News China aims to break chokehold of US chipmaking sanctions — Naura Technology to develop lithography tools for the first time

[Admin]

China-based Naura Technology begins research and development program for lithography tools. This is

China aims to break chokehold of US chipmaking sanctions — Naura Technology to develop lithography tools for the first time : Read more

 

[bluvg]

It's not hard to imagine that China will have superior solutions in the not-too-distant future. China would never prevent the US and other countries from buying, now would they?

 

[gg83]

All a ploy to get foreign cash back into the country.

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

Wow, the economics of SMIC 7 & 5nm keep getting worse as more articles come out about it. So not only are they quad patterning (which requires 4x the time, 4x the power, and 4x the masks), but by using etching and deposition to overcome DUV limitations, they are introducing processes that significantly increase defect rates (much harder to control for incomplete, under, and over-etching) as well as consumption of masks due to mask erosion as the etch chemical also acts on the mask material to a lesser extent.

 

[zsydeepsky]

Wow, the economics of SMIC 7 & 5nm keep getting worse as more articles come out about it. So not only are they quad patterning (which requires 4x the time, 4x the power, and 4x the masks), but by using etching and deposition to overcome DUV limitations, they are introducing processes that significantly increase defect rates (much harder to control for incomplete, under, and over-etching) as well as consumption of masks due to mask erosion as the etch chemical also acts on the mask material to a lesser extent.

the economics is that Huawei is using that 7 & 5 nm node earning billions with their phones and Ascend AI cards.
you know, normally they won't be able to earn so much profit with outdated tech like this.
but alas, the US government has very successfully eliminated all competitors for them, they literally handed over the entire Chinese market on a silver plate.

In my honest opinion, even the Chinese government can't support China's native semiconductor industry better than this.

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

the economics is that Huawei is using that 7 & 5 nm node earning billions with their phones and Ascend AI cards.
you know, normally they won't be able to earn so much profit with outdated tech like this.
but alas, the US government has very successfully eliminated all competitors for them, they literally handed over the entire Chinese market on a silver plate.

In my honest opinion, even the Chinese government can't support China's native semiconductor industry better than this.

Uhh, no, Apple just opened their 57th store in China and consumers came out in droves to buy new Apple products. Even when a grandma yelling “Apple is foreigner, don’t buy, go to huawei store” she got booed out of there lol.

 

[zsydeepsky]

Uhh, no, Apple just opened their 57th store in China and consumers came out in droves to buy new Apple products. Even when a grandma yelling “Apple is foreigner, don’t buy, go to huawei store” she got booed out of there lol.

Ah, fine. here's one news from March:

Apple's iPhone sales in China plunge 24% as Huawei's popularity surges​

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...4-first-six-weeks-2024-report-says-2024-03-05

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

Ah, fine. here's one news from March:

Apple's iPhone sales in China plunge 24% as Huawei's popularity surges​

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...4-first-six-weeks-2024-report-says-2024-03-05

Yeah, there is a big push in China to support domestic companies regardless of quality. Does it mean Huawei can compete tech for tech with Apple? No, absolutely not.

 

[zsydeepsky]

Yeah, there is a big push in China to support domestic companies regardless of quality. Does it mean Huawei can compete tech for tech with Apple? No, absolutely not.

As long as you have enough way to cope, you can always resort to one of them.
It's fine, I never intended to persuade you. So we can all just wait and see how it unfolds.

Yet, I had a quick search and found the toms hardware news back in 2022 about "Huawei might be able to make sub-7nm chips soon" with your comments. You were pretty confident that won't happen.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/huawe-euv-scanner

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

As long as you have enough way to cope, you can always resort to one of them.
It's fine, I never intended to persuade you. So we can all just wait and see how it unfolds.

Yet, I had a quick search and found the toms hardware news back in 2022 about "Huawei might be able to make sub-7nm chips soon" with your comments. You were pretty confident that won't happen.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/huawe-euv-scanner

I’m still confident that 7nm SMIC is an unsanctioned copy of TSMC (confirmed via scanning electron microscopy) with yields of ~15% which would be labeled a failure in the west.

