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Opinionated - China Chipping Away to Semiconductor Dominance

Tsinghua Unigroup in new push to raise its chip capacity

By Ma Si | China Daily | Updated: 2019-06-04

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Visitors gather at the booth of Tsinghua Unigroup at the China Information Technology Expo in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Tuesday. [Photo by Xuan Hui / for China Daily]

Chinese top chipmaker Tsinghua Unigroup is consolidating its semiconductor business through reshuffling subsidiaries, including one that has written big checks to buy Linxens, a French smart chip components maker.

Shenzhen-listed Unigroup Guoxin Microelectronics Co said in a filing on Sunday night that it plans to issue new shares to fully acquire Beijing Unigroup Liansheng Technology Co, a unit controlled by parent Unigroup.

The initial price of Unigroup Liansheng is set at around 18 billion yuan ($2.6 billion). The main asset of Unigroup Liansheng is Linxens, a French smart chip components maker that Unigroup acquired last year.

The move is the first time Unigroup has disclosed the price of the Linxens deal, making it the biggest-ever overseas acquisition the Beijing-based company has made since it entered the semiconductor sector six years ago.

Linxens, which was founded in 1979, provides flexible connectors used in smart cards. Its clients are from sectors including telecom, hotel, finance, e-governance, and the internet of things, with a presence in France, Germany, Singapore, Thailand, China and other countries and regions.

Shares of Unigroup Guoxin surged by the daily limit of 10 percent to 49.62 yuan ($7.18) after they resumed trading on Monday.

Shen Meng, director of boutique investment bank Chanson and Co, said Tsinghua Unigroup is making a push into semiconductors, with an aim to manufacture all types of chips.

By acquiring Linxens, Unigroup Guoxin can better integrate industrial chain resources, beef up its role in its existing smart security chip business and offer better products to government agencies and State-owned enterprises, Shen said.

The announcement came as Chinese companies step up their push to grow the homegrown chip industry. It is also the latest push by Unigroup to expand its business in the sector.

The parent group acquired Spreadtrum Communications Inc, the world's third-largest mobile phone chipmaker back then, in 2013. Later, it also bought RDA Microelectronics Inc, the fourth-largest. Unigroup is also building a large memory chip plant in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, to reduce the country's reliance on foreign memory processors.

China is the world's largest semiconductor market. It spends more on importing chips than it does on crude oil imports. In 2018, its chip imports exceeded $312 billion, up from $260 billion in 2017, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show.

In May, the State Council offered fresh confidence and impetus to the country's integrated circuit and software sectors with its decision to continue preferential corporate tax policies.

Chip designers and software producers will be exempt from corporate taxes for two years. For the following three years, their corporate taxes will be halved.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, said globally competitive homegrown processors are a must for Chinese tech companies to ensure strategic security.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201906/04/WS5cf5c5d2a310519142700dff.html
 
China ramps up its own semiconductor industry amid the trade war

  • The U.S.-China trade war and the threat that Chinese firms could be cut off from American technology is boosting China’s push for its own semiconductor industry.
  • Still, experts say it would take at least a decade for China to close the gap with the U.S. on chip technology.
  • But ultimately, the development of a homegrown semiconductor industry may hurt American firms.
 
Chinese Scientists Invent New Structure to Spur Smaller Chips

XINHUA
DATE : JUN 04 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

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Chinese Scientists Invent New Structure to Spur Smaller Chips

(Yicai Global) June 4 -- A research team from Shanghai's Fudan University has invented a transistor structure that may shrink this type of semiconductor devices by 50 percent. The new technology could make electronic gadgets smaller, lighter, and more powerful.

image-311.jpg

Researchers were observing the surface of a silicon wafer. The new invention was published in Nature Publishing Group's science journal Nature Nanotechnology.

image-250877.jpg

Transistors are used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power.

image-403837.jpg

Scientists were cleaning a silicon wafer in the lab.

