SMIC Reportedly Ramping Up 5 Nanometer Production Line in Shanghai

[T0@st]

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is preparing new semiconductor production lines at its Shanghai facilities according to a fresh Reuters report—China's largest contract chip maker is linked to next generation Huawei SoC designs, possibly 5 nm-based Kirin models. SMIC's newest Shanghai wafer fabrication site was an expensive endeavor—involving a $8.8 billion investment—but their flagship lines face a very challenging scenario with new phases of mass production. Huawei, a key customer, is expected to "upgrade" to a 5 nm process for new chip designs—their current flagship, Kirin 9000S, is based on a SMIC 7 nm node. Reuter's industry sources believe that the foundry's current stable of "U.S. and Dutch-made equipment" will be deployed to "produce 5-nanometer chips."

Revised trade rulings have prevented ASML shipping advanced DUV machinery to mainland China manufacturing sites—SMIC workers have reportedly already repurposed the existing inventory of lithography equipment for next-gen pursuits. Burn Lin (ex-TSMC), a renowned "chip guru," believes that it is possible to mass produce 5 nm product on slightly antiquated gear (previously used for 7 nm)—but the main caveats being increased expense and low yields. According to a DigiTimes Asia report, mass production of a 5 nm SoC on SMIC's existing DUV lithography would require four-fold patterning in a best case scenario.



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[Vayra86]

GL.
Its going to be a costly endeavour I reckon. One that is not economically viable. And for what exactly, because there isnt a single 5nm chip doing the impossible. Its just a shrunk 7nm. You wont enable jack all with that. Yay 20% less power? 300 mhz on top? Who cares?

 

[RimbowFish]

a step for the right direction for SMIC and Huawei, and who knows, maybe Canon nanoimprint will be useful for them too in the near future

 

[R0H1T]

One that is not economically viable.

That's where you're at least somewhat wrong. China's own market is supermassive & with their mass surveillance probably ever increasing in its reach & ferocity their thirst for advanced chips won't satiate any time soon! Heck they can keep selling only internally & not be making a loss in the long run, as long as the govt's willing to subsidize it

 

[Vayra86]

That's where you're at least somewhat wrong. China's own market is supermassive & with their mass surveillance probably ever increasing in its reach & ferocity their thirst for advanced chips won't satiate any time soon! Heck they can keep selling only internally & not be making a loss in the long run, as long as the govt's willing to subsidize it

How though. Subsidizing it into 'profitability' isn't exactly something China's been having great experiences with lately:

Evergrande collapse: Hong Kong court orders liquidation of China property giant

Judge says ‘enough is enough’ after developer, which has $300bn in debt, fails to provide convincing restructuring plan

www.theguardian.com

And I still don't quite get what's good about having CCTV on 5nm rather than 7nm. Or a server. You do that, exactly to get... an economical advantage over a 7nm chip. But if you lose all that advantage because you're tossing away half the production a fab can reasonably have, is it still saving power for example? Is it still bringing chips to market faster than you can print them on 7nm?

The answer is no. Yield is everything.

Another advantage China doesn't have is the experience they build... on DUV. The tech is EOL. So all this effort serves primarily to give the US the short term (gut feeling) middle finger and say they can make 5nm. Well, again... gl with that. Its dead in the water. Prestige project. If they mass produce these they create their own economical black hole.

Evergrande has proven to the world that China isn't in control if the economy isn't in their favor. What should sink, will eventually sink, no matter how much autoritarian power Xi throws at it.

 

[R0H1T]

The property market's been a sore "bubble" across the globe, not just China ~ heck it's a massive bubble here as well. The issue is China kinda used it to get out of recession post 2008, some of their most ambitious projects came about because the govt gave them a free reign to do whatever they could with easy money! This is slightly different, I'll again go back to the smartphone maker's example where they initially sold them at or near loss(?) but after cornering the market they just bumped up the prices massively. It's probably more accurate to compare them to the likes of Alibaba, Tencent, Bytedance wherein the Chinese govt protected the local internet giants from the likes of FB/Google/Amazon & after they cornered the domestic market they expanded globally.

 

[Vayra86]

The property market's been a sore "bubble" across the globe, not just China ~ heck it's a massive bubble here as well. The issue is China kinda used it to get out of recession post 2008, some of their most ambitious projects came about because the govt gave them a free reign to do whatever they could with easy money! This is slightly different, I'll again go back to the smartphone maker's example where they initially sold them at or near loss(?) but after cornering the market they just bumped up the prices massively. It's probably more accurate to compare them to the likes of Alibaba, Tencent, Bytedance wherein the Chinese govt protected the local internet giants from the likes of FB/Google/Amazon & after they cornered the domestic market they expanded globally.

Could be, then again, we already banned Huawei as well. I guess they'll start it off locally.
Time will tell if this is not the next bubble
Thing is, we might also be in one, called AI.

 

[Bwaze]

I don't think it matters that it's "expensive endeavor", there are large government subsidies for cutting edge technology advancement. And I'm quite sure they will sooner or later overtake Western technological dominance - with national focus that Western world lacks it is inevitable.

 

[马嘉伟]

How though. Subsidizing it into 'profitability' isn't exactly something China's been having great experiences with lately:

Evergrande collapse: Hong Kong court orders liquidation of China property giant

Judge says ‘enough is enough’ after developer, which has $300bn in debt, fails to provide convincing restructuring plan

www.theguardian.com

And I still don't quite get what's good about having CCTV on 5nm rather than 7nm. Or a server. You do that, exactly to get... an economical advantage over a 7nm chip. But if you lose all that advantage because you're tossing away half the production a fab can reasonably have, is it still saving power for example? Is it still bringing chips to market faster than you can print them on 7nm?

The answer is no. Yield is everything.

Another advantage China doesn't have is the experience they build... on DUV. The tech is EOL. So all this effort serves primarily to give the US the short term (gut feeling) middle finger and say they can make 5nm. Well, again... gl with that. Its dead in the water. Prestige project. If they mass produce these they create their own economical black hole.

Evergrande has proven to the world that China isn't in control if the economy isn't in their favor. What should sink, will eventually sink, no matter how much autoritarian power Xi throws at it.

Yes, government subsidies can't last......As Chinese, I think there is a high probability that is a fake news. Kirin 9000S yield not quite enough, mate40 is still out of stock. Kirin 9000SL is 9000S deletes some damaged cpus and gpus, and it used on nova12ultra heavily. This proves the capacity and yield rate of the N+2 process are not good. At present, SMIC's main task is maximize the capacity and yield rate of the N+2 process.