Chinese semiconductor industry

[BlackWindMnt]

So the bottleneck is really China's lack of advanced lithography equipment.

Once these equipment are available it would be only a matter of configuring the Chinese EDA software to work with them with little change to the software at the higher level of chip design work. The biggest hurdle still comes back to the equipment hardware.

People overestimate how fast software development really goes, like many other sectors we like to use/misuse Pareto principle also called the 20/80 rule. 80% of the functionality will take 20% of the time and the remaining 20% of the functionality will take 80% of the time and many other versions like that. You can give a working demo to a customer and it could still take 3~4 extra months of development before the software is in a good enough state.

Once you get outside of the main path code can quickly become a combinatorial explosion of possibilities and scenarios that need to be tested and verified. This is mostly talking from a enterprise website developer perspective. complex pieces of software like EDA, compilers and game engines are several levels more complex.

 

[hkbc]

The Huawei 3nm design was started before the US proposed worldwide ban of all designs from US EDA from <=14nm. Huawei's 3nm design will be basically illegal to manufacture anywhere in the world, it's millions of dollars down the drain.

'Cannot be manufactured without the threat of the imposition of American sanctions' not the same as illegal to manufacture anywhere in the world!

Just because some gangster demands protection money so your bar doesn't burn down and the local police can't do anything about it doesn't make it illegal to open a bar!

Furthermore, unless the software was purchased on a term license it would be perfectly legal to continue to use it, rule of law and all that!

You're just going along with US extraterritorial propaganda!

 

[latenlazy]

People overestimate how fast software development really goes, like many other sectors we like to use/misuse Pareto principle also called the 20/80 rule. 80% of the functionality will take 20% of the time and the remaining 20% of the functionality will take 80% of the time and many other versions like that. You can give a working demo to a customer and it could still take 3~4 extra months of development before the software is in a good enough state.

Once you get outside of the main path code can quickly become a combinatorial explosion of possibilities and scenarios that need to be tested and verified. This is mostly talking from a enterprise website developer perspective. complex pieces of software like EDA, compilers and game engines are several levels more complex.

This is true when you’re developing *new* workflows, but not when you’re reproducing old ones.

 

[antonius123]

The Huawei 3nm design was started before the US proposed worldwide ban of all designs from US EDA from <=14nm. Huawei's 3nm design will be basically illegal to manufacture anywhere in the world, it's millions of dollars down the drain.

If Huawei sold the design/technology 3nm to Unisoc, or Xiaomi/Oppo hence it is not down the drain.

 

[nlalyst]

'Cannot be manufactured without the threat of the imposition of American sanctions' not the same as illegal to manufacture anywhere in the world!

Just because some gangster demands protection money so your bar doesn't burn down and the local police can't do anything about it doesn't make it illegal to open a bar!

Furthermore, unless the software was purchased on a term license it would be perfectly legal to continue to use it, rule of law and all that!

You're just going along with US extraterritorial propaganda!

OMG. Stop being such a crybaby.

Export license control is not a propaganda. Any technology/product that was designed/manufactured in the US, or manufactured outside the US but contains a defined percentage of US origin components is legally subjected to export license control, or manufactured/designed outside the US but through the use of defined US technology. Breach the rules and your company risks paying punitive damages or even having your business shut down, not to mention you might be found criminally liable.

 

[nlalyst]

When China's own lithography equipment have the ability to manufacture at more advanced nodes is when Empyrean and other China EDA companies can cooperate with those China lithography equipment makers to advance their full design flow solutions, and that's when China will finally break the semiconductor bottleneck.

Usage of domestic EDA tools is critical for national security. There is always the possibility that you might be hardcoding a back door/kill switch/information leakage hardware trojan into your chip by using US origin EDA tools.

 

[horse]

OMG. Stop being such a crybaby.

Export license control is not a propaganda. Any technology/product that was designed/manufactured in the US, or manufactured outside the US but contains a defined percentage of US origin components is legally subjected to export license control, or manufactured/designed outside the US but through the use of defined US technology. Breach the rules and your company risks paying punitive damages or even having your business shut down, not to mention you might be found criminally liable.

Dare.

Double dare.

How many pieces of legislation has the United States passed all prohibiting China whatever, and how many Chinese companies already their ban lists? Both should be over one hundred.

Yet, guess who trade deficit is at a record high with you know who! What they need are more bans!

At the same time, China will work as fast as they can to cut off all American inputs in the IC sector, from the biggest semiconductor market in the world.

They are not being tough. They are being stupid. But, what do you expect from government except to give businesses and people the shaft.

What you do not understand, is that the Chinese are willing to play these Americans games so far, up to a point, then no more. At that point, they will try to step on their necks. Nothing personal, just business.

How long do we think American IC products will be a viable option for China?

Not long? Or very long. We find out soon.

 

[antonius123]

Huawei planning world’s first 3-nanometer mobile chipset​

@RODENT950 said Huawei’s new chip should launch sometime in 2021 and will likely appear in the Huawei Mate 50 series smartphones that are expected to be launched during the fourth quarter (2021).

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The question is: who will produce these Huawei's world first 3nm in year 2021? TSMC wont, does Samsung has 3nm capability and capacity? even so, it will still use ASML Lithography (contain US technology). Anyone has an idea?

 

[nlalyst]

At the same time, China will work as fast as they can to cut off all American inputs in the IC sector, from the biggest semiconductor market in the world.

They are not being tough. They are being stupid. But, what do you expect from government except to give businesses and people the shaft.

What you do not understand, is that the Chinese are willing to play these Americans games so far, up to a point, then no more. At that point, they will try to step on their necks. Nothing personal, just business.

You must not be aware of this, but Chinese semi companies have been under various types of sanctions since the 90s. Not only did the Chinese companies not make relative progress, they made relative regression since. SMIC was actually competitive 20 years ago with the likes of TSMC, but look how many generations behind it is today. I would say those sanction have had their intended effect. Have you seen how staggering China's trade deficit is in the semiconductor sector? China is well short of its goal of covering 40% of its semiconductor needs by 2020 and has little hope of reaching the target of 70% by 2025.

 

[gelgoog]

You must not be aware of this, but Chinese semi companies have been under various types of sanctions since the 90s. Not only did the Chinese companies not make relative progress, they made relative regression since. SMIC was actually competitive 20 years ago with the likes of TSMC, but look how many generations behind it is today. I would say those sanction have had their intended effect. Have you seen how staggering China's trade deficit is in the semiconductor sector? China is well short of its goal of covering 40% of its semiconductor needs by 2020 and has little hope of reaching the target of 70% by 2025.

How can that be true if China used to be sanctioned even more in the past when they couldn't even buy equipment to work on 300mm wafers? 20 years back China had even more sanctions.