Opinionated - China Chipping Away to Semiconductor Dominance

[JSCh]

Fastprint Circuit Soars on Plan for USD436 Million Guangzhou IC Substrate Plant
YICAI GLOBAL
DATE : JUN 27 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

Fastprint Circuit Soars on Plan for USD436 Million Guangzhou IC Substrate Plant​

(Yicai Global) June 27 -- Fastprint Circuit Tech's shares gained by the daily trading limit after the Chinese semiconductor products maker laid out plans to build a integrated circuit substrate plant in the southern city of Guangzhou for about CNY3 billion (USD436.2 million.)

Fastprint Circuit signed an agreement with the Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone yesterday to set up production lines for integrated circuit substrate and relevant products, the Shenzhen-based company said in a statement. Investment in the plant, which is needed to both supply major global customers and meet China's future demand, will be made in two phases of CNY1.6 million and CNY1.4 billion.

The company's shares [SHE: 002436] jumped 10 percent today to end trading at CNY6.67 (97 US cents) each.

Fastprint Circuit has made the IC substrate business its future focus. Last September, it officially became a supplier to South Korean electronics giant Samsung. But the company's existing monthly output of 10,000 square meters of IC package substrate is already at full capacity and needs expanding, the statement said.

The firm will form a project company in the development zone that will handle construction and operations. The Guangzhou Development Zone Construction Development Group and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund will also invest for a 30 percent stake in the new company. No other project details were provided.

Demand for IC substrate has grown rapidly in recent years, the statement said, citing data from Prismark, which expects the gross value of output to increase to about USD9.6 billion in 2023 from USD7.554 billion last year. But the global market is mainly dominated by businesses from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan due to the huge technical challenges.

 

[JSCh]

New East New Materials to Mass Produce Graphene Ink Products
TANG SHIHUA
DATE : JUN 27 2019/SOURCE : YICAI

New East New Materials to Mass Produce Graphene Ink Products​

(Yicai Global) June 27 -- New East New Materials and a graphene technology developer have successfully co-developed graphene electronic ink products.

They will be mass produced soon, the Taizhou, Zhejiang province-based maker of raw materials for flexible packaging said in a statement today.

New East New Materials' wholly-owned unit Zhejiang New East Printing Ink Group penned a cooperation agreement with Shanghai-based Duoling New Material to promote the industrial production and sales of graphene products, the statement said, but without revealing the initial scale of the mass production.

Electronic ink is used in mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices. Much like regular ink in appearance, it consists of pigmented balls within balls that react to an electrical charge by displaying different colors to show text or images on an electronic 'page.'

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms bound together in a hexagonal honeycomb-like lattice.

E-ink products with graphene have excellent thermal and electrical conductivity, thus meeting the special technical requirements of electronic products.

New East Printing Ink will carry out the large-scale production in its existing plants, while Duoling will provide the new product's raw material ratio and production technology, according to the cooperation agreement. New East Printing Ink will also buy the graphene required in the raw material from Duoling at a price calculated to ensure each party gets half of the project benefits.

These include sales profits, revenue from third-party use of intellectual property rights, and government subsidies among others, per the statement.

The pair signed a cooperation agreement in January last year to jointly develop two new e-ink products for conductive and thermal applications and conduct pilot production.

Duoling New Material Technologies is a company specializing in research and development, production and sales of graphene and peripheral products. It has received technical support from many universities as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It owns graphene mineral resources in Heilongjiang province in northeastern China, public information shows.

 

[JSCh]

JULY 1, 2019 / 6:50 PM / UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
Amid U.S. tech squeeze, China's Tsinghua Unigroup forms new DRAM chip unit - Reuters

Josh Horwitz

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Chinese state-backed semiconductor conglomerate Tsinghua Unigroup said it has formed a new business unit for producing DRAM, a type of memory chip dominated by companies in South Korea and the United States.

