Chinese semiconductor industry

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krautmeister

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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.
There were definitely sanctions since the 90s, but as China's scientific and technological capacity increased, they reached critical mass in most fields sometime after 2005. So, where they were falling behind in sanctioned areas, this completely reversed in almost every field later on. Good examples are 5-axis CNC machinery where the initial sanctions completely crippled development but later on they succeed after some missteps.
 

gelgoog

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That's a good find.

However, I found some contradictory sources claiming that the 180 nm chip never reached the market and only a few engineering samples were ever made:
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The date of manufacture is listed as 12th week of 2000. If the only a few engineering samples were ever made, it doesn't seem likely there would've been another run in 1999. Here's a screenshot:
...
Also claimed here that it was never released:
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Rise™ mP6™ Microprocessor Low Power 2.0 V in .18 um Process Technology
All rights reserved. © 1999 Rise™ Technology

Their initial CPUs were sold in 1998 and used 250nm. In 1999 they sold 180nm CPUs.
You can tell this is the 180nm version because the core runs at 2.0V.

1620517911871.png
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Still going to say TSMC didn't have 180nm in 1998, like their webpage says, when Rise was selling CPUs in mass production using 180nm the next year? Still going to claim that SMIC had 180nm before TSMC? Which is totally ludicrous when TSMC was producing at 130nm in 2001? The fact is TSMC was producing at 180nm before SMIC was even founded let alone had a fab.
 
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krautmeister

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Export license control isn't the same as the US arbitrarily attacking the rest of the world for doing business with Huawei, or whoever they don't like, like in "Huawei's 3nm design will be basically illegal to manufacture anywhere in the world", or sanctioning European firms for participating in Nord Stream 2, or sanctioning Iranian oil, or blocking other countries from selling their own uranium to China.

US origin components? Legally subjected? The US has been illegally seizing and stealing other nations' properties all along. "Legally" doesn't mean "decided by US".
The US hegemon does what it wants. Calling something legal or illegal, propaganda or the truth doesn't matter to the targets of American aggression. The US can always make something up whether it is legal or illegal, true or not. What everybody can agree on is perhaps calling this extraterritorial banditry.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
Intel's 10nm is set to overtake its 14nm in production in the second half of this year. That's proof that they solved most of their problems on that node, albeit 3 years too late. A 10nm Intel desktop CPU (Alder Lake) has been spotted in the wild and benchmark results posted online. It's scheduled to launch in the second half of this year.

maybe, but it hasn't!!!! .. Intel is well known of delaying 10nm, again and again. I will believe it when I see it. Don't count the chicken before they hatch
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
Intel has had 10nm for years already. It is used in mobile processors. Their problem is they couldn't fab it at enough yield, so they did not have the production capacity and low manufacturing cost to use it in desktop processors.
AMD solved this by using chiplets and reducing the amount of high density die space the processor used.

if you read carefully of previous posts, we are talking about desktop CPU
 

voyager1

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Japanese becoming Indians...
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Only AMEC has succeeded in developing a product for 5 nm cutting-edge technology, and all the other companies said they were producing 14 nm or older generation products.
LMAO, were the Japanese seriously thinking that Chinese IC would immediately start putting out 5nm chips lol!

"Since it has become clear over the past several years that it is difficult to introduce technology from abroad, we will have to find solutions through our own efforts," a Kingsemi official said.
Oh no!! Xi is forcing them to get domestic technology instead of crazily believing in globalisation and buying from abroad. Bad Xi
 

hkbc

Junior Member
Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei's daughter, Meng Wenzhou, was "illegally" arrested against Canada's own laws because of the gangster, the US government. You're saying it's illegal, but it's still happening. You're using "lawyer talk" but in the world of US hegemony, the US government does what it wants, when it wants, even against the rules they created. These American vassals might cry every once in a while to show they aren't slaves but in the end, they do as they are told.



