Chinese semiconductor thread II

[tokenanalyst]

If AMEC or NAURA built better etching machines these machines will be sold in China almost unrestricted. AMAT and LAM are restricted to sell generation old machines in China. If SMEE or SiCarrier built EUV machines, ASML will still be banned from selling theirs EVEN if China EUV machine is shown on national TV.
China would probably never see a ASML made EUV scanner for a decade or even two EVEN if the country already had domestic EUV machines.

 

[tphuang]

Currently, Fujian Jinhua is in a critical development period. The yield of its independently developed 19nm DRAM chips has been improved to the mainstream level in the industry. It has successfully passed the verification of leading manufacturers and achieved mass production. In 2026, it plans to expand its monthly production capacity to 60,000 wafers.

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Great work for Jinhua. If it can supply a steady supply of DDR4 and LPDDR4X, that would be huge for China's domestic supply, since a lot of AIoT needs it. Let's see if it can actually get to 60k wpm.

second prominent DRAM manufacturer after CXMT in mainland China.. good progress

I'm not sure you can call them #2.

 

[tphuang]

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Quite a big win for NVIDIA

If it materializes... the Chinese goverment always has to step in to be the adult because private companies act like children grabbing for free candy from a pedo in a trenchcoat whenever an easy path to profits emerges."

"Nvidia, meanwhile, is hoping to ship its newly approved H200 chips to Chinese customers before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, Reuters reported. Chinese technology groups had shown strong interest in the processor, Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip, although Beijing had yet to approve any purchases and the timetable could shift depending on regulatory decisions, the report said."

In what way do you think Chinese govt will block H200 purchases?

As for the original article, why do people think SCMP is accurate? It's going to be a while until we know since the previously rumored Nvidia chip purchase was only about that amount for all chips. And we know they are placing huge orders for Ascend, Cambricon & Internal. The previously rumored H200 order really isn't that big.

Seem that a lot of people aren´t understanding the concept of free-trade. Means that Chinese companies should have unrestricted access to the entire global semiconductor ecosystem, from the latest Nvidia GPUs to ASML High-NA EUV machines.

But I can understand that some nations says "We want to keep the cutting edge at home" and they sell Nvidia previous generation GPUs instead of the latest generation and ASML Low-NA machines instead of High-NA machines, that is understandable but is already pushing it.

What is NOT acceptable and is NOT Free Trade is to want to keep a China multiple generation behind and entire decade behind by banning products that where previously sold in the same country. At the point the benefits of Free Trade is over, is just become weaponized dependency. If China is going to be restricted I think it would be much better to depend more on their own domestic products and having multiple domestic companies competing against each other in their own domestic Free Trade environment.

What are you ranting about?

If the domestic company needs H200 to stay competitive in the AI race, that's frankly a lot more important than whatever you are complaining about.

Below Reuters article talks about total demand from China and that Nvidia has 700,000 already in stock. If they have so much stock, demand must have dried out in non-Chinese markets. No wonder they are so desperate to sell it to China, despite a lower margin resulting from a lower price ($27k), a cut for US government, extra unnecessary transport fees for shipping the cards to US and back to East Asia, etc.

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This all sounds extremely speculative. I actually anticipated around 1 million this year, but frankly 2 million just screams deliberate leak to try to sink the deal.

 

[tamsen_ikard]

Veritasium did a video on EUV lithography. Very detailed explanation and actual walkaround of an EUV machine in ASML. Great stuff! It goes through all the practical and physics challenges to make EUV commercially viable.

After watching this, if China has been able to make EUV this year and is able to produce chips with it in a couple of years. It will be gargantuan achievement.

It hard to believe how all these physics challenges and scientific papers which eventually became a product then became the focal point of global geopolitics and new the cold war.

 

[bsdnf]

I stumbled upon a post on Weibo from that guy claiming to be a junior manager at ASML.

He said that ASML's EUV system, along with all its support equipment, occupies an entire floor. So the Reuters report that "China's EUV facility is equivalent to a floor" isn't surprising. If they want to make it operational, that's how much space it will take up. This doesn't prove the Reuters report is fake, nor does it demonstrate the performance of the EUV prototype.

 

[tokenanalyst]

What are you ranting about?

If the domestic company needs H200 to stay competitive in the AI race, that's frankly a lot more important than whatever you are complaining about.

There is not guaranteed that Trump officials will under pressure do a u turn and ban multi-generations of GPUs.

I agree, they should buy as much H200 as they can before the u turn but at the same time push for domestic alternatives to be use even along side Nvidia. which some companies are already doing.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Veritasium did a video on EUV lithography. Very detailed explanation and actual walkaround of an EUV machine in ASML. Great stuff! It goes through all the practical and physics challenges to make EUV commercially viable.

After watching this, if China has been able to make EUV this year and is able to produce chips with it in a couple of years. It will be gargantuan achievement.

It hard to believe how all these physics challenges and scientific papers which eventually became a product then became the focal point of global geopolitics and new the cold war.

Everything in that video is already posted here. From the mirrors, how the are managing the losses of EUV energy, the droplet generators that CIOMP already achieve 100K droplets per second, the MOPA lasers and so on. The video is eye catching, because is ASML, but after seeing all the development for years the wow factor is not all there for me. For example SSMB or FEL EUV would cause a bigger impression.

 

[antiterror13]

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What was the reasons the US's approval?

 

[latenlazy]

Everything in that video is already posted here. From the mirrors, how the are managing the losses of EUV energy, the droplet generators that CIOMP already achieve 100K droplets per second, the MOPA lasers and so on. The video is eye catching, because is ASML, but after seeing all the development for years the wow factor is not all there for me. For example SSMB or FEL EUV would cause a bigger impression.

It’s at least not Asianometry.

 

[doggydogdo]

What are you ranting about?

If the domestic company needs H200 to stay competitive in the AI race, that's frankly a lot more important than whatever you are complaining about.

Yup, China has more than enough money to do both, Chinese companies working on EUV is never going to run out of capital as long as the government backs it. Foreign competition never stopped China and never would.