The move, announced in a one-sentence statement on Sunday, comes as Beijing tries to boost the country’s chip industry, and specifically its DRAM sector, amid an ongoing spat over trade and technology with Washington that has underscored China’s reliance on key imported components.

DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, has proven especially difficult for Chinese companies to produce at scale. U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc together account for over 95% of global DRAM market share.

It is not clear how the new unit will affect operations at the conglomerate’s Unigroup Guoxin Microelectronics Co Ltd unit, which had already set out to make DRAM. Unigroup Guoxin said in its 2018 annual report it has yet to mass produce LPDDR4 DRAM, the industry standard in most mobile phones.

Tsinghua Unigroup did not answer emailed queries about the new business unit.

Another Chinese DRAM aspirant, Fujian Jinhua, had yet to reach mass production for its chips when the U.S. government in October placed it on an entity list that effectively barred American companies from supplying it with goods and services.

Ken Kuo, vice president of research at TrendForce in Taipei, said in a note that the establishment of the new chip unit is likely to stem in part from the Fujian Jinhua blacklisting.

“Especially after the trade clash between the U.S. and China, how to make products that are compatible and competitive internationally remains a critical issue for China,” he wrote.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Fujian Jinhua last year with stealing trade secrets from Micron. Fujian Jinhua denied the charges. The ban, nevertheless, has forestalled the company’s production plans.

In 2017, Tsinghua Unigroup announced plans for a $30 billion plant in Nanjing to make NAND and DRAM chips. The facility remains under construction.

Under a push known as “Made in China 2025”, Beijing has targeted high-tech sectors, including semiconductors, for support in a bid to be more self-reliant, an initiative it has backed off from publicly after provoking the ire of the United States, which complains about Chinese industrial subsidies.

According to the China Semiconductor Industry Association, China imported approximately $260 billion worth of semiconductors in 2017, exceeding the value of crude oil imports. Locally-made chips met less than 20% of domestic demand the same year.

Beijing’s efforts to narrow the technology gap are widely expected to intensify as U.S.-China relations sour.

A component sales ban that the U.S. Commerce Department imposed on Shenzhen-based phonemaker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd[HWT.UL] in May threatened to derail the company’s future, as it remains highly dependent on U.S.-made hardware and software.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump suggested the ban would be eased when he said U.S. companies could continue to sell to Huawei, as long as the transactions pose no “great, national emergency problem”.

Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Editing by Tony Munroe and Muralikumar Anantharaman

 

[Han Patriot]

Most of the people here are not humble.

Buss, look what's happening to Korea:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcr...-in-smartphones-and-chips-to-south-korea/amp/

Guess who makes the material alternatives to the Japs? Yes C H I N A.
http://fluorotechusa.com/about-us/

http://www.shaowufluoride.com/wap_index.html

We make the fluoro polymides, and also the sf6, high purity hydrogen fluoride etching gas. Lol. No do you understand our position? Koreans and Taiwanese might be best in process tech, but they are near zero in material and equipment tech. China might not be the best in process tech, but we have materials production and equipment tech to a certain extant. We want the whole chain to remain independent and sovereign unlike India, forever dependent on everyone.

 

[JSCh]

China releases first DNS backed by domestic CPU chip
(People's Daily Online) 14:22, July 02, 2019

The first domestically developed domain name server (DNS) powered by a CPU chip named Loongson was released recently in Beijing, marking an innovation in basic Chinese internet technology, cctv.com reported.

Both the software and hardware of the equipment are self-developed, according to its developer, a high-tech startup incubated by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Multiple indicators of the server have reached an advanced world level.

Mao Wei, director of the Internet Domain Name System Beijing Engineering Research Center (ZDNS), said the server had been improved significantly in terms of the efficiency of the network analysis, as well as its intelligent transmission line.

The equipment has reinforced the capability of root name servers with the potential of making it possible to bypass the limitation of the current 13 root name servers around the world.