image-522471.jpg

Editor: Emmi Laine

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/chinese-scientists-invent-new-structure-to-spur-smaller-chips

@qwerrty , @cirr
 
Chinese Scientists Invent New Structure to Spur Smaller Chips

XINHUA
DATE : JUN 04 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

top.jpg
Chinese Scientists Invent New Structure to Spur Smaller Chips

(Yicai Global) June 4 -- A research team from Shanghai's Fudan University has invented a transistor structure that may shrink this type of semiconductor devices by 50 percent. The new technology could make electronic gadgets smaller, lighter, and more powerful.

image-311.jpg

Researchers were observing the surface of a silicon wafer. The new invention was published in Nature Publishing Group's science journal Nature Nanotechnology.

image-250877.jpg

Transistors are used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power.

image-403837.jpg

Scientists were cleaning a silicon wafer in the lab.

image-522471.jpg

Editor: Emmi Laine

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/chinese-scientists-invent-new-structure-to-spur-smaller-chips

@qwerrty , @cirr

Such new structures keep getting invented regularly.

These are purely for research purposes, not industry related, or immediately transferrable. Otherwise China would not have been in such a bad shape.
 
Such new structures keep getting invented regularly.

These are purely for research purposes, not industry related, or immediately transferrable. Otherwise China would not have been in such a bad shape.

It depends which country China is being compared with.
 
It depends which country China is being compared with.
Yes. Compared to who? Are we really in a bad shape? You close us and we still can produce all the chips we need although not at the latest node. That's more for commercial purposes that require latest node. Militarily, we are self sufficient unlike some other country. Lol
 
The following article from IEEE spectrum talk about China US trade war on semiconductor industry of both countries from US perspective.

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5 Jun 2019 | 18:06 GMT
U.S.-China Trade War Portends Painful Times for U.S. Semiconductor Industry - IEEE Spectrum
Semiconductor industry mavens in the United States anticipate damage from U.S.-China trade policy and call for a national strategy for semiconductor manufacturing

By Tekla S. Perry

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Photo: Shutterstock

“There is going to be a lot of pain for the semiconductor industry before it normalizes,” says Dan Hutcheson.

“It’s a mess, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” says David French.

“If we aren’t going to sell them chips, it is not going to take them long [to catch up to us]; it is going to hurt us,” says Mar Hershenson.

French, Hutcheson, and Hershenson, along with Ann Kim and Pete Rodriguez, were discussing the U.S.-China trade war that escalated last month when the United States placed communications behemoth Huawei on a trade blacklist. All five are semiconductor industry veterans and investors: French is currently chairman of Silicon Power Technology; Hutcheson is CEO of VLSI Research; Hershenson is managing partner of Pear Ventures, Kim is managing director of Silicon Valley Bank’s Frontier Technology Group, and Rodriguez is CEO of startup incubator Silicon Catalyst. The five took the stage at Silicon Catalyst’s second industry forum, held in Santa Clara, Calif., last week to discuss several aspects of the trade war:
Effects on China
Tight trade policies, these semiconductor industry veterans expect, will hurt the U.S. industry more than China. “The consumption of semiconductors in China is 40 to 50 percent” of the world supply, said French. “And that number is going to go up whether we sell to them or not.”

Can China’s tech industry really do just fine without U.S. chips? The panelists debated the question.

“I think China is going to struggle with memory,” Hutcheson said. “In memory, the costs are in the equipment and the efficiencies of running the fab; only 5 percent of the cost is labor. That is going to be difficult for them, to have to get materials and equipment from around world.”

French disagreed. “If we take a policy of not selling the best stuff to China,” he said, “if they are forced to use their own [technology], they will, even if it’s a little bit worse.”

“Maybe they can be competitive in China where they are protected,” Hutcheson countered, “but they won’t be able to sell outside China.”

That won’t matter, Kim indicated. “If you are the dominant player in China, you are already doing good.”

