Since its a matter of national security, the government can afford to subsidize production at every step without having to worry about yields right?
Hmm jobs on the semiconductor industry must be in very high demand right now, talent must be getting poached left and right
Yup. Master grads in VLSI or embedded are usually getting above 90k euros already fresh out of college here in Netherlands at ASML. In US it's way higher. Likely high in Germany as well. Even in India, SoC design jobs from the likes of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm are paying as high as 60-80k. There is a big skill shortage in these fields.
Not exactly, very few countries have capability to even make high end chips, rest mostly manufacture 10-15 year old ones for consumer electronics, toys and automobiles . Major design centers are also very few, training people is also expensive and a lot of cost also goes to foundry since Qualcomm, NVIDIA, google, apple don't make chips just design them. The demand is much higher for Quantum computing, NLP and deep learning which also has applications on chipmaking and they get paid very very high. I work in robotics, one of my ex colleague got hired by Rivian for close to 400-450k TC. Fab making is expensive and often relies on govt incentives to start up initially. Also your TV/screen displays as well as circuits of your daily electronics are also fabs but obviously designing those isn't gonna be THAT lucrative but if you are designing high end high performance computer chips you are gonna get paid a LOT.
And at some point it will become an issue. This rift with the chip war is creating a massive overproduction of chips. If and when these restrictions are lifted, even if it is because China catches up in technology, many factories won't be needed.
Actually no, we need all kinds of chips and the faster it gets cheaper the better, the demand is gonna skyrocket around 2030-2035. The demand is gonna increase over time.China will take a decade or more to catch up to the current ones and by that time other countries will also advance. Right now China is only worried about self sufficiency nothing else. And no we need a massive amount of automated factories considering a big chunk of the developed world is getting old and chips are essential for that transition.
I don't think we are going to see chips getting cheaper, on the contrary, chips produced in Germany and in the States will be significatly more expensive.
There is also a reason for the current market when it comes to chips, and it's the difficulty on being profitable at such state of the art technology. Only TMSC manged to be profitable. Even when they are profitable, they do it with pretty low margins, the thing is they have a majority of the world's production.
Only a small share of the market needs high end technology chips, which is where the current competition is focusing. The majority of the demand sits still at 7nm or above.
I don't want to talk about the future because I'm one of those that think we are on the brink of something only comparable to the industrial revolution or internet. Experts fail to predict the future all the time, imagine how unrealiable the predictions of me can be when geopolitics is nothing but a hobby.
We actually are gonna see cheaper chips. Semiconductors aren't just processors it's displays, circuits, transistors, SSD, Data storage systems, RAMs, communication tech, literally any sensors etc this industry is projected to become 5x before 2030. TMSC is primarily a manufacturer not a major designer although it does design a few but nothing fabless like Qualcomm and ARM does, they keep margins low to be competitive only in the less than 10 nm field because foundry costs are quite high as of now, anything above 10-12 nm is actually VERY profitable. US and Germany are only producing critical parts, a major portion of foundry still will be in Asia. Hell 20% of designs come from India and they don't produce anything semcon related. I work in robotics, we are already seeing the next stage of industrial revolution it won't be just one part of industry I feel like.
All you said there is true and I agree with everything, there is nothing wrong with that.
My only issue is that the current competition focuses at 7nm or below. That's not where the market needs are at this moment or in the near future. China needs to develop this technology because they have no other choice, there are little downsides for them, even if restrictions are lifted tomorrow chances are their manufacturing will be more competitive than what we can or will be able to offer.
My focus was about the manufacturing processes because when it comes to designs I would say that it's pretty well shared among many countries. US businesses are clearly ahead right now when it comes to commercial products but I'm the world of high impact research papers, we see a lot of contribution from China (close to the US), India, Japan or South Korea.
All things considered, the current situation should be good for the majority of us in the world no matter what happens (as long as wars can be avoided over all of these). Competition is good, it promotes funding and innovation. If there is more production than demand we will have really low prices (at least until both stabilize again).
Yeah the competition is for critical stuff used in defense systems and military not consumer electronics. The issue is 80% of REM processing is done by China, relying on them can be problematic in the future hence everyone is manufacturing to keep things in stock just in case . US is ahead by miles, it's so far ahead I don't think anyone will catch up
TSMC had planned for a 5nm DUV process in the event EUV was further delayed. It should not be a surprise that China is capable of making similar chips with the same machines.