 

[JSCh]

JULY 15, 2019 / 1:16 PM / UPDATED 20 HOURS AGO
China's Xiaomi continues chip strategy revamp with investment in semiconductor designer - Reuters
Josh Horwitz

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China’s Xiaomi Corp (1810.HK) has taken a stake of roughly 6% in compatriot chip designer VeriSilicon Holdings Co Ltd, as the smartphone maker revamps its years-long pursuit of success in semiconductors which it sees as central to driving innovation.
The investment comes as the government identifies chips as one of several sectors in which it wants the country to become more self-reliant under its “Made in China 2025” initiative.

In a filing to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) published online on Thursday, VeriSilicon revealed a fund run by Xiaomi became its second-largest external shareholder in June.

Xiaomi Corp confirmed the investment to Reuters. None of the companies disclosed its monetary value.

VeriSilicon’s biggest external shareholder is the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, a centralized, national-level fund for the domestic semiconductor industry, popularly known as “The Big Fund”.

The firm is headquartered in Shanghai and has research and development centers at home and in the United States. It typically works as a contractor to other chip companies, helping them complete additional parts of semiconductor design.

CHIPS AWAY
Xiaomi grew rapidly since releasing its first smartphone at the beginning of the decade, becoming the fourth-biggest seller worldwide in the first quarter of this year, showed latest data from researcher IDC. However, it has had less success in chips.

The company launched a semiconductor division in 2014 and three years later announced its first system-on-a-chip, the Surge S1. The chip featured in Xiaomi’s Mi 5 smartphone but was not rolled out more widely.

After that, there were no major chip announcements until April when an internal memo stated that Xiaomi would spin off part of its chip division into a subsidiary called Big Fish focused on making chips for internet-of-things devices.

Xiaomi is not alone in its chip ambitions. Huawei’s chip-making HiSilicon subsidiary makes Kirin processors for its own smartphones, which experts said are roughly competitive with top-of-the-line chips from U.S. leader Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O).

In the broader tech sphere, e-commerce major Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) last year bought Chinese chipmaker C-Sky. Its chief technology officer later said the firm will unveil its first artificial intelligence chip in the second half of 2019.

Adding impetus to such initiatives is a trade war with the United States involving import tariffs imposed on technology goods and services, while a U.S. ban on supplying Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd due to national security concerns has also disrupted the industry.

Reporting by Josh Horwitz; Additional reporting by Samuel Shen; Editing by Christopher Cushing

 

[JSCh]

China makes headway in ultra-thin flexible chips, will help reshape future semiconductors
By Song Lin Source:Global Times Published: 2019/7/15 20:03:40

Breakthrough represents future of electronics

The flexible chip released in Hangzhou on Saturday Photo: Courtesy of the Global Research Center for Flexible Electronics & Intelligent Technology

The Global Research Center for Flexible Electronics & Intelligent Technology, a research institute based in East China's Zhejiang Province, has released two types of flexible chips that are thinner than 25 microns, which is less than one-quarter of the diameter of a human hair.

These chips will have a transformative impact in areas including digital medical treatment, artificial intelligence (AI) and other sectors.

Flexible chips could be a great supplement for conventional rigid chips, to be used in many scenarios where rigid chips aren't appropriate such as human medical monitoring, experts said.

"Just like band-aids, the shape of flexible chips could vary along with the applications," Wang Bo, leader of the flexible chips research team, told the Global Times on Monday.

The chips display our flexible technological breakthrough in the field of flexible electronics manufacturing, and they will reshape electronic products, Wang noted.

The chips were released during the just-concluded second International Conference on Flexible Electronics in Hangzhou, according to a statement from the center's public relations office sent to the Global Times.

The meeting gathered more than 600 scholars and experts in the field of flexible electronics from many countries including China, the US and Singapore. The two new chips are an Op-amp chip and a Bluetooth SoC chip, read the statement.

"In terms of practical application, the chips could be used in industrial equipment inspection, human medical monitoring and others," Wang said.