American content in lithography machines worldwide is currently preventing Huawei and other entity listed companies from buying only either older generation semiconductor nodes or no semiconductors at all.



What you call propaganda, Meng Wenzhou calls jail since she was kidnapped by the Canadian government because of US extraterritorial justice.

I think you've missed my point, calling it illegal is just going along with the US worldview that its laws are the world's laws, hence propaganda! If people start allowing the perversion of a language, you'll get oxymorons like 'peacekeeping in Iraq' and 'war on terror'. Just because governments do crap and get away with it doesn't mean it should be minimised by the use of words to diminish its obvious lack of truth. Go down that slippery slope and next you'll just legitimise all the other crap.

As side note its quite ironic that the US is so selective on how it approaches the application of US Law in an extra-territorial manner, the prison in Guantanamo is there because not being on US soil they can, apparently, contravene US law with abandon, the human rights abuses done in the name of a war in terror there, would have everyone involved locked up, allegedly, if it happened on US soil! Nonetheless those bits of US law is never extended there, however, put a US dollar bill in an Iranian beggar's bowl in the streets of Tehran and you've committed an International money laundering crime! American Justice is blind but, apparently, only when its convenient!
 

victoon

Junior Member
Registered Member
In the last 20 years, 3 things happened that dramatically increased importance of chips but couldn’t have been predicted in early 2000s:
1) the rise of smart phone demands advanced processes and IoT/smart device demands quantity.
2) big data boosted server demands
2) AI boosted GPU/AI chip demand.

China in the last 20 years had a balanced allocation of budget for various developmental needs. China successfully upgraded to mid-tier manufacturing and made many scientific breakthroughs (space, transportation, energy, etc). China had to build (infrastructure, edu, healthcare, etc) rather than simply maintain the old like developed nations. Overall I think China spent the limited budget wisely to get the highest return for the economy. Chip making is generally not that profitable. Remember, the USSR was technologically very advanced but failed to develop a sustainable economy.

Last and most uniquely related to China’s current chip vulnerabilities, anyone lived through China in early 2000s know that 20 years ago nobody in their wildest dream could have predicted China would become a near peer competitor of the US in such a short time. People rightfully assumed China would have more time before the gloves are off in this competition.

All in all, we probably shouldn’t use our post-hoc wisdom to assign blames. Right now might not be a bad time to face this vulnerability. Too early China might not have accumulated enough to catch up. Too late China could be totally screwed and missed the opportunities of a lifetime (large auto chips and smart device market to ease into the industry)
 

nlalyst

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Their initial CPUs were sold in 1998 and used 250nm. In 1999 they sold 180nm CPUs.
You can tell this is the 180nm version because the core runs at 2.0V.

View attachment 71830
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Your link says it's an engineering sample, just like all the other likes I've found. Otherwise, yes looks like a 1999 180 nm product. Good job.

FWIW, Intel launched a 180nm product in 1999: the P3 Coppermine.
Still going to say TSMC didn't have 180nm in 1998, like their webpage says, when Rise was selling CPUs in mass production using 180nm the next year?
Their website does not say what you claim it says. There was no mass production of 0.18 micron mp6 because the CPU never went on sale. The only available mP6 was the 250 nm Kirin:
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The Rise mP6 codename Lynx never made it to the market officially; only engineering samples were produced. Lynx utitlized a 180 nm manufacturing process featuring 3.6 million transistors - as much as its predecessor.

Still going to claim that SMIC had 180nm before TSMC? Which is totally ludicrous when TSMC was producing at 130nm in 2001? The fact is TSMC was producing at 180nm before SMIC was even founded let alone had a fab.
Strawman. I never made such a claim.

The oldest SMIC financial report I was able to find was for
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. Therein it shows that they had 130nm production and sales in Q1 2003. This is consistent with all the other articles I've posted. That puts them at about 2 years behind TSMC.

1620547723500.png
 
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