Chinese semiconductor industry
- Thread starter Hendrik_2000
- Start date
- Status
Skywatcher
Captain
IIRC, SMIC N+1 is equivalent in performance to TSMC 10nm/Samsung 8nm (according to Gartner) and N+2 is equivalent to TSMC's DUV 7nm.
Those crazies behaved exactly as those sorts of crazies do. They absolutely want to do everything to stop China from acquiring any sophisticated IC chip manufacturing equipment and materials utilized in IC chips, as well as to prevent China from developing its own indigenous capabilities in IC chip manufacturing and IC chip making equipment and IC chip making materials making, but also in all areas of sophisticated manufacturing such as the production of single crystal turbine blades. Remember in late 2018 when they drew up at list of demands that explicitly called for China to concede to US approval of any industrial policy of China's formulation?
Even though the Biden Administration is unlikely to be so imperious, the Americans are not welcoming of China's industrial policy, but China absolutely has no choice to gain the capability to domestically produced any item of sophisticated technology that is worth producing, be it marketable or not, because it cannot rely on any foreign entity to be a steady supplier. Pressured by the United States against their own economic interests, countries like Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands will restrict or prevent sales of particular high tech items to China by companies of their own origin and nationality, even when they are thoroughly devoid of US content. China must be capable of mastery of the entire spectrum of sophisticated IC chip manufacturing, from production of high purity silicon ingots, through the making of wafers, photoresists, photolithographic light sources, photomasks, lenses, vapour deposition etc. If China can cost effectively find a way of producing 7nm or lower precision IC chips using DUV fine... If EUV is the only cost effective methodology, it must master it...
There are Chinese companies that produce machines similarly capable to that purchased from HK Hynix, right?
D
Deleted member 15887
Guest
Is 1nm even possible?
@cbl21
I don't know, but we're talking TSMC here, they make the impossible possible, they are the pioneer, they had finished the 3nm node and mass production in 2022-2023 , they now focus on the 2nm development which they predict will be available in 2025-2026 timeline. (conservative estimate) So they're a moving target for Samsung and SMIC always 2 generation ahead (Samsung 5nm is on the same level with TSMC 7nm EUVL performance wise ask Qualcomm, why they plan to switch to TSMC)
Skywatcher
Captain
It's theoretically possible.
Whether it's economically affordable is another question.
At 1nm, quantum tunneling could also become a noticeable problem.
Quickie
Colonel
Even at 7nm, I recall that's only in like one dimension. There is probably much improvement to be made on the other axes but that may require a new process.
This company probably got a second hand ASML1980i from Hynix. They likely wanted to save money and also thought that getting a second hand model would be less noticeable to the American Admin.
Very soon the SMEE 28mm DUVL will be available and you will no longer see this type of transactions.
Purchasing ASML machines is down right risky as they could have made the payment upfront and ended up not receiving the machine.
- Status