He said that the chips will have profound impact in fields such as AI and digital medical treatment, because thinner and softer electronic-sensing systems could be designed based on flexible-chip technology, which will be more sensitive to the environment and human body.

"The chips are just examples of our flexible technology, and we can apply the technology to a lot of other sectors," Wang said.

"Flexible technology is the foundation of future electronic products manufacturing, but there are still many difficulties ahead of practical application," Wang said.

Comprehensively promoting the application of the technology and cooperating with other industries is the next step, he said.

"Flexible electronics is a frontier technology and it has promising market prospects," Geng Bo, vice secretary-general of the China Solid State Lighting Alliance, a semiconductor industry association, told the Global Times on Monday.

Compared with conventional chips, flexible chips are thinner and lighter, with advanced ductility. They could be shaped for tailored scenarios, such as subskin implanted chips used for the measurement of blood glucose, Geng said.

Technical problems including safety and stand-by times must be enhanced ahead of large-scale application, Geng noted.

China has been stepping up efforts to rapidly develop its advanced technologies such as chips and foster its own industrial chains amid the trade war with the US.

 

[JSCh]

Alibaba releases RISC-V processor amid Chinese tech shift toward self-reliance · TechNode
JUL 25, 2019 | IN HEAVY HITTERS, ON THE CUSP | BY WEI SHENG

Alibaba’s semiconductor affiliate Pingtouge released on Thursday a new RISC-V-based processor, a move that accelerates Chinese tech industry’s self-reliance amid the ongoing US-China trade war.

Why it matters: RISC-V, an open-source hardware instruction set architecture (ISA), is not covered by the US export restrictions, meaning Chinese firms like Huawei are able to use it without violating any export restrictions. The ISA is considered as a rival to commercial vendors of computer designs, such as ARM and MIPS.

• RISC-V is a globally recognized open-source standard, eradicating trust issues that may arise for Hangzhou-based Alibaba and Shanghai-based Pingtouge.
• Using RISC-V ISA is much more cost-effective because Pingtouge doesn’t need to license an expensive ARM core, Stewart Randall, head of electronics and embedded software of Shanghai-based consultancy Intralink, told TechNode on Thursday.

“Alibaba does not need to license any core from ARM, MIPS, or anyone else. They design their own core based on the RISC-V ISA and added extensions.”

—Stewart Randall

Details: Pingtouge says that the processor, dubbed Xuantie 910, is currently the most high-performance RISC-V processor in the industry.

• It can be applied to the designing of chips for the fifth-generation wireless networks, artificial intelligence, as well as autonomous driving, said the company.
• The processor could potentially double chip performance while reducing costs by 50%, said the company.

Context: The US government in May put Huawei on a trade blacklist, barring American companies from selling the Chinese telecom equipment giant any components containing technology it deems a national security threat if misappropriated.

• UK-based chip-designer ARM was forced to sever ties with Huawei following the US sanctions as the company utilizes American technology in its products.
• Huawei is also a member of the RISC-V Foundation, an organization that directs its development and adoption, and is thus also able to use the open-source architecture.

 

[JSCh]

13:11, 26-Jul-2019
Huawei introduces 'Honghu 818' chipset for large screens
By Guo Meiping

Huawei's sub-brand Honor introduced its intelligent display chipset "Honghu 818" to support its ambitions in the television sector. The announcement was made by Honor's president George Zhao at the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) in Guangzhou, south China, on Friday.

The chipset for Honor's smart screen is equipped with seven image-processing technologies, including Motion Estimate and Motion Compensation (MEMC), High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR), Super-Resolution (SR), Noise Reduction (NR), Dynamic Contrast Improvement (DCI), Auto Color Management (ACM) and Local Dimming (LD), for enhancing and optimizing image resolution, contrast and color performance of the display through multiple algorithms, according to the company.

Powered by octa-core processor, the chipset supports video decoding from 8K30 frames to 4K120 frames, and has the ability to decode 64-megapixel images.

A smart pop-up camera, which enables NPU capability for face recognition, will also be applied on Honor's smart screen.