DO NOT put words in my mouth! No where in that article’s comments did I say anything remotely equivalent to “you were pretty confident that won’t happen”. Disingenuous acts like this only serve to belittle your credibility.

https://www.edn.com/the-truth-about-smics-7-nm-chip-fabrication-ordeal/

SMIC 5nm has not been physically verified so for all we know it’s either an optimized SMIC 7nm with slightly better density and power consumption and no where near the improvements found in full node shrinkage. And if SMIC 7nm yields are ~15%, then 5nm yields will be at most <15% and probably in the 5-8% range. The only reason these nodes are being used is due to massive government subsidies.

Or the other option is that SMIC is just using stockpiled TSMC 5nm chips from 2020 like their Kirin 9006C.
https://m.gsmarena.com/huaweis_5nm_kirin_9006c_is_manufactured_by_tsmc_after_all-news-61132.php

You aren’t going to convince me because I’m not misled by propaganda.

 

[zsydeepsky]

I’m still confident, 7nm SMIC is an unsanctioned copy of TSMC (confirmed via scanning electron microscopy) with yields of 15% which would be labeled a failure in the west.

https://www.edn.com/the-truth-about-smics-7-nm-chip-fabrication-ordeal/

SMIC 5nm has not been physically verified so for all we know it’s either an optimized SMIC 7nm with slightly better density and power consumption and no where near the improvements found in full node shrinkage. And if SMIC 7nm yields are 15%, then 5nm yields will be at most <15% and probably in the 5-8% range. The only reason these nodes are being used is due to massive government subsidies. Or the other option is that SMIC is just using stockpiled TSMC 5nm chips from 2020 like their Kirin 9006C.
https://m.gsmarena.com/huaweis_5nm_kirin_9006c_is_manufactured_by_tsmc_after_all-news-61132.php

You aren’t going to convince me because I’m not misled by propaganda.

then SMIC & Huawei must be a god or something. They have successfully sold 10 million cellphones with their new soc in 5 months, mass manufactured with 15% yields.

Which translates to like "SMIC produced 70 million 7nm chips" in at most one year time period. By this alone I think you have just crowned them "the world's 2nd/3rd biggest chip manufacturer".

Therefore I have to ask: What was the US tech sanctions' goal again?

What a miracle.

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

then SMIC & Huawei must be a god or something. They have successfully sold 10 million cellphones with their new soc in 5 months, mass manufactured with 15% yields.

Miracle.

DO NOT put words in my mouth! No where in that article’s comments did I say anything remotely equivalent to “you were pretty confident that won’t happen”. Disingenuous acts like this only serve to belittle your credibility.

And have you ever heard of stockpiling good chips before putting the product on the market? SMIC has been manufacturing 7nm at scale since 2022. That’s a lot of time to stockpile. And we know the kirin 9000 series design was complete in 2019 since Huawei had their Kirin 9000 manufactured by TSMC in 2019-2020. Which by the way, the 3 year old Kirin 9000 made by TSMC significantly outperforms the brand new Kirin 9000S made by SMIC. Does not bode well for SMIC….
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...ignificantly-behind-kirin-9000-with-tsmc-tech

 

[The Historical Fidelity]

then SMIC & Huawei must be a god or something. They have successfully sold 10 million cellphones with their new soc in 5 months, mass manufactured with 15% yields.

Which translates to like "SMIC produced 70 million 7nm chips" in at most one year time period. By this alone I think you have just crowned them "the world's 2nd/3rd biggest chip manufacturer".

Therefore I have to ask: What was the US tech sanctions' goal again?

What a miracle.

Yes, SMIC using the American and Dutch tools purchased before sanctions were in place completely destroys western sanctions. What a wonderful fork in your logic. It must be a miracle.

 

[zsydeepsky]

Yes, SMIC using the American and Dutch tools purchased before sanctions were in place completely destroys western sanctions. What a wonderful fork in your logic. It must be a miracle.

No matter. Time will tell

 

[COLGeek]

As a reminder, please stick to the technology aspects of the topic. Leave the political commentary for other more appropriate venues. Thank you.

 

[bluvg]

Oftentimes, the two can't be disentangled if one wants to have coherent tech conversations: sanctions affect tech availability, which triggers ancillary effects, including retaliatory sanctions, which likewise have technology impacts. Totally understand that solely political commentary/tribalism is unwelcome, but it's not realistically possible to discuss tech in complete isolation from the reality in which it exists, and the articles themselves reflect this reality and assess and speculate what countries do and the resulting impact that has on the tech.