Chinese semiconductor thread II

[tphuang]

What competition？The vast majority of TSMC revenue comes from advanced node，and I don't see anyone capable of challenge TSMC at advanced node.

it comes from when China gets EUV in a couple of years and domestic chip designers move to domestic over time.

Think a little bit about where Qualcomm/Mediatek's customers come from and what % of Nvidia GPUs eventually end up in China.

Isn't SMIC's 7nm fab also a subsidiary that SMIC only partially owns? Are the 7nm revenue included fully in the SMIC numbers?

my guess is that they just use the fraction that they are owner ship of, since the number in there matches what SMIC reports on its earnings calls.

Allegedly 910c. Note the chiplet design.

makes a lot of sense, it's like what Biren did.

btw, I have seen the TechInsights article on Ascend-910B. There are definitely quite a few fabb'd at TSMC before that got cut off.

 

[huemens]

Isn't SMIC's 7nm fab also a subsidiary that SMIC only partially owns? Are the 7nm revenue included fully in the SMIC numbers?

It is fully included. For partially owned subsidiaries if SMIC has control over the subsidiary then it would be fully included in the consolidated statement.

Even if they don't have a majority ownership stake, but if they have control of it by having a majority voting power, or through an agreement with whoever owns the majority stake, then it would be fully included in SMIC's consolidated statements. So even though SMIC only owns about 38% of SMSC it is fully included.

If they don't have have a majority stake and don't have control of it then only the SMIC's share of gain/loss from that company would be recorded in SMIC statements.

 

[zbb]

It is fully included. For partially owned subsidiaries if SMIC has control over the subsidiary then it would be fully included in the consolidated statement.

Even if they don't have a majority ownership stake, but if they have control of it by having a majority voting power, or through an agreement with whoever owns the majority stake, then it would be fully included in SMIC's consolidated statements. So even though SMIC only owns about 38% of SMSC it is fully included.

If they don't have have a majority stake and don't have control of it then only the SMIC's share of gain/loss from that company would be recorded in SMIC statements.

Thanks. So the same should apply also to Huahong and HLMC?

 

[huemens]

Thanks. So the same should apply also to Huahong and HLMC?

That's how consolidated statements are normally done for publicly listed companies. But I have never read a Huahong financial statement so I don't know how much stake Huahong has in HLMC and if they considers HLMC a controlled entity or not. In SMIC's financial statements they consider SMSC a controlled entity.

 

[JPaladin32]

btw, I have seen the TechInsights article on Ascend-910B. There are definitely quite a few fabb'd at TSMC before that got cut off.

I looked into this a while ago. Not just quite a few, but there were batches that were officially from TSMC I think.

If you look at the documentation of 910B, there are 7 different versions. The first 2 were technically the same family as 910 but better and named 910B, then there are 5 versions in 2023, which are the real 910B that we know of. In these 5 real 910B versions, I suspect the first revision is from TSMC because Huawei announced it in 2022 (910B1) when SMIC N+1 wasn't even ready, so that batch was likely not fabbed by SMIC. Then you notice the later versions are just cut-down specs of the 2022 one, so I suspect SMIC joined the party in later revisions like 910B3 or B4.

If you see the teardown with more than 24 CUs, then it's likely the 2019 or 2022 revisions. B3 and B4 have <= 20CUs and that's when I suspect SMIC came in.

 

[tokenanalyst]

The Huzhou Yifu Semiconductor Grinding Equipment Localization Project with a total investment of 120 million yuan was signed.​

According to official news from Huasuo Technology, Huasuo (Suzhou) Technology Co., Ltd. in Nanxun District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province recently held a signing ceremony for the investment agreement for the localization project of semiconductor grinding equipment of its wholly-owned subsidiary Huzhou Yifu Semiconductor. The total investment of this project is planned to be 120 million yuan. Huasuo (Suzhou) Technology Co., Ltd. is a company integrating development, sales, production and manufacturing of domestic semiconductor grinding equipment and services. The company decided to land the localization project of Yifu Semiconductor Grinding Equipment in Nanxun.
Wang Weijie, Chairman of Huasuo Technology, said that as a professional semiconductor wafer grinding and scribing equipment provider, Huasuo has always used technological innovation as the engine to drive corporate development. The company will continue to expand its business in the field of semiconductor wafer processing, build itself into the world's best supplier of semiconductor wafer processing equipment, comprehensively improve China's technological level in the semiconductor industry chain, and enhance the core competitiveness of domestic technology in the above industries.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[tphuang]

I looked into this a while ago. Not just quite a few, but there were batches that were officially from TSMC I think.

If you look at the documentation of 910B, there are 7 different versions. The first 2 were technically the same family as 910 but better and named 910B, then there are 5 versions in 2023, which are the real 910B that we know of. In these 5 real 910B versions, I suspect the first revision is from TSMC because Huawei announced it in 2022 (910B1) when SMIC N+1 wasn't even ready, so that batch was likely not fabbed by SMIC. Then you notice the later versions are just cut-down specs of the 2022 one, so I suspect SMIC joined the party in later revisions like 910B3 or B4.

If you see the teardown with more than 24 CUs, then it's likely the 2019 or 2022 revisions. B3 and B4 have <= 20CUs and that's when I suspect SMIC came in.

you don't understand. I'm saying TSMC in the past year has fabb'd Ascend chips. It's unclear to me just which design, but it has happened. And the number is a lot higher than you can imagine.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Interesting to see that China has localized most of their FPD manufacturing equipment. So export controls have no effect on them now.



I think the same will happen in Wafer fabrication Equipment, China tool companies are going to eat from the market share of US and most foreign tool companies restricting them to the cutting edge or nothing at all. And That will happen, is probably almost inevitable at this moment with these sanctions.

 

[tokenanalyst]

Dry pumps for semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

The company's leading products are a full range of international mainstream dry vacuum pumps and core precision components, which are widely used in integrated circuits, etching, vacuum film and other equipment in the semiconductor, display panel, solar photovoltaic, LED lighting, lithium battery and other industries. It has won the attention of the industry with its core competitive advantages such as high efficiency, energy saving, environmental protection, high cost performance, and adaptability to harsh working conditions. A strategic partner of industry semiconductor leaders.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

​

 

[huemens]

you don't understand. I'm saying TSMC in the past year has fabb'd Ascend chips. It's unclear to me just which design, but it has happened. And the number is a lot higher than you can imagine.

I have a question. Does the report explicitly say the dies were fabbed last year and how did they assert that. For example does it use process nodes or features that were not available at TSMC at the time of cut off. I am saying this because it is very common to use dies that were fabbed in earlier years in chips launched much later. As we have seen with several Kirin chips Huawei launched after getting cut off they used stockpiled dies that were fabbed with TSMC pre-sanction.

Even Nvidia does that, at least for the consumer GPUs. They just bin the dies and use the lowest binned dies in the first year and save the better binned dies from the same batch to use in subsequent years as new products. For example Nvidia 3080 ( launched in 2020), 3080ti (2020), 3090 (2021), 3090ti (2022) are all from the same wafer batch of the same die.