The company will launch the “Honghu 818” enabled smart screen in August and will provide it openly to manufacturers.

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

Alibaba releases RISC-V processor amid Chinese tech shift toward self-reliance · TechNode
JUL 25, 2019 | IN HEAVY HITTERS, ON THE CUSP | BY WEI SHENG

Alibaba’s semiconductor affiliate Pingtouge released on Thursday a new RISC-V-based processor, a move that accelerates Chinese tech industry’s self-reliance amid the ongoing US-China trade war.

Why it matters: RISC-V, an open-source hardware instruction set architecture (ISA), is not covered by the US export restrictions, meaning Chinese firms like Huawei are able to use it without violating any export restrictions. The ISA is considered as a rival to commercial vendors of computer designs, such as ARM and MIPS.

• RISC-V is a globally recognized open-source standard, eradicating trust issues that may arise for Hangzhou-based Alibaba and Shanghai-based Pingtouge.
• Using RISC-V ISA is much more cost-effective because Pingtouge doesn’t need to license an expensive ARM core, Stewart Randall, head of electronics and embedded software of Shanghai-based consultancy Intralink, told TechNode on Thursday.

“Alibaba does not need to license any core from ARM, MIPS, or anyone else. They design their own core based on the RISC-V ISA and added extensions.”

—Stewart Randall

Details: Pingtouge says that the processor, dubbed Xuantie 910, is currently the most high-performance RISC-V processor in the industry.

• It can be applied to the designing of chips for the fifth-generation wireless networks, artificial intelligence, as well as autonomous driving, said the company.
• The processor could potentially double chip performance while reducing costs by 50%, said the company.

Context: The US government in May put Huawei on a trade blacklist, barring American companies from selling the Chinese telecom equipment giant any components containing technology it deems a national security threat if misappropriated.

• UK-based chip-designer ARM was forced to sever ties with Huawei following the US sanctions as the company utilizes American technology in its products.
• Huawei is also a member of the RISC-V Foundation, an organization that directs its development and adoption, and is thus also able to use the open-source architecture.

RISC-V foundation is registered in US. There needs to be a very thorough combing and analysis of ways US can affect licensing.

 

[Han Patriot]

RISC-V foundation is registered in US. There needs to be a very thorough combing and analysis of ways US can affect licensing.

It's open source like Linux. India tried to use it for their first microprocessor, but until now no more noise.

 

[riscol]

China completes second round of US$29 billion Big Fund aimed at investing in domestic chip industry

https://www.scmp.com/tech/science-r...-complete-second-round-us29-billion-fund-will

 

[JSCh]

China's chipmakers could use RISC-V to reduce impact of US sanctions · TechNode
JUL 24, 2019 |IN ON THE CUSP, VIEWS |BY STEWART RANDALL

​

RISC-V, the instruction-set architecture out of UC Berkeley, has been making waves in the semiconductor sector. Some even say that it could threaten industry heavyweight ARM in the long run.

The key difference between the pair’s respective products, which basically define the way in which software talks to a processor, is that RISC-V is open-source. It is this aspect that could be of particular interest to Chinese companies as such products are not directly subjected to US sanctions.

The RISC-V Foundation, which promotes the ISA’s use, features leading global players including Microchip, Western Digital, Google, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, to name just a few. Through collaborative and independent projects, several members are working to create RISC-V based designs.

China’s growing interest
Over the past few years, and especially in 2019, I have witnessed a huge increase in Chinese interest in RISC-V. Three years ago when mentioning the ISA, most engineers would look at me puzzled. Then, two years ago, they had at least heard of it though most would mispronounce it (it’s Risk-Five by the way).

Fast-forward to today and not only does every company I meet know of it, but the majority are actively researching it. Whether they have taped out an actual RISC-V based chip or are currently designing one, the interest is clearly there.

