Chinese semiconductor thread II

[gelgoog]

for AMEC, looks like they are really getting into MOCVD for SiC and GaN chips. Expecting huge growth here.

Nothing really new from what I can see on their etching section, so I assume that's just going to be continued progressive improvements. Their big investment is into CVD and ALD.

The AMEC slides you posted mentioned they are designing PE Ti, PE Co MO TiN machine tools. PE likely means plasma etching.
So I think they are still developing new etching tools.

The key question is with which kind of equipment SMIC is scaling up capacity? We can expect expanded capacity is in part due to yield improvement, but to scale up so much, from 100.000 to "hundreds of thousands", SMIC has to expand real capacity too, with new machines and new production lines at 7nm.

SMIC doubled the floorspace at their FinFET fab. This was discussed here. My guess is they already had purchased the equipment before the latest US sanctions kicked in.

We know that 28nm has been conquered last year, but we know very little about localization on sub 28nm nodes. The big Chinese manufacturers remain mum on this, although we can speculate that the key ones NAURA, AMEC, Hwatsing, ACM Research, Kingstone, etc that officially reached fully 28nm coverage already last year or even earlier, are now actively validating/batch selling in the sub 28 nm range.

There are still no reports of Chinese 28nm litho tools being in production use anywhere. But this is likely less of a problem than it used to be.

If Chinese fabs cannot buy old US equipment, they will buy new Chinese equipment instead, so I really don't understand how this news can be "encouraging". To me, this just shows how desperate US officials are, at this point they can just cope hard, really hard.

I think China should retaliate against attempts to renege on deals with regards to imported tool maintenance and spare parts supplies.
But this seems unlikely to happen.

there is nothing secretive about SAQP. If SMIC can actually proficient do SAQP throughout its entire process, then it will be able to make N5 level chips without using EUV. But none of this is easy. These articles are written by people and are also interviewing people without industry knowledge. So, they are not helpful at all.

Intel tried to do 5nm with DUV for many, many years, and failed. They had to bite the bullet and buy EUV machines earlier than they wanted to. If SMIC manages to do this they will have succeeded where Intel failed.

According to the latest data published in 2024, SMIC has almost no orders from US companies, while orders from Chinese companies account for 81%.
According to statistics, in 2017, the US market still accounted for 40% of SMIC's total revenue, by 2019 it had decreased to 30% and currently it is less than 16%.

I think one of those US customers for SMIC used to be Qualcomm. Maybe Qualcomm needs to get in the Chinese blacklist similar to Micron since their chips have known backdoors in them.

 

[sunnymaxi]

The AMEC slides you posted mentioned they are designing PE Ti, PE Co MO TiN machine tools. PE likely means plasma etching.
So I think they are still developing new etching tools.


SMIC doubled the floorspace at their FinFET fab. This was discussed here. My guess is they already had purchased the equipment before the latest US sanctions kicked in.


There are still no reports of Chinese 28nm litho tools being in production use anywhere. But this is likely less of a problem than it used to be.


I think China should retaliate against attempts to renege on deals with regards to imported tool maintenance and spare parts supplies.
But this seems unlikely to happen.


Intel tried to do 5nm with DUV for many, many years, and failed. They had to bite the bullet and buy EUV machines earlier than they wanted to. If SMIC manages to do this they will have succeeded where Intel failed.


I think one of those US customers for SMIC used to be Qualcomm. Maybe Qualcomm needs to get in the Chinese blacklist similar to Micron since their chips have known backdoors in them.

if you closely follow 2023 year .. you get to know a lot valuable inside information .. and recently Semiconductor expo currently held in Shanghai, they also disclosed so much information ..

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The overall net profit of integrated circuit companies in Q4,2023 increased by more than 50% month-on-month​

this survey brought together 112 integrated circuit companies, covering all aspects of the entire chain including design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment, materials, and IP..

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January-February 2024 ..

Hi-tech industries grew 7.5% including 21.6% in IC products, 41% in SMEs equipment..

massive start of 2024 year. high tech industry exploded. look at the growth of semiconductor industry in last 5 months. from October 2023 to February 2024..

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Semiconductor expo currently held in Shanghai.. some key points

we have caught up Japan in chemicals and materials..

China close to de-americanized 7nm production line (obvious with ASML DUVi)

Japanese media news outlet NikkeiAsia reporting from China Semicon


this is what we and @tphuang @tokenanalyst talking about in past 12 months .. domestic Non-Litho tools getting validated from 28nm to 7nm line..

another big point -

Domestic sales of semiconductor related things reached at staggering 1.3 Trillion RMB in 2023 year .. a new record.
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what Guawong , RSLaser and U-precision told, i believe from this year onward, SMEE will start winning bid of Lithography machines dry+immersion.. as they likely to start volume production based on suppliers information..

