Thursday, September 24th 2020

China Focuses on 3rd Generation Semiconductors in Aim for Self-Sufficiency

The People Republic of China has always released 5-year plans that have a goal of achieving something. And in the latest, 14th 5-year plan China has an eye on the semiconductor industry. Specifically, China wants to develop independence and self-sufficiency when it comes to semiconductors. With tensions between the US and China raising, it is a smart move to have domestic technology to rely on. The new plan starts next year, 2021, and ends in the year 2025. In that period, China will devote financial resources and human workforce that will hopefully enable its goal. The primary aim for this 14th plan seems to be 3rd generation semiconductor technology. What is meant by that is a technology like gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). These technologies would be a nice addition to China's portfolio of semiconductors, so we should wait and see what comes out of it.
Source: DigiTimes
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26 Comments on China Focuses on 3rd Generation Semiconductors in Aim for Self-Sufficiency

#1
Vayra86
China realizes that it has a significant hurdle to take on the path to world dominance.

Because for dominance, you need the best chips. And they no longer have them while access to the best designs is rapidly drying up as well. These plans are great, but the cutting edge can't be copied.
Posted on Reply
#2
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
Vayra86China realizes that it has a significant hurdle to take on the path to world dominance.

Because for dominance, you need the best chips. And they no longer have them while access to the best designs is rapidly drying up as well. These plans are great, but the cutting edge can't be copied.
It can be stolen.
Posted on Reply
#3
AsRock
TPU addict
Here's me thinking food would be high on the list, lets face it they buy hell loads from other country's. Hate to think how many people are loosing their homes over there just because the CCP.
Posted on Reply
#4
Vayra86
the54thvoidIt can be stolen.
Funny thing being, China has access to the same chip machines from ASML as TSMC had, but they still can't figure it out. Copying always means you are not on the cutting edge but lagging behind it.
Posted on Reply
#5
AsRock
TPU addict
Vayra86Funny thing being, China has access to the same chip machines from ASML as TSMC had, but they still can't figure it out. Copying always means you are not on the cutting edge but lagging behind it.
Might be cheaper though overall.
Posted on Reply
#6
Vayra86
AsRockMight be cheaper though overall.
Well... for domestic perhaps? But not selling isn't exactly cheap. Nobody buys slow phones with old chips for example. Enterprise won't run efficiently on last-gen power demands. Etc etc etc

its a competitive disadvantage that echoes in every market that uses computer processing power. This move and plan they make is desperately trying to counteract that.
Posted on Reply
#7
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
They are advancing though, they've piled a lot of resources into self-sufficiency, so while they're behind, they won't lag forever.
Posted on Reply
#8
Caring1
the54thvoidThey are advancing though, they've piled a lot of resources into self-sufficiency, so while they're behind, they won't lag forever.
But are they really lagging?
Compared to other major nations they appear to have a handle on manufacturing, so they don't have to import most goods like others have to.
Posted on Reply
#9
fynxer
Caring1But are they really lagging?
Compared to other major nations they appear to have a handle on manufacturing, so they don't have to import most goods like others have to.
What are you thinking about, mobile cases?

They are novice at component like memory and cpu manufacturing and have many years of catching up to do BUT when they do catch up they will be a force to recon with.

What Trump did not realize, in his own stupidity, by creating the trade wars he woke up the Chinese dragon and it cannot be put back to sleep. When the Chinese catch up and they absolutly will then American companies will lose countless billions each year as long as we exist.
Posted on Reply
#10
AsRock
TPU addict
fynxerWhat are you thinking about, mobile cases?

They are novice at component like memory and cpu manufacturing and have many years of catching up to do BUT when they do catch up they will be a force to recon with.

What Trump did not realize, in his own stupidity, by creating the trade wars he woke up the Chinese dragon and it cannot be put back to sleep. When the Chinese catch up and they absolutly will then American companies will lose countless billions each year as long as we exist.
Yeah but it's all so showed what dicks the CCP actually are.
Posted on Reply
#11
Flanker
AsRockHere's me thinking food would be high on the list, lets face it they buy hell loads from other country's. Hate to think how many people are loosing their homes over there just because the CCP.
huh?
Posted on Reply
#12
Vayra86
Caring1But are they really lagging?
Compared to other major nations they appear to have a handle on manufacturing, so they don't have to import most goods like others have to.
Yes. Where is the Chinese 7nm, 5nm node? They haven't got anything.

