US Government Can't Stop Chinese Semiconductor Advancement, Notes Former TSMC VP

[AleksandarK]

The Chinese semiconductor industry is advancing, and interestingly, it is growing rapidly under sanctions, even with the blacklisting of companies by the US government. China's semiconductor industry is mainly represented by companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) and Huawei Technologies, who are leading the investment and progress in both chip manufacturing and chip design. According to the latest interview with Bloomberg, former TSMC Vice President Burn J. Lin said that the US government and its sanctions can not stop the advancement of Chinese semiconductor companies. Currently, Lin notes that SMIC and Huawei can use older machinery to produce more advanced chips.

Even so, SMIC could progress to 5 nm technology using existing equipment, particularly with scanners and other machinery from ASML. Development under sanctions would also force China to experiment with new materials and other chip packaging techniques that yield higher performance targets. SMIC has already developed a 7 nm semiconductor manufacturing node, which Huawei used for its latest Mate 60 Pro smartphone, based on Huawei's custom HiSilicon Kirin 9000S chip. Similarly, the transition is expected to happen to the 5 nm node as well, and it is only a matter of time before we see other nodes appear. "It is just not possible for the US to completely prevent China from improving its chip technology," noted Burn J. Lin.



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[AusWolf]

Except for the US government, everybody saw this coming.

 

[docnorth]

I think the article says in a few lines almost everything that needs to be said. This particular expert opinion was laconic but comprehensive.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

More competition is good.

 

[Prima.Vera]

ASML has too much power and monopoly anyways.
Also TMSC which is Taiwanese, and Samsung, which is Korean, hold monopoly and also keep the prices artificially over inflated .
I actually welcome any future Chinese company that would challenge those. Japan is also preparing something too, but knowing them, it will take decades before anything tangible.... Dinosaurs still roam free there.

 

[Rus4kova]

There is a reason Huawei was excluded from supplying components for building critical 5G infrastructure in most European countries.
Whether that reason was based on fear or undisclosed information I don't know, but it wasn't for fear of competition.
In my country, the dominant telecommunication company is planning on suing the government, over the increase in cost of
having to use other suppliers than Huawei, which they were planning to use extensively. For one I feel better knowing that the entire
5G network in my country isn't based on one Chinese supplier.
I assume the same logic was used when the US imposed sanctions on certain Chinese companies.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Stop ?!?

The US knows it can't stop progress, They Are slowing it down though, which is they're goal.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

They didn't get the memo the cold war ended a while ago, maybe it's time for them to get the 21st century

 

[Denver]

This is a very bold comment to make in times of global instability. I don't think they can magically produce chips in smaller lithographs without EUV machines.

The arguments are also bad, you know, "7nm" is just a name

 

[Wirko]

So in the next round of hunting for subsidies, TSMC can say, hey, give us those trillions, or else China will catch up with us. As it appears now, billions are becoming a very small unit of measure.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

What gives America the right to completely prevent China from improving its chip technology. Imo good luck to them.

 

[friocasa]

What gives America the right to completely prevent China from improving its chip technology. Imo good luck to them.

The use of US developed technology

China doesn't respect IP, what they have it's mostly stolen, even their military equipment

 

[R0H1T]

As it appears now, billions are becoming a very small unit of measure.

Just add a flag/soldier in front of any argument & you can get trillions!

 

[FoulOnWhite]

The use of US developed technology

China doesn't respect IP, what they have it's mostly stolen, even their military equipment

China will do what it likes, they always have. The west have always been suspicious of China, even though a lot of the stuff we use is made there, double standards a bit.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

They didn't get the memo the cold war ended a while ago, maybe it's time for them to get the 21st century

And do....what? Hand everything over to china like Italy did? Sure worked great for them

Except for the US government, everybody saw this coming.

Everyone has said, for decades, that this would eventually happen. The time to stop it was in the 80s when we began shipping things there to bolster their economy in hopes of them holding back the Soviets, whoa t that time were already hurting. We never should have done that, it was obvious what would happen, but hey, anything to make a buck!

 

[GuiltySpark]

The use of US developed technology

You say the patents on boiling water? What do you expect then!?

