Chinese semiconductor industry

ansy1968 said:

@Strangelove bro The new CPU is fabbed with a 14nm node, whereas its predecessor was made using TSMC's 16nm fabrication process, so perfect timing next year a fully domestic 14nm line will be mass producing chip.

Click to expand...

Who manufacture the new CPU with 14nm fab?

tonyget said:

Click to expand...

Could you repost image please it doesn't seem to be loading

antiterror13 said:

Who manufacture the new CPU with 14nm fab?

Click to expand...

@antiterror13 Sir I don't have any info, but from the timeline since it was under sanction, my guess is SMIC.

Cause Phytium is under sanction.




14 Apr 2021 — TSMC stops supplying Chinese supercomputing company Phytium with new chips. Following US sanctions against the Chinese military supplier.


While in SMIC.





11 Mar 2021 — China's chip darling, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) has managed to achieve a 95% yield with its 14nm ...
You've visited this page 3 times. Last visit: 8/24/21

ansy1968 said:

@antiterror13 Sir I don't have any info, but from the timeline since it was under sanction, my guess is SMIC.

Cause Phytium is under sanction.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

14 Apr 2021 — TSMC stops supplying Chinese supercomputing company Phytium with new chips. Following US sanctions against the Chinese military supplier.


While in SMIC.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

11 Mar 2021 — China's chip darling, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) has managed to achieve a 95% yield with its 14nm ...
You've visited this page 3 times. Last visit: 8/24/21

Click to expand...

Thanks. Is 95% yield good?

antiterror13 said:

Thanks. Is 95% yield good?

Click to expand...

@antiterror13 Sir I'm no expert and forgive me for giving a naughty answer , Sir a 95% grade for me deserved a honor role.

@FairAndUnbiased @krautmeister @tokenanalyst bro had the EUVL reach the scale were it will be competitive against DUVL? with multiple FABS sprouting out in the US, EU and maybe Japan all using EUVL an infection point had been reach? Will it affect SMEE 28 DUVL and have a shortened career as China will obvious go with the trend and focus its attention?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

165 views15 minutes

Yield above 90% is considered to be good. Of course the question is 90% yield on what exactly.
Is it on just a highly regular chip like an SRAM or just how large is the chip we are talking about. Larger chips and more complex chips are harder to manufacture without defects. Something like an SRAM that is highly regular can have redundant blocks which can be tested and marked out in case of defects. I am just wondering why SMIC isn't going for 7nm as they had on schedule. It should be in production now but seems it isn't.

Perhaps SMIC figured out with available tools 14nm will better use their existing capacity to serve existing clients as 7nm will require more passes and hence they can make less chips with available tools thus serving less clients. According to their prior roadmap they should have ramped up existing fab to like double capacity and have a second fab by now. US sanctions and tools delivery delays probably made this schedule impossible. SMIC has hence switched to a strategy where they are expanding capacity in older nodes and going for chiplets.
Personally I think this strategy is a failure in the mid term and SMIC needs to get a Chinese production line with Chinese tools and bust the sanctions. It is the only way the company will have a long term future. Older chip processes are, simply put, sold for peanuts and it means this is a really low margin business. Other companies like TSMC can then squeeze SMIC by using profits from their higher end business to subsidize older processes. Dangerous position to be in.

With regards to the press release by Phytium where Alibaba and Baidu made an investment on it and the question by @antiterror13 on how will the chips be produced if they use 14nm process given US sanctions on Phytium. Perhaps Phytium is switching to a business model where instead of selling chips to final consumers directly they simply license the chip design to large consumers like Alibaba and Baidu which need millions of these chips. This means Alibaba or Baidu would then take care of the manufacture order to TSMC or UMC or SMIC or whatever. The whole case of the US government supposedly was that Phytium was selling these chips to Chinese military clients. Well. Alibaba and Baidu are consumer clients, they are Internet companies listed on the stock exchange, and are not sanctioned in any way. If the US government sanctions these companies it will only sabotage further any remaining good will they do have.

ansy1968 said:

@FairAndUnbiased @krautmeister @tokenanalyst bro had the EUVL reach the scale were it will be competitive against DUVL? with multiple FABS sprouting out in the US, EU and maybe Japan all using EUVL an infection point had been reach? Will it affect SMEE 28 DUVL and have a shortened career as China will obvious go with the trend and focus its attention?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

165 views15 minutes

Click to expand...

There's no reason for standalone RAM to be on EUV. Obviously, on-chip SRAM uses whatever process the rest of the chip uses (except chiplets of course but let's assume a monolithic SoC).

OK, well using DUV plus a wafer bonding process to 3-D package RAM with a readout module doubles the effective density. In fact you can even save money by putting the readout module on a super cheap 180 nm process instead of wasting EUV wafer area on a readout chip.

YMTC does this for NAND flash but whose to say that you can't do this for RAM which is also a highly repeating structure?

Well, the fact is, had it not been for the chip shortage, investments on new DUVL factories outside of China would have been limited.

The whole industry is moving to higher nodes and TSMC has seemingly managed to get an economically viable 5nm process. The industry is currently moving towards higher numerical aperture EUV for 3nm and lower processes. So you can say that EUV tools are now in like their 3rd generation. The 1st generation was highly experimental tools with low exposure and extremely low wafer production, the 2nd generation was finally economically viable against DUV with multiple exposures, and now higher numerical aperture EUV will further grow that lead. The industry has also developed pellicles for EUV which means there will be less stoppages to clean the tools further increasing production.

Companies like Samsung are already manufacturing DRAM with EUV. The industry might move towards 3D eventually like @FairAndUnbiased said but no one has manufactured and sold a product like that yet.

gelgoog said:

Well, the fact is, had it not been for the chip shortage, investments on new DUVL factories outside of China would have been limited.

The whole industry is moving to higher nodes and TSMC has seemingly managed to get an economically viable 5nm process. The industry is currently moving towards higher numerical aperture EUV for 3nm and lower processes. So you can say that EUV tools are now in like their 3rd generation. The 1st generation was highly experimental tools with low exposure and extremely low wafer production, the 2nd generation was finally economically viable against DUV with multiple exposures, and now higher numerical aperture EUV will further grow that lead. The industry has also developed pellicles for EUV which means there will be less stoppages to clean the tools further increasing production.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Companies like Samsung are already manufacturing DRAM with EUV. The industry might move towards 3D eventually like @FairAndUnbiased said but no one has manufactured and sold a product like that yet.

Click to expand...

@gelgoog thanks bro and it's nice to hear from you again.