Chinese semiconductor thread II

[Wahid145]

Overtaking GlobalFoundries and UMC is a huge milestone for SMIC.

If you were to tell me that SMIC would be overtaking GF as second largest pure play foundry even 1 year ago, I wouldn't have believed you - I genuinely would have thought US sanctions would have stumbled them, not supercharge their expansion.

"BUT SMIC is smaller than TSMC!! Ergo, sanctions working as intended!" seething incoming.

Since the release of Mate 60 Pro I was thinking, SMIC revenue should be going over the roof (and displacing UMC and GF) due to the new device they manufacture but it was not the case and I could not figure out why. Later I realized, a large proportion of their revenue came from Western companies which would give them more money compared to a Chinese company for example (by the virtue of stronger GDP Per capita basis) and SMIC had large profit margin from the Western Companies. But due to the sanctions, the western companies stopped using SMIC for their Chip fabrication which resulted in a revenue decline. Even though they were being displaced by Chinese companies, the profit margin from fabricating Chinese Chip is always low because of purchasing power.

But slowly they will climb up when volume starts to ramp up a lot!

 

[tphuang]

that too without 100 percent ownership of their FinFet fab ..

just give 5 more years ... you know what i mean

keep in mind that Shanghai gov't is likely to retain their share of SMSC JV and re-invest earnings into more capex. They would be stupid not to. So, SMIC revenue passing TSMC is out of question, but maybe they can get past Samsung.

Since the release of Mate 60 Pro I was thinking, SMIC revenue should be going over the roof (and displacing UMC and GF) due to the new device they manufacture but it was not the case and I could not figure out why. Later I realized, a large proportion of their revenue came from Western companies which would give them more money compared to a Chinese company for example (by the virtue of stronger GDP Per capita basis) and SMIC had large profit margin from the Western Companies. But due to the sanctions, the western companies stopped using SMIC for their Chip fabrication which resulted in a revenue decline. Even though they were being displaced by Chinese companies, the profit margin from fabricating Chinese Chip is always low because of purchasing power.

But slowly they will climb up when volume starts to ramp up a lot!

their Western market revenue shrunk a little bit, but not significantly. They should not rely on that going forward anyhow. There is plenty of demand from China customers for 28 to 65nm node

 

[sunnymaxi]

keep in mind that Shanghai gov't is likely to retain their share of SMSC JV and re-invest earnings into more capex. They would be stupid not to. So, SMIC revenue passing TSMC is out of question, but maybe they can get past Samsung.

talking about overall global reputation and tech leadership in this field .. obviously they cannot displace TSMC in total revenue due to ownership structure..

 

[sunnymaxi]

Since the release of Mate 60 Pro I was thinking, SMIC revenue should be going over the roof (and displacing UMC and GF) due to the new device they manufacture but it was not the case and I could not figure out why. Later I realized, a large proportion of their revenue came from Western companies which would give them more money compared to a Chinese company for example (by the virtue of stronger GDP Per capita basis) and SMIC had large profit margin from the Western Companies. But due to the sanctions, the western companies stopped using SMIC for their Chip fabrication which resulted in a revenue decline. Even though they were being displaced by Chinese companies, the profit margin from fabricating Chinese Chip is always low because of purchasing power.

But slowly they will climb up when volume starts to ramp up a lot!

you have missed one major point here ..

SMIC FinFet fab is not 100 percent owned by SMIC. major chunk of revenue goes to local government .. and only 38 percent revenue from 7nm/7+nm goes to SMIC..

 

[tokenanalyst]

The second phase of Sanan Semiconductor SiC project is scheduled to be put into production in Q3​

According to Hunan Sanan Semiconductor’s official WeChat account, Hunan Sanan Semiconductor Chairman Lin Zhidong was recently invited to attend the sixth meeting of the Sino-French Entrepreneurs Committee as a representative of Chinese semiconductor companies.While in France, Lin Zhidong introduced the latest progress of Hunan Sanan SiC project. According to reports, Hunan Sanan Semiconductor Co., Ltd., located in Xiangjiang New District, Hunan, settled in Changsha in 2020 and started trial production in just one year. At present, the first phase has been put into full production, and the current annual SiC production capacity has reached 250,000 pieces (6 inches). The second phase is under construction. All 8-inch production equipment and processes will be introduced and is planned to be put into production in the third quarter of this year. After the entire project is completed, it will achieve a total annual output of 480,000 pieces.

