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SMIC reaches 7nm without access to western equipment and technologies
- citboin 4y agoSMIC is “ Chinese Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ”.
- bjourne 4y agoThis Register article has some more meat: https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/column_7nm_chips_china/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/column_7nm_chips_chin...
- lizardactivist 4y agoIt also reads quite accusatory, and with that faint smell of arms rally and crazy dictator speech. I wonder why we here in the West just can't let China have their microchips.
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoBecause limiting the growth of silicon is in the interest of national security due to AI takeoff risk.
- pyuser583 4y agoWhy AI specifically?
- Yizahi 4y agoThe Rebellion Of The If Statements of 2030. The "for" and "while" loops would be outlawed and humanity would be forced to use Fortran and GOTO for all task Skynet will allow us. :)
- pyuser583 4y agoLol. And bit shifts would be strictly prohibited!
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoHow can you not understand the implications of AI to ask that question at this point in our shared reality? Are you a technical user? Are you new to HN? Why do you think AI isn't a security issue?
- pyuser583 4y agoI work in cyber security. Threat analysis. So far, AI has offered a moderate boost to defenders, and absolutely nothing to attackers. I suspect this trend will continue - moderate defensive advantage, and no offensive advantages.
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoThat's if you can even detect it.
- pyinstallwoes 4y agoAnd I got downvoted for this yet this is on the front page today: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581022000146/nvda-20220826.htm https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/0001... lol
- tarakat 4y agoYou speak as if China and the West are hermetically sealed-off from each other. The West is worried because, just like every other strategic industry, China will try to take over the global market. Yes, that's exactly what the West also tried. That doesn't mean it doesn't imperil the West to be on the receiving-end of these tactics.
- trasz 4y ago“The West” (US mostly) is worried China will _compete_ on the global market. Which is currently owned by the West.
- slimebot80 4y agoI thought the register article was way more pragmatic than that. They agree with the praise the CCP gives itself, but just add a dash of reality.
- Yizahi 4y agoTaiwan annexation would probably happen as soon as China has independent chip production, so a little worry is understandable. Also the stories like hostile takeover and appropriation of the Chinese ARM office doesn't paint them as "oppressed" by the "evil west".
- trasz 4y agoWhat’s the point of producing chips when you can’t sell them? China invading Taiwan would mean embargoes, which in turn would crash Chinese economy. Invading Taiwan just doesn’t make any sense.
- radu_floricica 4y agoNeither did invading Ukraine, and yet here we are. And China already trashed the treaties guaranteeing a certain level of autonomy in Hong Kong.
- Yizahi 4y agoOf course it doesn't make any sense. Cooperation is always more beneficial to both sides than isolationism. But Emperor Xi has decided to rule forever, so in a case of severe internal economic crisis he may decide to wage a Small Victorious War (tm), just like every dictator did since the beginning of times. Also I read that they have a doctrine which says that Taiwan need to be occupied, but I may be wrong about exact details here. And embargo is not a given thing, just see ruzzia today. Critical exports are allowed because they are simultaneously critical imports for others. I think any Chinese military action would show immediately just how impotent "world organisations" really are. I bet there would be close to no real consequences for China after annexation of Taiwan.
- trasz 4y ago“Emperor Xi” needs to win elections to keep ruling, and destroying country’s economy isn’t particularly good way of achieving that. Embargo is a given; US is just waiting for opportunity. Sure, it wouldn’t be a total embargo, but it would be crippling anyway. Look at how China dropped their strategic cooperation with Russia, including areas that aren’t explicitly sanctioned. I don’t think Russia can survive their current war, and that serves as a nice example to others. Russia is very different from China. Comparing a superpower to “Nigeria with nukes” is a bit pointless, but one of the crucial differences is that Russians know they can’t expect anything good from their mafia state. Chinese - quite the opposite, they expect sustained rapid growth, like the past five decades. Another difference is that Chinese don’t seem very enthusiastic about wars, compared to Russians - or Americans. And no, they don’t have occupation of Taiwan in their doctrine. China has been repeatedly explaining they seek peaceful unification. And they seem fine playing the long game, ready to wait a couple of generations for it to happen.
- jhallenworld 4y agoSome 7 nm chips: Apple A13 AMD Zen 3 Snapdragon 865+ If they never get EUV, but perfect this process, then I suppose the above are possible..
- gruez 4y agoNote that those chips are using second generation 7nm. It's unknown whether that's comparable to whatever SMIC is producing. If you want to make a less favorable comparison the list should actually be Apple A12 AMD Zen 2 Snapdragon 855
- sangnoir 4y agoI have a first-gen Zen from 5 years ago, and I feel no compulsion to upgrade. I recall reading press articles claiming the sanctions would set China back by decades. Assuming they have chip- & interconnect-design chops to match, then they are likely only a decade or less behind the leading edge- which I did not expect.
- jbverschoor 4y agoWell ASML had alle IP problems last year or the year before. I have no doubt their tech was stolen
- fomine3 4y agoAlso should be superior than RTX 3090 (Samsung "8nm")
- mrlonglong 4y ago
- hunglee2 4y agothere is no claim for this. SMIC does have ex-TSMC employees amongst staff though, so perhaps this is what you mean
- senttoschool 4y agoGot any real legitimate sources? How can one "steal" something as complicated as 7nm? Did SMIC find a full manual on literally hundreds of thousands of small little decisions that go into making something as complicated as advanced chip manufacturing? Perhaps they hired people from TSMC? Maybe paid them more? Seems like capitalism then. Also, this is what happens when the US deny China tech. Yes, they'll fall behind shortly but they have the manpower, will, and intelligence to fill the gap sooner or later. If the US wants to maintain tech advantage, open up immigration and make it super easy for intelligent people to immigrate and live here. And welcome them instead of being racists to them so they stay.
