Huawei, SMIC chip advances cannot be stopped by ‘futile’ US sanctions, says TSMC and semiconductor veteran

[艹艹艹]

Huawei, SMIC chip advances cannot be stopped by ‘futile’ US sanctions, says TSMC and semiconductor veteran​

• Burn J. Lin, a well-regarded former vice-president at TSMC, said SMIC should be able to advance to making 5-nm chips with existing equipment
• The US should ‘ focus on maintaining its chip design leadership’, Lin said, instead of fighting China’s ‘whole nation strategy’

Published: 12:52pm, 27 Oct, 2023

The US won’t be able to stop Chinese firms from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) to Huawei Technologies from making progress in chip technology, according to one of the semiconductor industry’s leading figures.

SMIC and Huawei, which stunned Washington by unveiling a made-in-China phone processor, can use existing older machines to make even more sophisticated silicon, said Burn J. Lin, a former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) vice-president. SMIC should be able to advance to the next generation at 5 nanometres with machines from ASML Holding NV that it already operates, said Lin, who at TSMC championed the lithography technology that transformed chipmaking.

Huawei electrified the chip industry when it unveiled a 7-nm processor made by SMIC in the Mate 60 Pro, triggering celebration in China and accusations in the US that a campaign to contain the country’s tech ascent had failed. And Yangtze Memory Technologies Co is now also producing some of the most advanced memory chips in the industry. In October, the Biden administration tightened existing curbs to close loopholes through which the country may be accessing advanced American gear, marking a new phase in a struggle to influence technologies crucial to the economic and political balance.

But that may not stop China’s technological ascent, said Lin, who’s highly regarded in the industry for being the first person to propose immersion lithography, the technology that ASML’s core products rely on.

SMIC used ASML’s immersion lithography machines to make the 7-nm chip for Huawei. Beyond trying to reach the 5-nm milestone, it’s likely China will experiment with new materials or advanced chip packaging to make more powerful semiconductors, Lin said.

“It is just not possible for the US to completely prevent China from improving its chip technology,” Lin said in an interview this week at National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, where he serves as dean of the semiconductor research college. That echoed comments from Arm Holdings Plc boss Rene Haas this month.

“What the US really should do is to focus on maintaining its chip design leadership instead of trying to limit China’s progress, which is futile as China is adopting a whole nation strategy to boost its chip industry, and hurting the global economy,” Lin added.

In fact, the US may have inadvertently granted SMIC a golden opportunity, he argued.

In 2020, Washington effectively banned TSMC – supplier of the world’s most advanced silicon to Apple and Nvidia – from doing business with Huawei. That’s when SMIC stepped up to inherit the massive orders that helped it improve its manufacturing technique, Lin said. Representatives at SMIC and YMTC did not respond to requests for comment.

A debate is now raging in the US and beyond about whether Washington and its allies should step up their Chinese containment campaign. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said Washington doesn’t have evidence China can make advanced chips “at scale”. But Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said it’s “absolutely” a concern for Washington that the Asian nation could use 7-nm technology – or better – in military applications.

Industry analysts including Haitong International Securities’s Jeff Pu have estimated that Huawei could build as many as 70 million smartphones using its own Kirin chips in 2024 – not insignificant compared to the roughly 220 million iPhones that Apple ships annually.

In another area of concern for Washington, China is also charging ahead on memory chips – a more commoditised type of silicon than processors but still critical in everything from smartphones and AI training servers to military drones.

Canadian research firm TechInsights discovered an advanced chip made by Yangtze Memory in a solid state drive launched around July – months after US curbs announced last year forced foreign equipment suppliers to sever ties with the Chinese semiconductor company. TechInsights, which unearthed SMIC’s and Huawei’s 7-nm chip through a joint investigation with Bloomberg News, found the 232-layer quad-level cell 3D NAND die during a routine device teardown, calling it one of the most advanced it had seen.

“YMTC is quietly developing advanced technology despite being hampered by issues following sanctions,” TechInsights said in a blog post on Tuesday. “Evidence is mounting that China’s momentum to overcome trade restrictions and build its own domestic semiconductor supply chain is more successful than expected.”

