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Chinese semiconductor thread II
- Thread starter vincent
- Start date
There are very few companies in the world that can afford make this kind of big size die AI chips like these and they are very well known in the industry, so if the company is in China is likely to be refused by TSMC after 2022. So I find hard to believe that TSMC would take an order from an "unknown" company to make a chip which its die size this big that would put an strain in their machines and more when they have a shortage on capacity for this kind of big size AI dies, also TSMC is well known to work closely with their customers. Or either was an old order that was put in place before 2022 or an executive inside the company turned the eye in the other side.It seems like they were made by TSMC up until now. They did not notice until now and now that they have they’re blocking all the orders.
Both TechInsights and TSMC’s reports align and both are very unlikely to be wrong.
Look, I already explained this, but highly regular chips such as AI chips can have malfunctioning cores disabled by laser cutting the contact traces for them. You make the chips, test them, disable the non-working cores, package, and there you have it. You can just bin the chips with more functioning cores and sell them for higher price, or you design chips with enough extra cores, that you will get the amount you want as working most of the time, knowing the defect rate you can guess how many non-working cores you will have and make it work.
It is not as much of a big deal making larger area chips as some people think.
It is not as much of a big deal making larger area chips as some people think.
TSMC has manufactured the original Ascend 910There are very few companies in the world that can afford make this kind of big size die AI chips like these and they are very well known in the industry, so if the company is in China is likely to be refused by TSMC after 2022. So I find hard to believe that TSMC would take an order from an "unknown" company to make a chip which its die size this big that would put an strain in their machines and more when they have a shortage on capacity for this kind of big size AI dies, also TSMC is well known to work closely with their customers. Or either was an old order that was put in place before 2022 or an executive inside the company turned the eye in the other side.
There's no way they couldn't identify the similarities between Ascend 910 & Ascend 910B
Most likely an executive turned a blind eye
This doesn't say 910-B. The Original 910 was manufactured by TSMC before sanctions. There's nothing to be surprised here.
Yikes. This is definitely not good for HUAWEI. They were still doing this even up until they were blocked which suggests SMIC must be struggling with these larger die 7nm chips.
From the article
The first source would not identify the item, but said the TSMC chip was one within a multi-chip system.
TSMC said in a statement on Monday that it had proactively reached out to the Commerce Department regarding the matter. It said it had not supplied chips to Huawei since mid-September 2020.
So if we believe the article and TSMC, there is a Huawei product with the Ascend 910B that also contains a chip made by TSMC before September 2020. The article did not actually say that the Ascend 910B was made by TSMC.
From the article
So if we believe the article and TSMC, there is a Huawei product with the Ascend 910B that also contains a chip made by TSMC before September 2020. The article did not actually say that the Ascend 910B was made by TSMC.
The TechInsights analysis is clearly about Ascend 910 (original version made with TSMC before sanctions) not 910-B.
The Huawei (HiSilicon) Ascend 910 Hi1980-RTCV100 AI processor found in Huawei Atlas 300T AI accelerator card
TechInsights explicitly says 910 and the chip model number Hi1980 is the model number of the original 910. They will not use the same model number for 910B. For example, Kirin 710 was an SoC originally fabbed by TSMC which had model number Hi6260. But when Huawei moved it to SMIC it was called Kirin 710A and model number was changed to Hi6261.
TechInsights also says they got the chip from an Atlas 300T card. This card contains the original Ascend 910 chip.
The first card to include Ascend 910-B chip is Atlas 300T-A2.
Media just spinned it to sound like TSMC is still making chips for Huawei. It may be a smear campaign against TSMC.
Couple of days ago TechInsights also did tear-down of Mate XT which contains Kirin 980, which is also an older chip they made with TSMC during pre-sanction days. So, for Kirin 980 on XT also it is more likely to be old stockpiles than for Huawei to consume SMIC 7nm capacity for an old chip. So in the coming days we are going to see more articles like that.
There is also this news today.
Intel and Samsung explore foundry alliance to challenge TSMC
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I thought the Mate XT used Kirin 9010 fabbed by SMIC? Why are they using the Kirin 980?The TechInsights analysis is clearly about Ascend 910 (original version made with TSMC before sanctions) not 910-B.
TechInsights explicitly says 910 and the chip model number Hi1980 is the model number of the original 910. They will not use the same model number for 910B. For example, Kirin 710 was an SoC originally fabbed by TSMC which had model number Hi6260. But when Huawei moved it to SMIC it was called Kirin 710A and model number was changed to Hi6261.
TechInsights also says they got the chip from an Atlas 300T card. This card contains the original Ascend 910 chip.
The first card to include Ascend 910-B chip is Atlas 300T-A2.
Media just spinned it to sound like TSMC is still making chips for Huawei. It may be a smear campaign against TSMC.
Couple of days ago TechInsights also did tear-down of Mate XT which contains Kirin 980, which is also an older chip they made with TSMC during pre-sanction days. So, for Kirin 980 on XT also it is more likely to be old stockpiles than for Huawei to consume SMIC 7nm capacity for an old chip. So in the coming days we are going to see more articles like that.
There is also this news today.
Intel and Samsung explore foundry alliance to challenge TSMC
If they have old stockpiles they are going to use it for something. Or it may very well be that they decided to get it re-fabbed by SMIC. We will only know after TechInsights does analysis of the Chip. Now they did only a phone tear-down. The most likely scenario is old stockpiles, because it doesn't have the new Taishan cores they are using in all new SoCs fabbed with SMIC.I thought the Mate XT used Kirin 9010 fabbed by SMIC? Why are they using the Kirin 980?
Here's the TechInsights report on Mate XT
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