On IP theft
But what about all that theft of intellectual property, Rodriguez asked the group. Shouldn’t China be punished?

“IP theft is a big emotional issue, and there is legitimacy to the issue,” French said. “But I don’t think China has cornered the market on IP theft. I don’t think they are the best at it or the most prolific.”

“If there were people from 19th century Britain,” he mused, “they would say the same thing about Americans.”

In any case, it’s a short-term problem. When China’s home-grown intellectual property “gets to a significant level—and it will—China will become more about the protection of IP than acquisition,” French said, reminding the audience that Japanese tech companies followed a similar path.

Hutcheson pointed further back in history. “Europeans today are competitive even though we stole all their tech in the 19th century,” he said. “We all love German cars, we buy European products.”

On immigration policy
Restrictive immigration policies are also hurting the semiconductor industry, the panelists indicated, particularly in an era in which U.S. students are tending to ignore electrical engineering and other hardware-oriented fields in favor of computer science programs.

“The immigration problem is real,” said Hershenson. “When I did my graduate research, 70 percent of the students in my group were from Iran; for the last couple of years, Iranians can’t even come to the country.”

Hutcheson agreed: “That’s the American strength, bringing those people in. The diversity of our industry makes us strong, brings new ideas, [and] radical thinking.”

A member of the audience of about 150 asked for a show of hands from those attendees who weren’t born in the United States. The vast majority of people raised a hand.

A call for a national strategy
So what should the United States do, besides back down on restrictions on trade with China and be more open to skilled immigrants?

“I believe we should have a national strategy on semiconductors,” said French. “And I believe we should invest as a country, through the government, in advanced technology for manufacturing semiconductors.”

“If we focus as a country on being number one in semiconductor manufacturing,” he continued, “we could do that for a small percentage of our military defense budget. I truly believe that we need to continue to be a leader in semiconductors if we want to be the leading economy in the world.”

Rodriguez pointed out that a set of government policy recommendations released in April by the Semiconductor Industry Association talked about 5G, AI, and quantum computing, but not about a national strategy to support semiconductor manufacturing. That, he indicated, was a significant oversight.

Some audience members countered that various arms of the U.S. government do invest in semiconductor companies, but others pointed out that these initiatives, for the most part, come out of defense-related entities. Said one, “That’s all well and good, but the defense department has a different economic model than commercial industry.”

The missing investment dollars
Building semiconductor foundries is not cheap, several attendees pointed out. “Companies can’t do it because payback analysis fails,” French said. “And you can’t do it with venture capital.”

While the venture capital model doesn’t make sense for semiconductor foundries, Hershenson pointed out that a lot of semiconductor innovation on other fronts has been funded by startups and venture capital.

“But,” she said, “there’s been a drought of it in the last 15 years. It used to be, you went to any Sand Hill [venture] firm and they had someone who knew something about semiconductors; now, most megafirms don’t. So, how do we support innovation?”

“I can start a software company at Starbucks,” she said. “I can’t do a custom microprocessor without money.”

Maybe, the panelists suggested, the industry needs to do better at marketing itself, making itself as cool as it was back in the days of the space race. Just how to do that, however, is not clear—nor will it be easy.

There’s such a bias against hardware these days, Kim pointed out, that “hardware companies have started avoiding using the word hardware. They are just saying it’s a form factor that collects data.”
 
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For those that are wondering, the Hygon 7185 is a 32 core server CPU. 2.0 GHz. TDP 180W. EPYC 7551 equivalent.



Yes, a big thank you to AMD for transferring the x86 ISA and Zen core into China for a measly $293 million and some royalties.

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SMIC To Start 14nm Mass Production in H1 2019
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13941/smics-14-nm-mass-production-in-1h-2019


AMD has already said that it will no longer transfer its IP and core designs to its Chinese venture.