Today the foundation includes more than 25 Chinese companies, and what’s more, as of last year China now has two of its own RISC-V industry alliances with more than 185 members. Some of the most well-known Chinese members include Huawei, Sanechips from ZTE, Bitmain, Alibaba, and Xiaomi’s wearables partner Huami.

So, what’s all the fuss about? Why are so many large global companies jumping on the bandwagon, and what does RISC-V mean for China?

RISC-V provides an open-source ISA which users can build upon. As its a frozen ISA, software designed to run on one RISC-V processor will run on any other. It also provides a processor business model similar to that of Linux. Commercial vendors can build on the open-source ISA, or open-source cores to create their own IP to license and support.

It is important to note that whilst RISC-V is open-source, any serious product is probably going to want to license a commercial RISC-V core. Alternatively, companies with the resources and expertise can design their own. Often people may misunderstand RISC-V to be free. It isn’t but it is cheaper. Some commercial core suppliers do not ask for royalties, and license fees can be low, especially as these suppliers try to gain market share.

The main barrier to entry in the RISC processor world has been less technical and more ecosystem-related. Whilst ARM has a much more mature and sizeable ecosystem, that of RISC-V is growing fast and within these short few years, there are already products based on the ISA in the market and a supporting ecosystem.

While India has adopted more of a central government approach, China’s local authorities appear to actively compete in the semiconductor space, and we are now seeing RISC-V specific investments in the form of grants from the Shanghaiand Nanjing governments among others. While what the Indian government is doing is great, China and its large number of semiconductor designers and household names are much better placed to take advantage of opportunities presented by RISC-V.

Sanction-proof
An interesting aspect of RISC-V to China is that it is not covered by the US Entity list as it is open-source. This means Chinese companies can use it without any fear of losing access in the future. Even SiFive, the first commercial RISC-V core company, and from the US, can still license to Chinese players. The Chinese unit is a completely separate entity that has allowed them to circumvent any export restrictions.

Even if somehow SiFive was prevented from licensing to certain Chinese firms, there are several non-US alternatives, even some domestic players. These include Andes, PTG from Alibaba, Syntacore, and Nucleisys. There are also free open-source cores available online.

We have seen that the entity list has the potential to limit ARM’s cooperation with Huawei’s HiSilicon despite it being a UK company owned by Softbank. With RISC-V, such risks are eliminated for Chinese firms. Additionally, it provides a globally recognized open-source standard for the country’s chip designers to latch onto. This removes any trust issues that would undoubtedly arise if China were to push its own closed ISA globally to compete with ARM or Intel.

This year I expect to see several Chinese companies taping out RISC-V based IoT chips as well as AI chips which include the ISA’s cores somewhere in the design. Whilst RISC-V has started with simpler IoT designs or low-power chips like Greenwaves’ GAP8 or the Chinese Kendryte, over the coming years I expect larger, more powerful versions to emerge.

Similar to how ARM boasts a range of cores covering low-power IoT to servers, RISC-V has the potential to do the same. I understand that many RISC-V cores struggle in terms of design size compared with ARM equivalents. However, there is no denying the benefits of this open-source, more customizable ISA that is also more cost-effective. The ecosystem is growing, results are improving, and the competitors are beginning to sweat, even if it is just a little.

 

[055_destroyer]

RISC-V foundation is registered in US. There needs to be a very thorough combing and analysis of ways US can affect licensing.

You are a bad loser. Only know how to spread lies to make yourself feel good. China is much superior to India, it hurts you badly but its reality. Thanks to your good for nothing government and policy. Like how you India obey US master order to stop import Iranian oil. While China is master of its own destiny continue to import Iranian oil. You are bitter and still continue to spread lies here.

 

[Beidou2020]

You are a bad loser. Only know how to spread lies to make yourself feel good. China is much superior to India, it hurts you badly but its reality. Thanks to your good for nothing government and policy. Like how you India obey US master order to stop import Iranian oil. While China is master of its own destiny continue to import Iranian oil. You are bitter and still continue to spread lies here.

He’s a troll that should be permanently banned.