Monday, April 6th 2020
SMIC 7nm-class N+1 Foundry Node Going Live by Q4-2020
China's state-backed SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) has set an ambitious target of Q4-2020 for its 7 nanometer-class N+1 foundry node to go live, achieving "small scale production," according to a cnTechPost report. The company has a lot of weight on its shoulders as geopolitical hostility between the U.S. and China threatens to derail the country's plans to dominate 5G technology markets around the world. The SMIC N+1 node is designed to improve performance by 20%, reduce chip power consumption by 57%, reduce logic area by 63%, and reduce SoC area by 55%, in comparison to the SMIC's 14 nm FinFET node, Chinese press reports citing a statement from SMIC's co-CEO Dr. Liang Mengsong.
Dr. Liang confirmed that the N+1 7 nm node and its immediate successor will not use EUV lithography. N+1 will receive a refinement in the form of N+2, with modest chip power consumption improvement goals compared to N+1. This is similar to SMIC's 12 nm FinFET node being a refinement of its 14 nm FinFET node. Later down its lifecycle, once the company has got a handle of its EUV lithography equipment, N+2 could receive various photomasks, including a switch to EUV at scale.
SMIC is at the receiving end of increased investment. Despite a revenue of $3 billion in 2019, its capital expenditure is expected to reach $3.1 billion this year, as the company sets up a new 12-inch wafer fab in Shanghai for $2 billion, and invests a further $500 million to add 12-inch capacity to its Beijing fab. The Chinese semiconductor industry is racing against time to provide the likes of Huawei with viable alternatives to cutting-edge foreign fabs like Samsung and TSMC. New U.S. regulation disrupting Huawei's access to TSMC will only accelerate development of sub-10 nm nodes at mainland Chinese companies like SMIC.
Sources:
cnTechPost, WCCFTech
Dr. Liang confirmed that the N+1 7 nm node and its immediate successor will not use EUV lithography. N+1 will receive a refinement in the form of N+2, with modest chip power consumption improvement goals compared to N+1. This is similar to SMIC's 12 nm FinFET node being a refinement of its 14 nm FinFET node. Later down its lifecycle, once the company has got a handle of its EUV lithography equipment, N+2 could receive various photomasks, including a switch to EUV at scale.
22 Comments on SMIC 7nm-class N+1 Foundry Node Going Live by Q4-2020
Why is it that when the chinese does something, it's a great achievement, but when some other country who's way ahead does something, it's just everyday mundane stuff?
If anything, TSMC ought to be the ones that should be getting kudos for making great achievements, as they're a publicly traded company in a small nation that's not even recognised by most of the world, as they make more ICs on cutting edge tech than any other foundry in the world.
I for one welcome more competition in the market.
I for one will never condone any progress made in a dictatorship, regardless which one it is.
I don't see other foundries complaining. So either China has managed to obtain these trade secrets and knowhow completely under the radar without anyone noticing or they are in fact competing on level playing field.
Yes it's possible to steal secrets and buy machines but one thing you can't steal or buy is brains. They need a lot of smart people designing and manufacturing this silicon and operating these multi million dollar machines. We're not talking about a bread cooking recipe here that one neighbor stole from another.
It seems you might be underestimating how smart those people are and your comments are borderline racist.
And in all fairness, we are talking about bread baking (not cooking, you don't cook bread) recipes here, as so much of this is standardised when it comes to manufacturing ICs. This is assuming the IC designer knew what he/she was doing, which isn't always the case. Sure, cutting edge isn't that simple, but when you make commodity parts, it's a lot easier today than what I was some years ago.
Yeah, I'm racist, I only live and work in Taiwan and have done so for over 13 years...
I have issues with dictatorships that bully their neighbours though...
The issue here is that they make a claim that hasn't been substantiated about their 10-14nm N+1 node, which is supposed to be as good as others 7nm nodes. I highly doubt that, but let's wait and see. And in this case, it's not likely to be competition, as they focus on the Chinese market. However, it might free up some capacity at Samsung and TSMC.
Having focus on a Chinese market is globally beneficial even now, because Chinese tech companies will have alternative foundry for their products, either strictly domestic or export ones.
Beside, if SMIC or any other company (Chinese or not) reaches reliable and efficient production on any node in use, and ramps the volume, it is likely they will supply foreign customers, too.
It's what foundries do, see...
Also @TheLostSwede said "read the article again" which implies that he thought you already read it.
[CLOSED]
www.eetimes.com/tsmc-sues-smic-alleges-industrial-espionage/
www.reuters.com/article/us-smic-lawsuit/california-jury-finds-smic-stole-trade-secrets-idUSTRE5A26CA20091103
www.cio.com/article/2444847/tsmc--smic-violated-terms-of--05-settlement.html
www.eetasia.com/Leaker_of_TSMC_Secrets_Joins_SMIC/
I for one based on their history of proven industrial espionage will never celebrate their "advances"