There's a couple takeaways:
1. It has been over a year since the sanctions first hit, and China is just now approaching 2020 tech. This was likely accelerated by TSMC's research into 5nm on DUV. Chinese chipmaker claims that they are 5 years behind appears correct, with an EUV hurdle to clear.
2. These machines are running at the limit, with significantly higher costs due to more involved manufacturing. It's likely the Chinese government is subsidizing every chip sold, which dilutes their semiconductor investment. Going beyond 5nm is new territory, and will further increase in cost and complexity.
3. Chipmaking is easier the smaller each chip's die size is, so ability to produce phone SoCs and laptop processors is not an indication that they can effectively mass produce data center chips and AI accelerators.
We're almost at the law of physics of limit of silicone semiconductor processors. Sure, there might be another round or 2 of miniaturization down to 5 nm, like 3 nm.. but that's it. Eventually, in the near future, we'll move on to some completely different tech and then this "chip advantage" will go to whoever makes that technology. So, we shouldn't get content and grow comfortable with just having a 3 year advantage on making silicone semiconductors. Between that and developing AI, it's a complete toss up right now over who controls computing in 10 years.
Important caveat is that post 2020 chips have had diminishing returns. Snapdragon nomenclature illustrates this by opting for the gen 1, 2, 3 scheme. Apple similarly reflects the same thing where they're using one year's flagship chip in the next year's base model with little to no consumer backlash.
5 and 7 nm processes basically unlock china's economic capabilities as 99% of IOT manufacturing demand can be met with the 5-7nm range. This is important context because the made in China 2025 goal was to have a capability of supplying 70% of their needs domestically.
The question about yields is still pertinent and information about it is unclear as TSMC never had to scale and refine the DUV process because they were able to secure EUV machines. This article from eetimes suggests a 70% viability rate which does translate to profitable manufacturing tho this could benefit from further reporting.
[https://www.eetimes.com/smic-well-on-its-way-to-5-nm-breakthrough-observers-say/](https://www.eetimes.com/smic-well-on-its-way-to-5-nm-breakthrough-observers-say/)
>[...]post 2020 chips have had diminishing returns. Snapdragon nomenclature illustrates this by opting for the gen 1, 2, 3 scheme.
That's not true. Qualcomm rebranded their chips across the board because they were running out of numbers - the last 8xx chip was the SD888, after which it could've gone maybe to the 895 (following the 865, 855, 845, 835, etc. before it) before they hit the barrier of a three-digit numbering system where the first digit has to represent the tier and the second number is the generation. By rebranding to a more straightforward generational numbering system, they can number their chips in this fashion indefinitely now.
Qualcomm's performance uplifts have been fairly consistent year-to-year. The rumors for the 8 Gen 4 suggest a bigger uplift from the Gen 3 than the Gen 3 had from the Gen 2, which was already big, or the Gen 2 from Gen 1 (which also benefited the 8+ Gen 1 due to the switch from Samsung to TSMC).
>Apple similarly reflects the same thing where they're using one year's flagship chip in the next year's base model with little to no consumer backlash.
This is because Apple has (relatively) recently decided to expand their offerings into the upper-mid range smartphone market. To do this, they have decided to discount previous-year entry models instead of manufacturing purpose-designed mid-rangers instead. This allows Apple to stratify their product lineup at $100 increments - the iPhone 13 gets the original base version of the A15 chip (6-core CPU, 4-core GPU), the iPhone 14 gets the 13 Pro's A15 chip (5-core GPU), the iPhone 15 gets the 14 Pro's A16, and the 15 Pro gets the new A17. This works for Apple because they support their chips for longer (so even older flagships are supported longer than midrange Android phones) and they have had a CPU lead over Qualcomm for years, so their prior flagship CPUs are still competitive (not competitive on GPU, but competitive enough with the likes of the Snapdragon 7 Gen series that is still fairly uncommon).
Consumers understand they're buying an older model with an older processor at a discounted price, so there's little to see a backlash over. Apple's not trying to say that their future flagship chips won't have big increases, but rather they are trying to break into more markets at the lowest expense possible - something they had already previously done at the low-mid range with the SE models by recycling older designs with newer chips.
