looks highly unlikely, this failure could be a temporary roadblock in RISC-V's expansion, Brookwood said.
Arm is more like a Switzerland of the semiconductor world with its neutral stance. Companies were ready to ditch Arm if Nvidia took control, and that exodus may slow if the takeover doesn't happen, Brookwood said.
Meanwhile, some SiFive executives told us that, in their mind, it doesn't matter if Nvidia absorbs Arm or not: if it does, RISC-V looks more attractive, and if it doesn't, Arm will be left facing off against a growing number of RISC-V processor designers, they argued. ®
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Huawei also introduce new microprocessor chip via Mr Unknown
Makes sense to target enterprise & government PC segments first, given current circumstances.
Huawei HiSilicon Pangu M900 chip to launch in mid 2022
Published 24 mins ago on December 9, 2021By Deng Li
A previous report reveals that Huawei has a new chipset that could replace AMD and Intel processor requirements in its PCs and notebook platforms and now there’s some more information that has just dropped into our corner.
According to the information coming from a Weibo blogger, Huawei Hisilicon has a new PC-level processor named Pangu M900 that could launch somewhere near mid-2022. This new processor is planned to launch especially for the government and official sectors and not for ordinary consumers in the meantime.
Furthermore, it’s revealed that the Huawei HiSilicon Pangu M900 processor is designed and developed by Shanghai HiSilicon technology, the chipset designing arm of Huawei. On the other hand, the previous Kirin 990 and Kirin 9006C processor.
Meanwhile, Huawei has not announced any such processor launch at the moment but we’ll get to that sooner or later.
Meanwhile, a report regarding the upcoming mobile chipset platform powered Huawei notebook has been surfaced online that reveals Huawei Qingyun L420 processor, equipped with a 5nm Kirin 9006C Octa-core specifications, up to 3.13GHz, and the graphics card is a Kirin 9006C integrated graphics card.
In terms of specifications, the Huawei Qingyun L420 notebook has a 14-inch screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1440 and a 3:2 ratio. The thickness of the body is 15.9mm and the weight is 1.45kg. In terms of interfaces, this notebook is equipped with an HDMI interface, mini RJ45 network port, 2 USB-A interfaces, a headset interface, and a full-featured USB-C.
Moreover, the company has installed Hynix 8GB LPDDR4-4266 RAM along with Samsung 256GB hard drive along with Kirin desktop operating system.
Makes sense to target enterprise & government PC segments first, given current circumstances.
Huawei HiSilicon Pangu M900 chip to launch in mid 2022
Published 24 mins ago on December 9, 2021By Deng Li
A previous report reveals that Huawei has a new chipset that could replace AMD and Intel processor requirements in its PCs and notebook platforms and now there’s some more information that has just dropped into our corner.
According to the information coming from a Weibo blogger, Huawei Hisilicon has a new PC-level processor named Pangu M900 that could launch somewhere near mid-2022. This new processor is planned to launch especially for the government and official sectors and not for ordinary consumers in the meantime.
Furthermore, it’s revealed that the Huawei HiSilicon Pangu M900 processor is designed and developed by Shanghai HiSilicon technology, the chipset designing arm of Huawei. On the other hand, the previous Kirin 990 and Kirin 9006C processor.
Meanwhile, Huawei has not announced any such processor launch at the moment but we’ll get to that sooner or later.
Meanwhile, a report regarding the upcoming mobile chipset platform powered Huawei notebook has been surfaced online that reveals Huawei Qingyun L420 processor, equipped with a 5nm Kirin 9006C Octa-core specifications, up to 3.13GHz, and the graphics card is a Kirin 9006C integrated graphics card.
In terms of specifications, the Huawei Qingyun L420 notebook has a 14-inch screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1440 and a 3:2 ratio. The thickness of the body is 15.9mm and the weight is 1.45kg. In terms of interfaces, this notebook is equipped with an HDMI interface, mini RJ45 network port, 2 USB-A interfaces, a headset interface, and a full-featured USB-C.
Moreover, the company has installed Hynix 8GB LPDDR4-4266 RAM along with Samsung 256GB hard drive along with Kirin desktop operating system.
Wafer process equipment maker ACM Shanghai wins order from top U.S. semiconductor manufacturer
Editing by Xin Lanhua
Wafer process equipment and solution provider ACM Shanghai announced in early December that it had won two orders for cleaning equipment from a major U.S. semiconductor manufacturer.
The orders for ACM Shanghai（盛美上海) are scheduled to be delivered in the first and second quarter of 2022, respectively.
The first order is for evaluation equipment to verify the cleaning performance and determine the specific configuration of the equipment. The second one is equipment for mass production line, according to ACM.
Editing by Xin Lanhua
Wafer process equipment and solution provider ACM Shanghai announced in early December that it had won two orders for cleaning equipment from a major U.S. semiconductor manufacturer.
The orders for ACM Shanghai（盛美上海) are scheduled to be delivered in the first and second quarter of 2022, respectively.
The first order is for evaluation equipment to verify the cleaning performance and determine the specific configuration of the equipment. The second one is equipment for mass production line, according to ACM.
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