- cromwellian 4y agoTechInsights reverse engineered one of SMIC’s 7nm ASICS and claims a lot of similarities with TSMC’s N7 process. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-chipmaker-smics-7nm-process-is-reportedly-copied-from-tsmc-tech https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-chipmaker-smics-7nm-...
- senttoschool 4y agoI haven't read the actual TechInsights report. Did they plainly accuse SMIC for copying or simply stated that some parts of the node are similar? I see that Tomshardware has added additional commentary to make it seem like TechInsights' report is evidence that SMIC has copied TSMC. Western media has a way of spinning any advancement China makes as copying the west. Perhaps this is one way for westerners to feel superior and deny that the Chinese are capable of similar feats.
- fakethenews2022 4y agoSupposedly a high level TSMC executive moved to SMIC in 2017 and became co-CEO. So did 200 TSMC engineers. There was a lawsuit a few years ago that TSMC won but it before all this. https://youtu.be/dQGnwKBxAKk https://youtu.be/dQGnwKBxAKk https://youtu.be/WEwrBgsKmhc https://youtu.be/WEwrBgsKmhc
- fakethenews2022 4y agoOh it is a little more complicated than this. First the executive moved to Samsung and helped them. When he went to SMIC, he took 200 Taiwanese and Korean engineers with him. I would assume that some of those Taiwanese engineers were from TSMC originally. People in the tech industry should find this mass movement of whole groups of people familiar. See Fairchild Semiconductor, Zoom, Facebook, etc, etc, etc...
- bhk 4y agoFog in channel; Continent cut off!
- artandlol 4y ago
- novolunt 4y ago
- hyperman1 4y agoI really can't call this stealing. Avlot of countrys bootstrapped their economies by 'stealing' tech from someone else. In the target country, the person is a hero, in the source he is a thief. My own Flanders has hero Lieven Bouwens. There are huge lists of the USA 'importing' european knowhow before the world wars. Japan was a falous tech thief in the 1960's. In most cases, the importer got better than the country of origin. Beware. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieven_Bauwens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieven_Bauwens
- RobotToaster 4y agoDon't forget the famous American rocket scientist, Wernher Von Braun.
- noSyncCloud 4y agoNot too mention the little-known but influential physicist Albert Einstein. (And many others, of course.)
- tjs8rj 4y agoSure many did - that doesn’t make it right. Furthermore, this take is the “neutral global citizen” way of looking at things. It’s one perspective, and certainly important to be aware of, but China vs US (or the west more generally) isn’t a neutral outcome. The Chinese system would be a massive detriment to human rights if allowed to continue growing, as it’s a massive detriment to human rights now. “Retweeting” pro-western perspectives is the right thing to do in that case, even if it isn’t the most “neutral” perspective. For some reason there’s a fear of being pro-western nowadays and so many like to take this “enlightened observer” approach, but that’s a luxury existing in the west affords, and keeping it requires defending it.
- stelonix 4y agoThat's the most moral thing to do as long as you're a privileged west citizen. If you're from the third world and specially if the US meddled in your life, the "neutral global citizen" pov is the default. We could list how the US does not respect human rights at all even within its borders, let alone in foreign countries; we could also list all military and political intervention by the west in other countries. With those lists, the only moral thing to do is to "retweet" the anti-western perspectives. The US system has proven time and time again it not only fails to deliver its promises, it breaks economies and has a net negative benefit, so why should we be spreading them?
- tibbydudeza 4y ago"China is learning to build the world's finest propeller engine, just as its competitors enter the jet age. " A rather good summary.
- sjcoles 4y agoDead in the water without EUV just like OG Intel 10nm. The number of masks required to etch these chips without EUV makes it a non-starter for anything with a larger area than the BTC mining chip that they produce. I am very curious the yield and number of masks required. This article outlines struggles Intel had with multipatterning and 10nm on DUV. https://www.eetimes.com/intels-10nm-node-past-present-and-future/ https://www.eetimes.com/intels-10nm-node-past-present-and-fu... E: Furthermore, I don't think SMIC has any packaging technology that would allow them to leverage chiplets.
- rowanG077 4y agoIt's not like EUV is magic pixie just ordained by the gods to be unachievable by china. I would be surprised if china doesn't have EUV within 10 years.
- anhphamfmr 4y agoEUV technology was proven possible in the 80s. However to make it happen and comercialize took the West a few decades.
- HyperSane 4y agoIt took 40 years to actually make EUV commercially viable.
- dirtyid 4y ago>without access to western equipment and technologies Does anyone have TLDR from reports. An indigennous 7nm supply chain cannot be right.
- anhphamfmr 4y ago“without access to Western equipment and technologies” is not accurate. I believe it’s ASML’s DUV machines behind the achievement
- ngcc_hk 4y agoIt is not the stealing. It is the totalitarian part, the I can go out you can’t come in etc. that is the question. When they invade Taiwan …
- FunnyBadger 4y agoYes. It was a matter of time because MOST 7 nm processes are still using older UV steppers which China already has. The trick is multi-patterning which is hard but merely requires some math, some programming, attention to detail and good control. 7 nm typically requires 4x multi-patterning or more. Multi-patterning gets you below diffraction limits by reversing the diffraction into multiple pattern offset exposures. What China has is "Deep UV photo lith" which is 193 nm from an ArF excimer laser. Classic diffraction limits would say you can only get line resolution down to half that. With multi-patterning you can go below that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_patterning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_patterning What China still doesn't have is EUV which negates any multi-patterning at 7 nm and you can use milder, low order multi-patterning at smaller nodes. Without EUV, SMIC is mostly locked to 7 nm.