Chinese semiconductor thread II

antiterror13

Brigadier
Intel still struggling with 7nm, even Intel has EUV and no limitation to get any technologies and full support from US govt.

China has managed 5nm with DUVi ..... interesting. With all bans and restriction ;)

You could write much better code with Intel Dual Core in 2000s than with current Intel high end :rolleyes:

Current, in production facts ... interesting isn't it?
1765668249510.png
 

tphuang

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
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Registered Member
It really seems a kind of "N6" meaning that, as you said is half way between SMIC N+2 and a 5m node.

It took them some long years to reach this point from N+2....the next step will be with EUV. IMHO it makes more sense to just stop here and dedicate resources to increase yield at this N+3.

Once they will have the EUV they will shrink further. IIRC this was what their CTO/CEO Liang Mong Song stated already few years ago.

This is already more than enough for AI. Also SMIC N+2 is already ok for AI, yield and capacity are the real targets to pursue.
I think it's important to consider that N+2 itself underwent improvement from 2023 to 2024 (with 9000S to 9020) in terms of fixing some process issues, stability and such. Until we get to a point where N+2 seems like a relatively mature process now.

Not sure if they plan to do further scaling with N+3, but at minimum for 2026, you can expect similar improvement in raising yield and stability of the process and maybe improving transistor performance and maybe improve SRAM scaling. There are things they can still improve over the next year in their lab.

One of the big constraint they faced in 2022-2024 was just lack of equipment/capacity, so they couldn't really dedicate much capacity for R&D of new process (or they would lose actual production capacity). I would imagine with increased capacity (from domestic equipment), this is less of a concern. Although of course, they face new issues from domestic equipment being less reliable.

Over the next 2 years, I think it is more likely they get to like real N5 or even N4 with EUV process vs more intensive multi-patterning. But I do think there is still room for improvement in the N+3 process until then.
 

Michael90

Senior Member
Registered Member

2025Q3 DRAM and NAND market share according to counterpoint, this is really good stuff from YMTC and CXMT. counterpoint tend to be higher than TrendForce figures.
Crazy to see South Korea dominating half of all sales , even above giants like Japan, US and China. The Korean success story is really one where people don’t talk about much .
 

JPaladin32

New Member
Registered Member
Intel still struggling with 7nm, even Intel has EUV and no limitation to get any technologies and full support from US govt.

China has managed 5nm with DUVi ..... interesting. With all bans and restriction ;)

You could write much better code with Intel Dual Core in 2000s than with current Intel high end :rolleyes:

Current, in production facts ... interesting isn't it?
View attachment 166207
This chart is outdated. Intel 7 is DUV and EUV nodes like Intel 4 and 3 are in mass production. US is still ahead of China actually, although in terms of transistor density not that far ahead.
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
Crazy to see South Korea dominating half of all sales , even above giants like Japan, US and China. The Korean success story is really one where people don’t talk about much .
Too niche of a success, too many reliances and overall national weaknesses for it to really be called a success story. And I say this with no hatred or bias against them at all; my best friend is Korean and I almost married Korean. But that country made far too many critical compromises for a very narrow scope of success.
 

PopularScience

Senior Member
Registered Member
further improved N+3 coming next year as per the news.

and regarding expansion of 7nm next year.

you see one by one all backlisted Ai/GPU chip companies started to fill IPOs. Moore Thread broke record then MetaX drew more investors than MT. Cambricon was struggling with sanctions.. look at now ''Cambricon achieved operating income of 1.727 billion yuan in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 1332.52%'' they have big plans for next year. then Huawei , Loongson and other companies.

it seems like China bought all the asml duv machines in the third quater.

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Chinese system orders represented 42% of all ASML machine sales in the third quarter. The company earlier said demand for this year was stronger than expected.
 

Phead128

Major
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Crazy to see South Korea dominating half of all sales , even above giants like Japan, US and China. The Korean success story is really one where people don’t talk about much .
Few people discuss South Korean dominance because DRAM and NAND are commoditized, low-margin, cyclical, niche items. Intel famously abandoned DRAM and focused on higher-margin microprocessors when Japanese began "dumping" DRAM in the 1980's. South Korea simply beat the Japanese at their own DRAM game, and China is going to eat South Korea's lunch in similar fashion.
 

sunnymaxi

Colonel
Registered Member
it seems like China bought all the asml duv machines in the third quater.

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Chinese system orders represented 42% of all ASML machine sales in the third quarter. The company earlier said demand for this year was stronger than expected.
yes. from next year sales will collapse as per ASML's own estimation. same with other foreign OEMs. most likely 2025 is the last peak year for western tools manufacturers in mainland China.
 
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