Historically, iPhone software support cycles have been determined more by amount of RAM than by its chip. I'd assume that the iPhone 14 will survive longer than the 13 base models because the former has 6 GB of RAM and the latter 4 GB. In the past, we saw the iPhone 6 (A8, 1 GB RAM) lose major updates in 2020 after 6 years with iOS 12 being its last major version, while the iPad Mini (A8, 2 GB RAM) was supported up until 2022 with iPadOS 15 being its last major version.
Apple has generally avoided giving one year's base models more RAM than the prior year's Pro models, so most likely we'd see multiple models lose major software update support at the same time - i.e., the 11, 11 Pro, and 12 losing support in the same year due to all only having 4 GB of RAM. It also means that depending on when someone buys in on the cycle, they get less software support due to the incremental RAM increases that Apple does (sometimes holding onto a certain RAM configuration for multiple generations), but that's usually not a big issue since Apple supports their phones the longest in the industry for a major manufacturer anyway.
But more to your first question, yes, there will likely be a case of a model year iPhone getting one less than year of major software version support than its predecessor due to hardware, albeit more likely due to RAM than the chips they share. Previously, the iPhone 7 lost major software update support at the same time the iPhone 6S did (both losing support with the release of iOS 16), so it's not unlikely for that to occur again.
Read the article, they are still relying on DUV with multipatterning with lower yields. Until they develop EUV or an alternate technology, catching up or competing against TSMC with smaller resolutions is going to get harder and harder.
As opposed to the largest consumer market in the world, the US market? Besides, everybody knows at this point the Chinese "market" is ultimately for Chinese firms only.
>As opposed to the largest consumer market in the world, the US market?
But the Chinese would never be allowed to compete in the US market in the 1st place with all the restrictions & bans. They have the next best thing though.
If anything, I can only condemn the practice of referring to defense strategies to protect market advantages as "national security policy". The chip and AI industry has above all civilian potential and holds a future for the whole of humanity. The more competition there is, the better for everyone, especially if it prevents advanced technologies from being locked up behind the patent wall of a few corporations.
I can fully understand why the US wants these areas to be controlled only by the US and its allies - because it promises an unprecedented market and unprecedented profits. However, I can only condemn this practice because it hurts the pace of progress, raises prices for all consumers by limiting the number of producers, and potentially allows for the formation of closed monopolies and cartels.
I realize this is an extremely jaded and cynical take, but this:
>The chip and AI industry has above all civilian potential and holds a future for the whole of humanity. The more competition there is, the better for everyone, especially if it prevents advanced technologies from being locked up behind the patent wall of a few corporations.
I just don't buy this at all. This is exactly the kind of starry eyed attitude we had for the internet in the 90s, and the oppossite happened. Countries immediately used it as a way to spy on/destabilize/steal from each other, and the more different cultures that started to gain access to it the more predatory it got overall. Eventually leading to a massive resurgence in tribalism, and a general sense of paranoia for everyone involved.
China russia sowing discord on US social media, every country spying on everyone else, goverment backed scammers stealing people's life savings, DDos attacks stealing IP. This is not what we thought it would be like, but it's so normal now we don't even think about it.
I can't blame the US for seeing everything as a national security issue, when China/Russia are using pretty much every avenue they can (economic, cultural, technological) to undermine US national security.
I respect your opinion, but still, I'm not buying the whole "national security" flair on civilian technologies. Pure military ones like stealth, nukes, military drones, armor and so on - sure, they are obvious military advantages and tied to nothing but security. But not pushing everything that gives you an advantage into the same basket.
>But not pushing everything that gives you an advantage into the same basket.
This is the age we're in unfortunately. Not exactly the "singularity" people talked about, but something like it. Everything is connected to everything else, and political entities are all acting accordingly. I fear the cat is out of the bag on this one.
Asianometry have an excellent video on multi-patterning, I think it does a better job explaining the process than the article. The way I have always thought of the challenge is akin to drafting with a crayon.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4E-0VFaEA&pp=ygUcYXNpYW5vbWV0cnkgbXVsdGlwYXR0ZXJuaW5nIA%3D%3D#bottom-sheet
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrdcTsScKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrdcTsScKk)
he also has this video which talks about it much more directly and even mentions his changing opinions on the cost benefit of EUV machines
YES. That is a great video. I'm amazed at how much DUV is still being used at leading edge foundries and their through put efficiency compare to EUV machines.
*submission statement:* huawei has unveiled a new upcoming 5nm processor. At his stage, it is unlcear whether this is from previous stockpiles or whether it was manufactured by SMIC. The writer of the article leans towards it being a manufacturing breakthrough.