 

[艹艹艹]

Canadian research firm TechInsights discovered an advanced chip made by Yangtze Memory in a solid state drive launched around July – months after US curbs announced last year forced foreign equipment suppliers to sever ties with the Chinese semiconductor company. TechInsights, which unearthed SMIC’s and Huawei’s 7-nm chip through a joint investigation with Bloomberg News, found the 232-layer quad-level cell 3D NAND die during a routine device teardown, calling it one of the most advanced it had seen.

“YMTC is quietly developing advanced technology despite being hampered by issues following sanctions,” TechInsights said in a blog post on Tuesday. “Evidence is mounting that China’s momentum to overcome trade restrictions and build its own domestic semiconductor supply chain is more successful than expected.”

China's YMTC makes world's most advanced memory chip in 'surprise technology leap': TechInsights report​

Thu, October 26, 2023 at 10:30 AM GMT+1·4 min read

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC), China's leading memory chip producer, has manufactured the "world's most advanced" 3D NAND memory chip known to be in a consumer device in a "surprise technology leap", according to a report by TechInights.

YMTC's memory chip, found in a solid-state drive launched quietly in July, shows that the manufacturer has continued to develop advanced technology despite being hampered by sanctions after it was placed on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, according to a Wednesday report by the semiconductor analysis firm.

The development follows an earlier teardown analysis by TechInsights of the Kirin 9000S 5G processor found in US-blacklisted Huawei Technologies' Mate 60 Pro smartphone released in August, which was said to be made by Chinese foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC). The powerful home-grown chip surprised many industry analysts given the tough US restrictions in place.

"Like the innovation revealed by TechInsights in the Huawei Mate 60 Pro's HiSilicon Kirin 9000s processor (which used the SMIC 7-nm (N+2) process), evidence is mounting that China's momentum to overcome trade restrictions and build its own domestic semiconductor supply chain is more successful than expected," said TechInsights in its report.

3D NAND memory is at the forefront of memory chip design and is an important component for high-performance computing in applications such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

YMTC and 21 other "major" Chinese players in the chip sector were added to the US Entity List in mid-December 2022 amid escalating trade and geopolitical tensions between the world's two largest economies.

At the time, the Wuhan-based chip manufacturer had been on track to challenge memory chip leaders Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology with a new flagship 3D NAND flash chip, the 232-layer X3-9070. Prospects for mass production of this chip faltered after US equipment suppliers KLA and Lam Research stopped sales and services to YMTC.

However, a recent downturn in the memory chip market and a renewed focus on cost-saving measures in the industry, may have provided YMTC with an opportunity to pull ahead with a more advanced, higher-bit density chip, according to TechInsights.

YMTC's latest progress in memory chip advancement was first reported in April when unnamed sources told the South China Morning Post that YMTC had doubled down on efforts to work with Chinese suppliers to help manufacture its most advanced chips. This effort was based on YMTC's "Xtacking 3.0" architecture and the sources said progress had been made in a top-secret project code-named Wudangshan.

Sources said that the project intended to use Chinese equipment only and that YMTC had placed big orders with domestic equipment suppliers, including Beijing-based Naura Technology Group, a leading Chinese maker of etching tools, which are also the primary product line of US-based Lam Research.

However, at the time, analysts flagged many outstanding choke points in China's chip manufacturing supply chain, such as the lack of viable domestic Chinese alternatives for chip-making tools, such as lithography systems available from Dutch company ASML Holding. The Dutch firm has a near monopoly position in the production of the world's most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines.

TechInsights did not comment in its report on whether YMTC's memory chips are thought to have been produced with exclusively Chinese-manufactured tools and components.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg released a report citing unnamed sources that said SMIC had used retooled equipment from ASML, specifically its deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems, to manufacture the advanced processor in the landmark Huawei smartphone.

The DUV process - when producing at scale - is estimated to be more expensive than using more advanced EUV lithography systems, which ASML has been prohibited from selling to China since 2019.

 

[Menthol]

I hope China able to produce 1-2nm chip, instead of 5nm.

5nm sounds like a big deal, but when China released 5nm chip in 2025, it's already way behind.