And design wise... what Chinese company? We've seen some Zhaoxin chips... not exactly stunning
Posted on Reply
#13
Kinestron
fynxerWhat are you thinking about, mobile cases?

They are novice at component like memory and cpu manufacturing and have many years of catching up to do BUT when they do catch up they will be a force to recon with.

What Trump did not realize, in his own stupidity, by creating the trade wars he woke up the Chinese dragon and it cannot be put back to sleep. When the Chinese catch up and they absolutly will then American companies will lose countless billions each year as long as we exist.
Hopefully, it wakes the U.S. up as well when we found out just how dependent we are on China for a lot of manufactured goods, especially pharmaceuticals.
Posted on Reply
#14
r9
They couldn't produce an original thought to save their lifes.

Talking about world dominance .. their 5th gen gen J-20 is more like Beta Gen1.
No super cruise, as far as stealth it's more of a radar beacon.
"Buying" Russian fighter jets so they can reverse engineer the technology and failing badly at it.

Was watching Chines propaganda video yesterday showing Chinese bombers bombarding US base they used scenes from Hollywood movies. :D
Posted on Reply
#15
HugsNotDrugs
Don't underestimate the Chinese. They have a near stranglehold on electronic supply chains (by their own doing) and are in a position to leverage that to gain traction in the CPU/SOC market.

You don't need top performance to have a viable product. A product 15% slower with a price tag of 40% less will attract a lot of attention of OEMs.

If anything Trump's actions will hurt U.S. semiconductors in the long run.
Posted on Reply
#16
Mistral
Hey, if they can do it without stealing, more power to them!
Posted on Reply
#17
Vayra86
r9They couldn't produce an original thought to save their lifes.

Talking about world dominance .. their 5th gen gen J-20 is more like Beta Gen1.
No super cruise, as far as stealth it's more of a radar beacon.
"Buying" Russian fighter jets so they can reverse engineer the technology and failing badly at it.

Was watching Chines propaganda video yesterday showing Chinese bombers bombarding US base they used scenes from Hollywood movies. :D
And yet, they are also getting technology and science 'firsts' lately... The problem with all of these investments is just that time is working against them. Even if you copy stuff, you're still not the first one to think of it, and the pace of development is high.
Posted on Reply
#18
r9
Vayra86And yet, they are also getting technology and science 'firsts' lately... The problem with all of these investments is just that time is working against them. Even if you copy stuff, you're still not the first one to think of it, and the pace of development is high.
Only first thing they got is Covid.
Posted on Reply
#19
TheEndIsNear
Wow they finally stole enough technology. Too bad their human right abuses are getting worse. But then again money over people is the American way. I don't know how it is in other countries.
Posted on Reply
#20
Vayra86
r9Only first thing they got is Covid.
You can echo that silly rhetoric elsewhere. TPU isn't the place
Posted on Reply
#21
Mouth of Sauron
Vayra86Funny thing being, China has access to the same chip machines from ASML as TSMC had, but they still can't figure it out. Copying always means you are not on the cutting edge but lagging behind it.
They don't. 100% accurate information can't, of course, be obtained - sources claim they have ONE machine from ASML, and node is not known (but probably 28nm).

@Vayra86 - this pretty much ends the quote part, the rest of my post is unrelated to the quote or your other posts. Just to make things clear.

I work in the industry (not foundries, of course) and have worked on several new manufacturing plant design and putting to use. Virtually each machine (for the serious usage, at least) is partially custom-made, according to customers requirements. From final specification from the customer side (ok, it's never 'final-final') to delivery and testing on manufacturing site, it takes at least one year - when everything is going very smoothly and both sides have significant experience. This is obviously not the case here, so if they (China) purchase machines now, it will probably take some 2-3 years until anything can be actually produced - also, they will need close cooperation with ASML.

That's where 'fair' USA sanctions kick in. ASML, though not USA company, can't deal with China. That's probably the main reason that HSMC multi-billion project is paused - construction of a manufacturing plant is heavy dependent on knowing exact knowledge of machines involved.

As for 'intellectual property' part and stealing - well, Huawei *has* a legal licence to ARM IP and produces own processors, and whatnot (coughs, world-leading 5G) - their R&D is extremely powerful and advanced.