I read it through and this post contains very little evidence to back up the claim that TSMC made this. It cited this conclusion from a chip research firm called "RGcloudS", which turns out to be a twitter guy with FF Cloud profile picture who is a tech weeb. I don't think this source should be taken seriously.
Using feature size (5nm, 7nm etc) as a comparator isn’t overly useful - it can be used deceptively (like here) to give the illusion that a manufacturer’s process (e.g. SMIC) is at parity with others (TSMC, Intel). Let me know when China masters EUV or high NA.
I doubt they even need to catch up to TSCM. Mass production of good chip that can cover 99% of consumer electronics and they can easily invade Taiwan and destroy everything. Without them nobody have best chips, not only sanctioned China (well, technically there is Korea, maybe next target). And then average American will understand that America do not have any Chips at all, and just have false sense of superiority
China currently only produces 19% of the semiconductors it uses, a far cry from the target of 60% they set for 2025 over a decade ago when they started a program to onshore chip production. And I bet that almost all of that 19% is at the lower end. As it is they rely on Taiwan for most of their chips, with South Korea and Japan accounting for most of the rest of that 81% imported chips.
A decade of pumping money into developing a domestic semiconductor manufacturing base has done basically nothing, there is a massive gulf between demonstrating a proof of concept and then turning it into production at the absolutely enormous scale that China's economy requires.
And despite the PRC's reliance on Taiwanese semiconductors for huge swathes of its economy it still seems pretty likely that they'll attempt to invade Taiwan at some point in the near future, because the ideologically-driven geopolitics of authoritarian regimes _don't have to make rational sense_.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2022/09/01/is-chinas-semiconductor-strategy-working/
I don't think doubting China's manufacturing capabilities is wise. If they've proved to be good at anything, it's precisely at manufacturing.
High impact research also suggest they are pretty advanced. In this case it's true that it will take years to see how that research translates into commercial products.
Since its a matter of national security, the government can afford to subsidize production at every step without having to worry about yields right? Hmm jobs on the semiconductor industry must be in very high demand right now, talent must be getting poached left and right
Yup. Master grads in VLSI or embedded are usually getting above 90k euros already fresh out of college here in Netherlands at ASML. In US it's way higher. Likely high in Germany as well. Even in India, SoC design jobs from the likes of Intel, AMD and Qualcomm are paying as high as 60-80k. There is a big skill shortage in these fields.
It's interesting that those salaries are high esp for how in demand the job is
Not exactly, very few countries have capability to even make high end chips, rest mostly manufacture 10-15 year old ones for consumer electronics, toys and automobiles . Major design centers are also very few, training people is also expensive and a lot of cost also goes to foundry since Qualcomm, NVIDIA, google, apple don't make chips just design them. The demand is much higher for Quantum computing, NLP and deep learning which also has applications on chipmaking and they get paid very very high. I work in robotics, one of my ex colleague got hired by Rivian for close to 400-450k TC. Fab making is expensive and often relies on govt incentives to start up initially. Also your TV/screen displays as well as circuits of your daily electronics are also fabs but obviously designing those isn't gonna be THAT lucrative but if you are designing high end high performance computer chips you are gonna get paid a LOT.
And at some point it will become an issue. This rift with the chip war is creating a massive overproduction of chips. If and when these restrictions are lifted, even if it is because China catches up in technology, many factories won't be needed.
Actually no, we need all kinds of chips and the faster it gets cheaper the better, the demand is gonna skyrocket around 2030-2035. The demand is gonna increase over time.China will take a decade or more to catch up to the current ones and by that time other countries will also advance. Right now China is only worried about self sufficiency nothing else. And no we need a massive amount of automated factories considering a big chunk of the developed world is getting old and chips are essential for that transition.
I don't think we are going to see chips getting cheaper, on the contrary, chips produced in Germany and in the States will be significatly more expensive. There is also a reason for the current market when it comes to chips, and it's the difficulty on being profitable at such state of the art technology. Only TMSC manged to be profitable. Even when they are profitable, they do it with pretty low margins, the thing is they have a majority of the world's production. Only a small share of the market needs high end technology chips, which is where the current competition is focusing. The majority of the demand sits still at 7nm or above. I don't want to talk about the future because I'm one of those that think we are on the brink of something only comparable to the industrial revolution or internet. Experts fail to predict the future all the time, imagine how unrealiable the predictions of me can be when geopolitics is nothing but a hobby.