So basically this whole AMD Chinese venture which was formed when US-China relations were decent, has now become a still born.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-china-x86-ip-license,39573.html

Also, why does this thread have the name "China chipping away to semiconductor dominance?"

China is not even at the tier 2 level of semiconductor expertise, forget about dominance.
 
AMD has already said that it will no longer transfer its IP and core designs to its Chinese venture.

So basically this whole AMD Chinese venture which was formed when US-China relations were decent, has now become a still born.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-china-x86-ip-license,39573.html

Also, why does this thread have the name "China chipping away to semiconductor dominance?"

China is not even at the tier 2 level of semiconductor expertise, forget about dominance.

China is going to dominate the semiconductor industry in a couple of years
 
AMD has already said that it will no longer transfer its IP and core designs to its Chinese venture.

So basically this whole AMD Chinese venture which was formed when US-China relations were decent, has now become a still born.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-china-x86-ip-license,39573.html

Also, why does this thread have the name "China chipping away to semiconductor dominance?"

China is not even at the tier 2 level of semiconductor expertise, forget about dominance.
No worries Buss, China will implode, all our technologies will be gone and we will be the same like India. =). If you don't like the title, you can always leave, but too much good news attract bees right? We develop 3nm transistors, you say it's useless, we develop quantum chips, it's useless, we develop EUV equipment, it's useless, so where is India in this regard? ZEROOOOOO :rofl::rofl::rofl:

We are used to being bashed, every bash makes China stronger, we are richer now 5x your ocuntry, we are well fed, we clean up out country, we build world class infrastructure, we have a decent defence industry. All of this are things you can only dream of....:china:. Am I proud and should I be proud, yes of course. But we will still continue working hard. So please Buss, continue your tirade of saying everything China does is useless, we willbe beaten, it doesn't matter, we will still not give up. That's why we are theonly real rival to US and you are just another US poodle. :D
 
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No worries Buss, China will implode, all our technologies will be gone and we will be the same like India. =). If you don't like the title, you can always leave, but too much good news attract bees right? We develop 3nm transistors, you say it's useless, we develop quantum chips, it's useless, we develop EUV equipment, it's useless, so where is India in this regard? ZEROOOOOO :rofl::rofl::rofl:

We are used to being bashed, every bash makes China stronger, we are richer now 5x your ocuntry, we are well fed, we clean up out country, we build world class infrastructure, we have a decent defence industry. All of this are things you can only dream of....:china:. Am I proud and should I be proud, yes of course. But we will still continue working hard. So please Buss, continue your tirade of saying everything China does is useless, we willbe beaten, it doesn't matter, we will still not give up. That's why we are theonly real rival to US and you are just another US poodle. :D

You keep drawing strawmans over strawmans.

My reply was to the person who somehow was trying to display as if Dhyana was an answer to China's problems, which it is not.

Also, 3 nm transistors.. only research lab based. People in many labs have done this.

Quantum chips? Guess what? The team for Google is leading the area of quantum chips.

EUV equipment? There is only one vendor in the world ASML. Just claiming that you did something doesn't make it true. You need to prove it by making it commercially available and in use.

Also, I am not against facts. I am against this notion that some people here have that you have somehow reached the level of US or can challenge the US, which is totally untrue. In fact, my comments are actually more helpful to you than the other way around.

No worries Buss, China will implode, all our technologies will be gone and we will be the same like India. =). If you don't like the title, you can always leave, but too much good news attract bees right?

I am not saying you will implode or lose all your tech.

You can't lose tech that you don't even have.

This thread's title is a blind fanboy's idiotic dream.

Now China is being spanked by the US and I thought maybe you will NOW see the reality.

A person who can't see the reality, will definitely commit mistakes and disasters.

China is going to dominate the semiconductor industry in a couple of years

Okay keep the thread title then. Right now you are not even in the league of Korea or Japan, leave alone the US.
 
AMD has already said that it will no longer transfer its IP and core designs to its Chinese venture.