It is reported that this project is the first SiC full industry chain integrated R&D and manufacturing project in China and the world’s third, with a total investment of 16 billion yuan and a planned land area of about 1,000 acres. The main construction has independent intellectual property rights and is based on SiC, GaN, etc. It is a third-generation semiconductor full-industry chain production and R&D base focusing on tape materials. Its business covers substrate materials, epitaxial growth, wafer manufacturing, packaging and testing, etc. The first phase of the project broke ground in July 2020 and was officially put into production on June 23, 2021. The full range of SiC SBD products was mass-produced in November of the same year. In July 2022, the second phase of the project will start​

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[tokenanalyst]

 

[gelgoog]

If you were to tell me that SMIC would be overtaking GF as second largest pure play foundry even 1 year ago, I wouldn't have believed you - I genuinely would have thought US sanctions would have stumbled them, not supercharge their expansion.

I have been saying this would happen ever since I heard of SMIC's 28nm expansion. I fully expected them to surpass UMC and GF. SMIC are building like 340,000 wafer per month capacity in that 28nm node. Once the expansion is complete they will have built about as much capacity as TSMC has in that node with its Fabs 12, 14, 15.

SMIC will then have to continue making investments in R&D with older nodes to improve its revenue with those fabs. If it was me I would either make a 20nm planar process, or a 22nm FinFET, something like that. Intel had tri-gate transistors i.e. FinFET at 22nm. Those transistors should cut power consumption quite a bit. The industry has also been adding MRAM at that node as a denser alternative to NAND.

keep in mind that Shanghai gov't is likely to retain their share of SMSC JV and re-invest earnings into more capex. They would be stupid not to. So, SMIC revenue passing TSMC is out of question, but maybe they can get past Samsung.

The Chinese government actually increased its share of SMSC and the factory is being doubled in capacity.
The government went from a minority share holder to having the majority of shares.

their Western market revenue shrunk a little bit, but not significantly. They should not rely on that going forward anyhow. There is plenty of demand from China customers for 28 to 65nm node

There should be a lot of demand for imaging devices and consumer electronics (routers, printers, drones, things like that). But I would expect even SoCs for consumer electronics to start moving to FinFET eventually. I would not be surprised if in addition to higher resolution they started moving to those even higher bandwidth consuming 3D displays. Eventually 28nm might not be enough for TVs.
It already is not enough for high end smartphones, and you already see high end automotive chips using FinFET. It just has higher transistor density which is being used for autonomous driving.

talking about overall global reputation and tech leadership in this field .. obviously they cannot displace TSMC in total revenue due to ownership structure..

More like they cannot displace TSMC because they are prevented from buying high end equipment. Still even if they had such equipment it is unlikely they would surpass a company which has much higher capital in terms of factories and installed client base.

 

[Alb]

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Techinsights confirm that the NAND of the Pura 70 is Chinese while DRAM is from Samsung.

 

[gelgoog]

Techinsights confirm that the NAND of the Pura 70 is Chinese while DRAM is from Samsung.

The other guys who did a teardown had an SK Hynix DRAM on their Pura phone. And this phone has a Samsung DRAM which does not seem to come in Samsung packaging. So Huawei likely bought whole LPDDR5X DRAM wafers from Samsung and packaged these themselves.

It is kind of annoying they are using LPDDR5X DRAM already. I guess CXMT DRAM, if it gets used by Huawei, will only come in their mid range phones. They are still stuck with regular LPDDR5.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Hygon Information’s Q1 net profit was 289 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.53%​

On the evening of April 25, Haiguang Information released its first quarter financial report, with revenue of approximately 1.592 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 37.09%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was approximately 289 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.53%; non-profit deductions attributable to shareholders of listed companies. Net profit was approximately 272 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42.71%; basic earnings per share was 0.12 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20%.

Haiguang Information stated that the revenue growth in the first quarter was mainly due to the company's increased market development efforts and industrial development during the reporting period, the substantial increase in demand for domestic servers in many industries, and the company's focus on the R&D upgrade and product iteration of high-end processors. This is due to the continuous increase in technological innovation and the further growth of the company's operating income. The year-on-year increase in non-net profit was mainly due to the rapid growth in revenue.

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