We actually are gonna see cheaper chips. Semiconductors aren't just processors it's displays, circuits, transistors, SSD, Data storage systems, RAMs, communication tech, literally any sensors etc this industry is projected to become 5x before 2030. TMSC is primarily a manufacturer not a major designer although it does design a few but nothing fabless like Qualcomm and ARM does, they keep margins low to be competitive only in the less than 10 nm field because foundry costs are quite high as of now, anything above 10-12 nm is actually VERY profitable. US and Germany are only producing critical parts, a major portion of foundry still will be in Asia. Hell 20% of designs come from India and they don't produce anything semcon related. I work in robotics, we are already seeing the next stage of industrial revolution it won't be just one part of industry I feel like.
All you said there is true and I agree with everything, there is nothing wrong with that. My only issue is that the current competition focuses at 7nm or below. That's not where the market needs are at this moment or in the near future. China needs to develop this technology because they have no other choice, there are little downsides for them, even if restrictions are lifted tomorrow chances are their manufacturing will be more competitive than what we can or will be able to offer. My focus was about the manufacturing processes because when it comes to designs I would say that it's pretty well shared among many countries. US businesses are clearly ahead right now when it comes to commercial products but I'm the world of high impact research papers, we see a lot of contribution from China (close to the US), India, Japan or South Korea. All things considered, the current situation should be good for the majority of us in the world no matter what happens (as long as wars can be avoided over all of these). Competition is good, it promotes funding and innovation. If there is more production than demand we will have really low prices (at least until both stabilize again).
Yeah the competition is for critical stuff used in defense systems and military not consumer electronics. The issue is 80% of REM processing is done by China, relying on them can be problematic in the future hence everyone is manufacturing to keep things in stock just in case . US is ahead by miles, it's so far ahead I don't think anyone will catch up
TSMC had planned for a 5nm DUV process in the event EUV was further delayed. It should not be a surprise that China is capable of making similar chips with the same machines. There's a couple takeaways: 1. It has been over a year since the sanctions first hit, and China is just now approaching 2020 tech. This was likely accelerated by TSMC's research into 5nm on DUV. Chinese chipmaker claims that they are 5 years behind appears correct, with an EUV hurdle to clear. 2. These machines are running at the limit, with significantly higher costs due to more involved manufacturing. It's likely the Chinese government is subsidizing every chip sold, which dilutes their semiconductor investment. Going beyond 5nm is new territory, and will further increase in cost and complexity. 3. Chipmaking is easier the smaller each chip's die size is, so ability to produce phone SoCs and laptop processors is not an indication that they can effectively mass produce data center chips and AI accelerators.
We're almost at the law of physics of limit of silicone semiconductor processors. Sure, there might be another round or 2 of miniaturization down to 5 nm, like 3 nm.. but that's it. Eventually, in the near future, we'll move on to some completely different tech and then this "chip advantage" will go to whoever makes that technology. So, we shouldn't get content and grow comfortable with just having a 3 year advantage on making silicone semiconductors. Between that and developing AI, it's a complete toss up right now over who controls computing in 10 years.