ASML machines - now I'm taking an educated guess - are much like other hi-tech equipment, in the sense that machine alone isn't enough to just produce whatever it's told to; also, copying (in the sense it is used in the whole thread, not yours in particular) of the advanced equipment usually turns somewhere between "bad" and "suboptimal" - I have experience with Chinese-copies, also with Western-copies of better machines - it always ended the same, at the end costs were similar to buying original. On the other hand, I saw Chinese equipment that was high-quality and performing at least decently - without exception, those weren't just copies - perhaps initially, but as I said, they were probably bad then; they had obviously passed years of refinement, adding different, often unique solutions for some parts.

In short, complicated machinery is extremely had to copy.

And no, I'm not a Chinese. But I don't like what USA did in this case. They made unconfirmed claims about 5G, then enforced independent countries to take them as true, crippled world-leading company by denied them access to crucial equipment, then denied a whole country from it.

Was Huawei 5G 'spying'? I had no idea, perhaps it was. I also don't have any idea how much spying USA, GB, Russia, China etc do - probably lots. Hell, Bose headphones collected data illegally... But a proof and a warning should be enough for supposedly spied 5G-equppment prospective buyers. Supplied equal or better stuff would be even better.

And yet, recently everyone is full of welcome to capitalism' crap - this is not capitalism, this is brutal enforcing using non-concurrent methods and has not nothing to do with free market.
Posted on Reply
#22
HugsNotDrugs
Mouth of SauronThey don't. 100% accurate information can't, of course, be obtained - sources claim they have ONE machine from ASML, and node is not known (but probably 28nm).

@Vayra86 - this pretty much ends the quote part, the rest of my post is unrelated to the quote or your other posts. Just to make things clear.

I work in the industry (not foundries, of course) and have worked on several new manufacturing plant design and putting to use. Virtually each machine (for the serious usage, at least) is partially custom-made, according to customers requirements. From final specification from the customer side (ok, it's never 'final-final') to delivery and testing on manufacturing site, it takes at least one year - when everything is going very smoothly and both sides have significant experience. This is obviously not the case here, so if they (China) purchase machines now, it will probably take some 2-3 years until anything can be actually produced - also, they will need close cooperation with ASML.

That's where 'fair' USA sanctions kick in. ASML, though not USA company, can't deal with China. That's probably the main reason that HSMC multi-billion project is paused - construction of a manufacturing plant is heavy dependent on knowing exact knowledge of machines involved.

As for 'intellectual property' part and stealing - well, Huawei *has* a legal licence to ARM IP and produces own processors, and whatnot (coughs, world-leading 5G) - their R&D is extremely powerful and advanced.

ASML machines - now I'm taking an educated guess - are much like other hi-tech equipment, in the sense that machine alone isn't enough to just produce whatever it's told to; also, copying (in the sense it is used in the whole thread, not yours in particular) of the advanced equipment usually turns somewhere between "bad" and "suboptimal" - I have experience with Chinese-copies, also with Western-copies of better machines - it always ended the same, at the end costs were similar to buying original. On the other hand, I saw Chinese equipment that was high-quality and performing at least decently - without exception, those weren't just copies - perhaps initially, but as I said, they were probably bad then; they had obviously passed years of refinement, adding different, often unique solutions for some parts.

In short, complicated machinery is extremely had to copy.
Fascinating stuff thanks for that.
Posted on Reply
#23
r9
Vayra86You can echo that silly rhetoric elsewhere. TPU isn't the place
That is a FACT where your statement is pure fiction. If you want to live in lala land and pretend that Chinese economy is not build of copying others inventions by that hurting the companies/countries that spend all the $$$ for r&d that's your choice just don't try to spread your ignorance here.
Posted on Reply
#24
Vayra86
r9That is a FACT where your statement is pure fiction. If you want to live in lala land and pretend that Chinese economy is not build of copying others inventions by that hurting the companies/countries that spend all the $$$ for r&d that's your choice just don't try to spread your ignorance here.
You're going all over the place. Try thinking for yourself for five minutes and I might respect what you're saying. So far, you're not doing a good job.

People who write FACT in all caps exist on Twitter and we know what they are. I do at least. I avoid that gutter trash like the plague. Do you?

'Ignorance' :roll::roll::roll::roll: In the land of the blind...
Posted on Reply
#25
r9
Vayra86You're going all over the place. Try thinking for yourself for five minutes and I might respect what you're saying. So far, you're not doing a good job.

People who write FACT in all caps exist on Twitter and we know what they are. I do at least. I avoid that gutter trash like the plague. Do you?

'Ignorance' :roll::roll::roll::roll: In the land of the blind...
Go eat a bat.
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