Chinese semiconductor thread II

[gelgoog]

TSMC doesn't have real issue with 3nm.

They had issues initially but then they relaxed the process and yields went up. TSMC N3E and later, with higher gate pitch, have good yields.

Intel is also incompetent at getting other customers for its non leading edge product, so all that 10nm is sitting idle

Who in their right minds would want to design for a process without proper PDKs in their EDA tools when TSMC is available?
Who would want to pay more to make a chip at Intel, having to use more cumbersome design packages which mean more work you have to do yourself when you can just select and click a pre-done package when designing for TSMC.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Yudu Semiconductor completed hundreds of millions of yuan in strategic financing, focusing on the mid-to-high-end test equipment track​

According to Huaxin Capital, Shanghai Yudu Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yudu Semiconductor") recently completed a strategic financing of several hundred million yuan. Investors include Runchuang Investment, China Science and Technology Intelligence, Camel Fund, etc.
Yudu Semiconductor has previously received investments from Huada Microelectronics, Xinwei Capital, Haiwang Capital, and Puke Investment.
It is reported that Yudu Semiconductor was initiated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Institute of Technology. It is an electronic information technology company dedicated to the research and development, design, production, sales and service of mid-to-high-end testing equipment for integrated circuits. The company is committed to building a domestic independent and controllable semiconductor testing service system, providing complete application testing, engineering experiments and localized software and hardware services.
According to official news from Yudu Semiconductor, after years of development, Yudu Semiconductor has made major breakthroughs in the field of mid-to-high-end integrated circuit testing. In the field of memory chip and system-level chip testing, it has taken the lead in launching self-controlled domestic mid-to-high-end test mass production equipment. The company has been recognized as a high-tech enterprise, a Shanghai "specialized, refined and innovative" small and medium-sized enterprise, and a Pudong New Area enterprise R&D institution.

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[siegecrossbow]

So today's news is that Intel is having problems with their 18A production (2nm or 3nm, whatever you want to call it)

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Samsung has no major customers for 3nm
TSMC has had heat issues with 3nm
Looks like even with EUV there is a major roadblock

On a lighter note is this funny news from the Taiwan regional authorities

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When you make hiring of Taiwanese by mainland companies illegal, then of course it is "breaking the law".

Pay your engineers what they are worth and they won’t ditch you.

 

[Hyper]

hmm, TSMC doesn't have real issue with 3nm. Intel is just crashing and burning. The problem is that Intel has to compete commercially against TSMC. No amount of subsidies is enough for them to overcome their own cultural issues.

SMIC on the other hand does not have to compete against TSMC so it can grow in advanced sectors.

Intel is also incompetent at getting other customers for its non leading edge product, so all that 10nm is sitting idle

Tsmc N3B is hot garbage. They were warned not to continue that node but Apple pressured them for that node. N3E straight has 0 SRAM advancement.

 

[gelgoog]

Tsmc N3B is hot garbage. They were warned not to continue that node but Apple pressured them for that node. N3E straight has 0 SRAM advancement.

Yeah the stop of density increases in SRAM is a major bugbear. Especially when Apple and Intel keep adding more cache to increase chip performance. Someone will have to come up with a replacement for SRAM in some way or other.

 

[Hyper]

Yeah the stop of density increases in SRAM is a major bugbear. Especially when Apple and Intel keep adding more cache to increase chip performance. Someone will have to come up with a replacement for SRAM in some way or other.

AMD went ahead with 3D Vcache but heating issues can become a showstopper. Let's see if Nanosheet provides some scam shrink, but I wouldn't bet on it. Atleast imec doesn't.

 

[tphuang]

They had issues initially but then they relaxed the process and yields went up. TSMC N3E and later, with higher gate pitch, have good yields.


Who in their right minds would want to design for a process without proper PDKs in their EDA tools when TSMC is available?
Who would want to pay more to make a chip at Intel, having to use more cumbersome design packages which mean more work you have to do yourself when you can just select and click a pre-done package when designing for TSMC.

you can make that argument about all Intel process. Why pick them when you can get much better product done at TSMC?

That's why all the subsidies in the world can't save Intel. A bunch of empty fabs is what they have.

Yeah the stop of density increases in SRAM is a major bugbear. Especially when Apple and Intel keep adding more cache to increase chip performance. Someone will have to come up with a replacement for SRAM in some way or other.

It is what it is. But I'm willing to bet TSMC is handling this 3nm and future 2nm better than Intel ever could. And that's the problem with Intel. They can't compete with TSMC.

SMIC and Huawei have effectively a protected market right now from TSMC due to US sanctions.

 

[zzz]

hmm, TSMC doesn't have real issue with 3nm. Intel is just crashing and burning. The problem is that Intel has to compete commercially against TSMC. No amount of subsidies is enough for them to overcome their own cultural issues.

SMIC on the other hand does not have to compete against TSMC so it can grow in advanced sectors.

Intel is also incompetent at getting other customers for its non leading edge product, so all that 10nm is sitting idle

WTH is going on with Intel anyways? Their 1.8nm got the thumbs down from Broadcom. They just canceled their 2nm Arrow Lakes today. Their 3nm process is supposedly in high volume production according to news releases over two months ago, but no products on the market yet. Their 4nm chip is actually made by TSMC afaik. What can they actually make?

 

[antiterror13]

WTH is going on with Intel anyways? Their 1.8nm got the thumbs down from Broadcom. They just canceled their 2nm Arrow Lakes today. Their 3nm process is supposedly in high volume production according to news releases over two months ago, but no products on the market yet. Their 4nm chip is actually made by TSMC afaik. What can they actually make?

10mm and recently claimed 7nm but who knows

 

[gelgoog]

Intel can make 4nm chips in limited volumes. The mass production is at their fab in Ireland. Those are Meteor Lake CPUs used in laptops which started being sold late last year.

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But their latest 3nm laptop chips i.e. Lunar Lake are made at TSMC.

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So you have Meteor Lake announced in December 14 2023 and Lunar Lake announced in September 3 2024.

And their own 3nm process is nowhere to be seen. Their 18A process is expected to be mass available next year.

Too many processes and processors in a short amount of time. Sold in homeopathic amounts. Makes it hard to keep track.

It is a new processor core, for a new processor, in a new process each year until next year. Pretty bonkers.

Their desktop and server CPUs are still the same retarded shit at 10nm aka Intel 7.