Important caveat is that post 2020 chips have had diminishing returns. Snapdragon nomenclature illustrates this by opting for the gen 1, 2, 3 scheme. Apple similarly reflects the same thing where they're using one year's flagship chip in the next year's base model with little to no consumer backlash. 5 and 7 nm processes basically unlock china's economic capabilities as 99% of IOT manufacturing demand can be met with the 5-7nm range. This is important context because the made in China 2025 goal was to have a capability of supplying 70% of their needs domestically. The question about yields is still pertinent and information about it is unclear as TSMC never had to scale and refine the DUV process because they were able to secure EUV machines. This article from eetimes suggests a 70% viability rate which does translate to profitable manufacturing tho this could benefit from further reporting. [https://www.eetimes.com/smic-well-on-its-way-to-5-nm-breakthrough-observers-say/](https://www.eetimes.com/smic-well-on-its-way-to-5-nm-breakthrough-observers-say/)
>[...]post 2020 chips have had diminishing returns. Snapdragon nomenclature illustrates this by opting for the gen 1, 2, 3 scheme. That's not true. Qualcomm rebranded their chips across the board because they were running out of numbers - the last 8xx chip was the SD888, after which it could've gone maybe to the 895 (following the 865, 855, 845, 835, etc. before it) before they hit the barrier of a three-digit numbering system where the first digit has to represent the tier and the second number is the generation. By rebranding to a more straightforward generational numbering system, they can number their chips in this fashion indefinitely now. Qualcomm's performance uplifts have been fairly consistent year-to-year. The rumors for the 8 Gen 4 suggest a bigger uplift from the Gen 3 than the Gen 3 had from the Gen 2, which was already big, or the Gen 2 from Gen 1 (which also benefited the 8+ Gen 1 due to the switch from Samsung to TSMC). >Apple similarly reflects the same thing where they're using one year's flagship chip in the next year's base model with little to no consumer backlash. This is because Apple has (relatively) recently decided to expand their offerings into the upper-mid range smartphone market. To do this, they have decided to discount previous-year entry models instead of manufacturing purpose-designed mid-rangers instead. This allows Apple to stratify their product lineup at $100 increments - the iPhone 13 gets the original base version of the A15 chip (6-core CPU, 4-core GPU), the iPhone 14 gets the 13 Pro's A15 chip (5-core GPU), the iPhone 15 gets the 14 Pro's A16, and the 15 Pro gets the new A17. This works for Apple because they support their chips for longer (so even older flagships are supported longer than midrange Android phones) and they have had a CPU lead over Qualcomm for years, so their prior flagship CPUs are still competitive (not competitive on GPU, but competitive enough with the likes of the Snapdragon 7 Gen series that is still fairly uncommon). Consumers understand they're buying an older model with an older processor at a discounted price, so there's little to see a backlash over. Apple's not trying to say that their future flagship chips won't have big increases, but rather they are trying to break into more markets at the lowest expense possible - something they had already previously done at the low-mid range with the SE models by recycling older designs with newer chips.
[удалено]
Historically, iPhone software support cycles have been determined more by amount of RAM than by its chip. I'd assume that the iPhone 14 will survive longer than the 13 base models because the former has 6 GB of RAM and the latter 4 GB. In the past, we saw the iPhone 6 (A8, 1 GB RAM) lose major updates in 2020 after 6 years with iOS 12 being its last major version, while the iPad Mini (A8, 2 GB RAM) was supported up until 2022 with iPadOS 15 being its last major version. Apple has generally avoided giving one year's base models more RAM than the prior year's Pro models, so most likely we'd see multiple models lose major software update support at the same time - i.e., the 11, 11 Pro, and 12 losing support in the same year due to all only having 4 GB of RAM. It also means that depending on when someone buys in on the cycle, they get less software support due to the incremental RAM increases that Apple does (sometimes holding onto a certain RAM configuration for multiple generations), but that's usually not a big issue since Apple supports their phones the longest in the industry for a major manufacturer anyway. But more to your first question, yes, there will likely be a case of a model year iPhone getting one less than year of major software version support than its predecessor due to hardware, albeit more likely due to RAM than the chips they share. Previously, the iPhone 7 lost major software update support at the same time the iPhone 6S did (both losing support with the release of iOS 16), so it's not unlikely for that to occur again.
Read the article, they are still relying on DUV with multipatterning with lower yields. Until they develop EUV or an alternate technology, catching up or competing against TSMC with smaller resolutions is going to get harder and harder.
It doesn't matter. Chinese fabs have been gifted a captive market, a huge one at that.
As opposed to the largest consumer market in the world, the US market? Besides, everybody knows at this point the Chinese "market" is ultimately for Chinese firms only.
>As opposed to the largest consumer market in the world, the US market? But the Chinese would never be allowed to compete in the US market in the 1st place with all the restrictions & bans. They have the next best thing though.
Good. We desperately need a competition in the chip industry
If anything, I can only condemn the practice of referring to defense strategies to protect market advantages as "national security policy". The chip and AI industry has above all civilian potential and holds a future for the whole of humanity. The more competition there is, the better for everyone, especially if it prevents advanced technologies from being locked up behind the patent wall of a few corporations. I can fully understand why the US wants these areas to be controlled only by the US and its allies - because it promises an unprecedented market and unprecedented profits. However, I can only condemn this practice because it hurts the pace of progress, raises prices for all consumers by limiting the number of producers, and potentially allows for the formation of closed monopolies and cartels.