So basically this whole AMD Chinese venture which was formed when US-China relations were decent, has now become a still born.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-zen-china-x86-ip-license,39573.html

China doesn't need the Zen core design. China needs the x86 ISA, which we got. Does Intel use the Zen core? Does Zhaoxin use the Zen core? Prior to the Zen core, AMD used the Bulldozer microarchitecture. x86 compatibility is the key here. You don't need the core design.

China has already announced an exascale supercomputer based on Hygon x86 chips. I highly doubt the Zen 14nm is enough for exascale.
sugon-prototype-slide-800x492.jpg


So if this supercomputer is cancelled, that means China needed AMD's core designs.
But if this project goes forward? :agree:
Either way, you'll find out within 2 years.
 
You keep drawing strawmans over strawmans.

My reply was to the person who somehow was trying to display as if Dhyana was an answer to China's problems, which it is not.
Nobody said Dhyana is the ANSWER to China's problem, it's not even using our own architecture like Shenwei or Godson. You are the one jumping up and done whenever we achieve something comparable of better than the west. Check the specs of that chip and tell me if it isn't impressive. That's something India can never achieve.=)

Also, 3 nm transistors.. only research lab based. People in many labs have done this.

Quantum chips? Guess what? The team for Google is leading the area of quantum chips.
Everything starts from the lab, so is India having any 3nm transistor? or a quantum chip? That's why the title of this thread is 'chipping away' we are in the race, to compete, we might be behind in some, but we are certainly ahead in some too. You are as if trying really hard to convince us we are not in the race, on the contrary, the US don't think so. Hell, a poor commie chinky country is now their biggest rival. We didn't announce it like bragging Indians, they saw our progress and felt threatened.

EUV equipment? There is only one vendor in the world ASML. Just claiming that you did something doesn't make it true. You need to prove it by making it commercially available and in use.
Key technologies of extreme ultraviolet lithography has past the final acceptance
http://english.ciomp.cas.cn/News/News_son/201708/t20170810_181864.html

Also, I am not against facts. I am against this notion that some people here have that you have somehow reached the level of US or can challenge the US, which is totally untrue. In fact, my comments are actually more helpful to you than the other way around.
NOBODY here said that, we are aiming to achieve that, you are the ONE SAYING WE CLAIM THIS. Did we? We are just humble hardworking Chinese. =)

I am not saying you will implode or lose all your tech.

You can't lose tech that you don't even have.

This thread's title is a blind fanboy's idiotic dream.

Now China is being spanked by the US and I thought maybe you will NOW see the reality. .
US spank us? And you think they are not suffering? Trade war goes both ways bhai, stop having this colonial mentality. No wonder Modi bends over so quickly when US asks him too. Cowardice country of braggarts! They deny us products, we just create it on our own, you can claim we can't do it, but what has history taught you? We plan, work hard, invest, we will achieve our goals. IF you don't try and talk of failure like Indians, you will forever be India.

A person who can't see the reality, will definitely commit mistakes and disasters.

Okay keep the thread title then. Right now you are not even in the league of Korea or Japan, leave alone the US.
You are the one not seeing the reality here. The results of our hard work is impressive, you know it. But yet you still dismiss it due to the envy. if India did what we did, you would have ejaculated in your pants.
We know we are behind, that's why we work hard and put in so many effort to achieve our goals. All these progress however minute they maybe in your eyes are light years ahead of whatever India can achieve. So saying we are catching up with US is not 'reality'? We are the only country besides US having both equipment and process technology for semiconductors, can Korea make their own equipment? Taiwan? Does Holland have the latest process technology? You need to understand the difference between having a 5nm equipment technology vs having 5nm process technology.

In conclusion, this is a thread to update us on our semiconductor progress, if you felt sour, just leave. Don't force us to accept your ideas. Told you, we will implode and fail, so best strategy is let us go down this horrendous path of progress and actually doing something to compete. We should stay idle like your country.
 

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