2024 started with the bang for high tech industries.. interesting time ahead

 

[european_guy]

SMIC doubled the floorspace at their FinFET fab. This was discussed here. My guess is they already had purchased the equipment before the latest US sanctions kicked in.

AFAIK once the ban kicks in, US tools are blocked from delivery even if already ordered. ASML and Japan seems a bit more flexible on this. I'd guess that, apart from ASML, a lot of the equipment for SMIC new lines, both advanced and mature nodes, will be from local suppliers with still some from Japan. No US tools at all even for mature nodes.

I think China should retaliate against attempts to renege on deals with regards to imported tool maintenance and spare parts supplies.
But this seems unlikely to happen.

For 28nm and above US tools are now fully localized, so why retaliate? The message of Chinese government to local firms is more or less: "Now you have the Chinese local solutions, we eventually provide some money, go figure what to do next. If you have to replace some US tools because of lack of spare parts...please, just do it".

Under 28nm, Chinese fabs are already all under entity list (CMXT wil be the next and last one) and strictly monitored by US, actually even further sanctions are probable, so they already know very well what to do.

At this point the best retaliation for China government is to simply speed up the localization process as fast as possible...i.e. just let US go ahead with their reckless policy: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

 

[tokenanalyst]

KingSemi got a patent for their immersion coating-developing machine.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Interaction of Negative Bias Instability and Self-Heating Effect on Threshold Voltage and SRAM (Static Random-Access Memory) Stability of Nanosheet Field-Effect Transistor​

1- School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
2- Beijing Smartchip Microelectronics Technology Company Limited, Beijing 100089, China

Abstract​

In this paper, we investigate the effects of negative bias instability (NBTI) and self-heating effect (SHE) on threshold voltage in NSFETs. To explore accurately the interaction between SHE and NBTI, we established an NBTI simulation framework based on trap microdynamics and considered the influence of the self-heating effect. The results show that NBTI weakens the SHE effect, while SHE exacerbates the NBTI effect. Since the width of the nanosheet in NSFET has a significant control effect on the electric field distribution, we also studied the effect of the width of the nanosheet on the NBTI and self-heating effect. The results show that increasing the width of the nanosheet will reduce the NBTI effect but will enhance the SHE effect. In addition, we extended our research to the SRAM cell circuit, and the results show that the NBTI effect will reduce the static noise margin (SNM) of the SRAM cell, and the NBTI effect affected by self-heating will make the SNM decrease more significantly. In addition, our research results also indicate that increasing the nanosheet width can help slow down the NBTI effect and the negative impact of NBTI on SRAM performance affected by the self-heating effect.

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[measuredingabens]

Rumoured specs of a new Kirin chip have turned up on Tieba.

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[Maikeru]

It looks like servicing existing scanners will be the next front in the chip war:

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Not sure how important this is. Presumably the servicing can be taken over by local companies but what about software updates?

 

[tokenanalyst]

It looks like servicing existing scanners will be the next front in the chip war:

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Not sure how important this is. Presumably the servicing can be taken over by local companies but what about software updates?

Servicing of consumables and some non critical repairs I guess could be done by local companies. Software updates can't be done without the help of ASML but shouldn't be a problem as long there aren't major bugs that could render the machine inoperable.

 

[tokenanalyst]

what Guawong , RSLaser and U-precision told, i believe from this year onward, SMEE will start winning bid of Lithography machines dry+immersion.. as they likely to start volume production based on suppliers information..

If ASML and Nikon are not going to sell their best machine a bidding system is just pointless, unless is a competition between local companies. If there are any government money involved local companies should be the default option, if these industrialists don't like it they could buy from whatever they want using their own money directly but if there is government money involved the progress of the overall Chinese semiconductor industry should take priority.

 

[sunnymaxi]

If ASML and Nikon are not going to sell their best machine a bidding system is just pointless, unless is a competition between local companies. If there are any government money involved local companies should be the default option, if these industrialists don't like it they could buy from whatever they want using their own money directly but if there is government money involved the progress of the overall Chinese semiconductor industry should take priority.

yes. and Shanghai government gave us a solid hint.. 16 major semiconductor ventures to be fully subsidies.. full local government backing. don't forget Shanghai local government is the most richest one in mainland..

as i said before, SMEE could surprise us this year in volume production..


2024 is the year for Chinese high tech industries.. all sectors will explode include DUV/DUVi ..