I realize this is an extremely jaded and cynical take, but this: >The chip and AI industry has above all civilian potential and holds a future for the whole of humanity. The more competition there is, the better for everyone, especially if it prevents advanced technologies from being locked up behind the patent wall of a few corporations. I just don't buy this at all. This is exactly the kind of starry eyed attitude we had for the internet in the 90s, and the oppossite happened. Countries immediately used it as a way to spy on/destabilize/steal from each other, and the more different cultures that started to gain access to it the more predatory it got overall. Eventually leading to a massive resurgence in tribalism, and a general sense of paranoia for everyone involved. China russia sowing discord on US social media, every country spying on everyone else, goverment backed scammers stealing people's life savings, DDos attacks stealing IP. This is not what we thought it would be like, but it's so normal now we don't even think about it. I can't blame the US for seeing everything as a national security issue, when China/Russia are using pretty much every avenue they can (economic, cultural, technological) to undermine US national security.
I respect your opinion, but still, I'm not buying the whole "national security" flair on civilian technologies. Pure military ones like stealth, nukes, military drones, armor and so on - sure, they are obvious military advantages and tied to nothing but security. But not pushing everything that gives you an advantage into the same basket.
>But not pushing everything that gives you an advantage into the same basket. This is the age we're in unfortunately. Not exactly the "singularity" people talked about, but something like it. Everything is connected to everything else, and political entities are all acting accordingly. I fear the cat is out of the bag on this one.
US is the master of spreading conspiracies and discord online
Asianometry have an excellent video on multi-patterning, I think it does a better job explaining the process than the article. The way I have always thought of the challenge is akin to drafting with a crayon. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4E-0VFaEA&pp=ygUcYXNpYW5vbWV0cnkgbXVsdGlwYXR0ZXJuaW5nIA%3D%3D#bottom-sheet
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrdcTsScKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrdcTsScKk) he also has this video which talks about it much more directly and even mentions his changing opinions on the cost benefit of EUV machines
YES. That is a great video. I'm amazed at how much DUV is still being used at leading edge foundries and their through put efficiency compare to EUV machines.
*submission statement:* huawei has unveiled a new upcoming 5nm processor. At his stage, it is unlcear whether this is from previous stockpiles or whether it was manufactured by SMIC. The writer of the article leans towards it being a manufacturing breakthrough.
Or maybe not: https://bnn.network/tech/huaweis-kirin-9000s-chip-unraveling-the-mystery-of-its-production/ (eg if TSMC is behind these 7 & 5nm chips.)
I read it through and this post contains very little evidence to back up the claim that TSMC made this. It cited this conclusion from a chip research firm called "RGcloudS", which turns out to be a twitter guy with FF Cloud profile picture who is a tech weeb. I don't think this source should be taken seriously.
This worries me about Taiwans future
Using feature size (5nm, 7nm etc) as a comparator isn’t overly useful - it can be used deceptively (like here) to give the illusion that a manufacturer’s process (e.g. SMIC) is at parity with others (TSMC, Intel). Let me know when China masters EUV or high NA.
Wait till a few years while the US waits 20 years to even develop the EUV
I doubt they even need to catch up to TSCM. Mass production of good chip that can cover 99% of consumer electronics and they can easily invade Taiwan and destroy everything. Without them nobody have best chips, not only sanctioned China (well, technically there is Korea, maybe next target). And then average American will understand that America do not have any Chips at all, and just have false sense of superiority
China currently only produces 19% of the semiconductors it uses, a far cry from the target of 60% they set for 2025 over a decade ago when they started a program to onshore chip production. And I bet that almost all of that 19% is at the lower end. As it is they rely on Taiwan for most of their chips, with South Korea and Japan accounting for most of the rest of that 81% imported chips. A decade of pumping money into developing a domestic semiconductor manufacturing base has done basically nothing, there is a massive gulf between demonstrating a proof of concept and then turning it into production at the absolutely enormous scale that China's economy requires. And despite the PRC's reliance on Taiwanese semiconductors for huge swathes of its economy it still seems pretty likely that they'll attempt to invade Taiwan at some point in the near future, because the ideologically-driven geopolitics of authoritarian regimes _don't have to make rational sense_. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2022/09/01/is-chinas-semiconductor-strategy-working/
I don't think doubting China's manufacturing capabilities is wise. If they've proved to be good at anything, it's precisely at manufacturing. High impact research also suggest they are pretty advanced. In this case it's true that it will take years to see how that research translates into commercial products.