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They can make 7 nm chips in quantity. And one or even 2 years ago there were fotos of a few exemplars of China made 5 nm chips floating around. Concerning small

by mharig 2y ago

They can make 7 nm chips in quantity. And one or even 2 years ago there were fotos of a few exemplars of China made 5 nm chips floating around. Concerning smaller structures, I have the gut feeling that they instead want to go for optical chips.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
From the articles I read, they are making 7 nm on old dutch (AMSL?) equipment and their yields aren't great (they get quantity by just throwing money at the yield problem). > The chip was fabricated by China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, a silicon foundry. (The Commerce Department says SMIC makes chips for the Chinese military, a charge the company denies.) SMIC produces the Kirin 9000s using Deep Ultraviolet lithography equipment acquired before the latest American sanctions. Huawei’s claim to have produced 7nm circuits was verified by the Canadian firm TechInsights and by Tilly Zhang of Gavekal Dragonomics. > To begin, the DUV process “success rate”—that is, the percentage of chips coming off the manufacturing line that actually work as designed—may or may not be up to the industry norm. Neither SMIC nor Huawei are releasing much data about the new chip or its production process. As Gavekal’s Zhang has noted, SMIC may have pushed the DUV process as far as it will go, reaping only 40 percent or fewer usable chips. Huawei's competitors, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have been producing 7nm chips for over five years; their success rate generally tops 90 percent. (https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/11/size-isnt-everything-chinas-new-chip-less-earthshaking-you-may-have-heard/391910/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/11/size-isnt-everythin...) It isn't commercially viable yet, but it can be subsidized. They do talk about using their own lithography equipment soon.
- mharig 2y ago
  Thanks for the info. Butare you sure they couldn't or cannot ramp up their yield? They bought a lot of TMSC knowledge in the last years.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    It’s the lithography equipment they are using, it isn’t designed for 7nm and the only reason we guess their yields are bad is because lots of people have tried already. TSMC also buys from the same Dutch company, the knowledge/equipment to build commercially viable chips is incredibly distributed: if China took all of TSMC’s factories and people in tact, they would still be unable to do that well because the supply chain is intentionally distributed through multiple US allied countries. China needs to do everything, they will need to produce and master their own lithography and so on.
    - mharig 2y ago
      Not convinced. E.g. the DUV machines for sure are build to allow flexible multiple patterning. Some progress there may ramp up the yield significantly.

by mharig 2y ago

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

From the articles I read, they are making 7 nm on old dutch (AMSL?) equipment and their yields aren't great (they get quantity by just throwing money at the yield problem). > The chip was fabricated by China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, a silicon foundry. (The Commerce Department says SMIC makes chips for the Chinese military, a charge the company denies.) SMIC produces the Kirin 9000s using Deep Ultraviolet lithography equipment acquired before the latest American sanctions. Huawei’s claim to have produced 7nm circuits was verified by the Canadian firm TechInsights and by Tilly Zhang of Gavekal Dragonomics. > To begin, the DUV process “success rate”—that is, the percentage of chips coming off the manufacturing line that actually work as designed—may or may not be up to the industry norm. Neither SMIC nor Huawei are releasing much data about the new chip or its production process. As Gavekal’s Zhang has noted, SMIC may have pushed the DUV process as far as it will go, reaping only 40 percent or fewer usable chips. Huawei's competitors, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., have been producing 7nm chips for over five years; their success rate generally tops 90 percent. (https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/11/size-isnt-everything-chinas-new-chip-less-earthshaking-you-may-have-heard/391910/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/11/size-isnt-everythin...) It isn't commercially viable yet, but it can be subsidized. They do talk about using their own lithography equipment soon.

mharig 2y ago
Thanks for the info. Butare you sure they couldn't or cannot ramp up their yield? They bought a lot of TMSC knowledge in the last years.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  It’s the lithography equipment they are using, it isn’t designed for 7nm and the only reason we guess their yields are bad is because lots of people have tried already. TSMC also buys from the same Dutch company, the knowledge/equipment to build commercially viable chips is incredibly distributed: if China took all of TSMC’s factories and people in tact, they would still be unable to do that well because the supply chain is intentionally distributed through multiple US allied countries. China needs to do everything, they will need to produce and master their own lithography and so on.
  - mharig 2y ago
    Not convinced. E.g. the DUV machines for sure are build to allow flexible multiple patterning. Some progress there may ramp up the yield significantly.