 

[RayneYoruka]

The arguments are also bad, you know, "7nm" is just a name

You mean Intel 7 right??? /s

 

[Guwapo77]

I've always had a problem with this very thing. If our big businesses didn't run Washington, we would never be in this position. We wanted the cheapest labor and they advanced faster than we thought and this is the outcome - we made this. There is the ability to slow it down, but we surely can't stop this. I wonder who will be first to get the next major breakthrough.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

You mean Intel 7 right??? /s

Sorry to intrude, but there is hardly a company that names its technological processes with actual size of electronic elements. There may have been a time in the past when lithography process sizes were actual numbers of full width or length of the transistor, but maybe never. However, there is a place to inform yourself about various parameters of the electronic elements. How accurate they are is a separate matter since they don't involve decimal numbers, and production in real practice is not a perfectly matching integer.

 

[Rus4kova]

I've always had a problem with this very thing. If our big businesses didn't run Washington, we would never be in this position. We wanted the cheapest labor and they advanced faster than we thought and this is the outcome - we made this. There is the ability to slow it down, but we surely can't stop this. I wonder who will be first to get the next major breakthrough.

IMO we are not stopping it. We have a lot of ph.d students from China in my country (around 200 at the moment). They all come from the Chinese Scholarship Council - meaning the Chinese government is funding their stay. Studying medicine, technology, physic etc. The contract they sign contains harsh regulative punishments if the do anything to disobey the interests of the Chinese Government. If they drop out of university their families are punished financially.

 

[ice_v]

China will do what it likes, they always have.

Well if that's the excuse, I thinks it's high time for the US to do whatever the f**k it wants. Let's see how that works out.

 

[Wirko]

it's high time for the US to do whatever the f**k it wants

High time? The Monroe Doctrine will be 200 years old on 2nd December this year.

 

[RayneYoruka]

Sorry to intrude, but there is hardly a company that names its technological processes with actual size of electronic elements. There may have been a time in the past when lithography process sizes were actual numbers of full width or length of the transistor, but maybe never. However, there is a place to inform yourself about various parameters of the electronic elements. How accurate they are is a separate matter since they don't involve decimal numbers, and production in real practice is not a perfectly matching integer.

A joke is a joke, hence the /s. Why so serious?.

 

[dragontamer5788]

IMO we are not stopping it. We have a lot of ph.d students from China in my country (around 200 at the moment). They all come from the Chinese Scholarship Council - meaning the Chinese government is funding their stay. Studying medicine, technology, physic etc. The contract they sign contains harsh regulative punishments if the do anything to disobey the interests of the Chinese Government. If they drop out of university their families are punished financially.

Given the shear number of Chinese immigrants into USA, the brain-drain strategy is largely working. USA trades with China despite being somewhat adversarial, because spreading our culture with them peacefully is in the best interests of everyone.

Its a bit of a kumbaya / naive viewpoint, but it does seem to work. PH.d students who study here learn most about USA culture and likely see the benefits of 1st Amendment or... property rights... concepts that are alien to the Chinese native (and is one of the reasons why Chinese-Americans buy up Real Estate immediately after they "hop off the boat" so to speak). The truth be told, USA offers a lot of benefits to the Chinese individual, and encouraging them to join our country is only in our best interests.

Besides, colleges/universities aren't really where our good tech is. So I really don't see much of an issue there, most of our tech are just secrets kept inside of private industry. The issue at hand therefore, is Chinese-sponsored corporate spying. Arguably its connected to our education programs but in reality, I expect most of it to just be hacking conducted over the internet.

-----------

The other big risk is fully off-shore companies choosing to leave their secrets in Chinese factories, under the false assumption that China isn't going to steal it. See ARM and their licenses by ARM-China getting rektd. At least ARM managed to keep their latest-generation cores outside of China before ARM-China effectively mutiny. But its these acts of largescale corporate thefts that are causing the tech-transfer into their country. Not really the student-exchange program. (I mean hell, the Student-exchange program is a cold-war era program wherein we traded students with the Soviets)

-------

With regards to the 7nm thing... its all just politics. If China goes to war with Taiwan, China cannot depend on Taiwan for chips. In effect, Chinese chip-advancement is a national-security matter to them. They will absolutely accomplish it, all our job is to delay China until 2030+ when our new generation of Destroyers come in. We don't want war, but we especially don't want war when we have 1980s-era Destroyers as the bulk of our Navy against Chinese 2020-era designed Stealth Destroyers.

With any luck, the presence of next-generation 2030-era Destroyers on the high-seas will discourage China from making any aggressive actions in the 2030+ era. But 2020-decade will be fraught with peril.

 

[Luminescent]

So the policy of US is we don't want China or any other nuclear power to succeed, is there any reason to have diplomatic relations ? or even talks of any kind ?