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Opinionated - China Chipping Away to Semiconductor Dominance

The problem is that what he is Quoting doesn't even apply to OEM companies like Huawei,...

Hisilicon design most of Huawei chips from the Power management to the modem to the SOCs, those chips are fab in multiple fabs inside China and by TSMC, therefor different manufacturing quality, those chips are not sold to anyone except Huawei products and still Huawei manage to make world class products.
You do not see the problem for the customer that you just posted?

See this wafer map...???

YvsSWZh.jpg


I can walk into any semicon manufacturing company, including Huawei and even foundry contractors like TSMC, and have a meaningful conversation with any process engineer regarding what happened on the upper left quadrant. Is it hardware, software, or product related? Can you say the same? I will even be generous and give you a hint: edge dies.

The US ban affects foundry contractors like TSMC who works for Huawei. As a customer, I may not have the right to see your process recipes, but every manufacturer will give me info on how its semicon products are made. If I believe that your products are 'world class', it is because I seen enough of the equipment involved, the education of your engineers, the training of your line workers, the ISO cleanliness of your production floor, and the list is long.

Regarding the wafer map. If I find out that batch came from a production line that involves equipment that are not commonly accepted in the industry, such as from equipment suppliers like Advantest or TEL or Applied Materials, I can cancel our contract and there is nothing you can do about it because our contract stipulated that you are allowed to use only established industry equipment, not just your products pass benchmarks testing. You think that foundries can use any equipment they want? Why do you think the US ban had such a shock to the industry in the first place?

If I bought 1000 of your routers in the past, it is because I have done my homework regarding how your routers are made. Now I found out you made your own chips and installed them in the routers in our next contract? Your other customers may have blind trust in you, but do not expect the same from me. You did not tell me of the change so consider our next contract cancelled. Do you really believe this sort of thing never happened in the semicon industry?

You have 24 hrs to tell me if the problem on that wafer came from hardware, software, or product related, or even combinations of all three. And your answer had better be good because my bullshit meter works very well.
 
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You do not see the problem for the customer that you just posted?

See this wafer map...???

YvsSWZh.jpg


I can walk into any semicon manufacturing company, including Huawei and even foundry contractors like TSMC, and have a meaningful conversation with any process engineer regarding what happened on the upper left quadrant. Is it hardware, software, or product related? Can you say the same? I will even be generous and give you a hint: edge dies.

The US ban affects foundry contractors like TSMC who works for Huawei. As a customer, I may not have the right to see your process recipes, but every manufacturer will give me info on how its semicon products are made. If I believe that your products are 'world class', it is because I seen enough of the equipment involved, the education of your engineers, the training of your line workers, the ISO cleanliness of your production floor, and the list is long.

Regarding the wafer map. If I find out that batch came from a production line that involves equipment that are not commonly accepted in the industry, such as from equipment suppliers like Advantest or TEL or Applied Materials, I can cancel our contract and there is nothing you can do about it because our contract stipulated that you are allowed to use only established industry equipment, not just your products pass benchmarks testing. You think that foundries can use any equipment they want? Why do you think the US ban had such a shock to the industry in the first place?

If I bought 1000 of your routers in the past, it is because I have done my homework regarding how your routers are made. Now I found out you made your own chips and installed them in the routers in our next contract? Your other customers may have blind trust in you, but do not expect the same from me. You did not tell me of the change so consider our next contract cancelled. Do you really believe this sort of thing never happened in the semicon industry?

You have 24 hrs to tell me if the problem on that wafer came from hardware, software, or product related, or even combinations of all three. And your answer had better be good because my bullshit meter works very well.
I see a big blob of blue from an u known source. And someone telling me China can never catch up despite not knowing a single shit about Chinese capabilities and typing grandfather's story to overwhelm any meaningful exchange of idea.

Please write a report on the efficiency of Smic, and their capabilities and also tell us about the optics capabilities of Chinese manufacturers or what about the euv prototype currently getting tested?

And apart from typing a bunch of self righteous unverified crap, please explain it as well with a source a verified source. NOW DO IT AND COME BACK AND TALK.
 
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I see a big blob of blue from an u known source. And someone telling me China can never catch up despite not knowing a single shit about Chinese capabilities and typing grandfather's story to overwhelm any meaningful exchange of idea.
Like I always said: I am not here to change your mind but to provide the facts and truth to the silent readers out there. There are at least two PDF Chinese members who claimed to have yrs of semicon experience. Go ask them about the validity of that 'blob of blue'. :lol:
 
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Like I always said: I am not here to change your mind but to provide the facts and truth to the silent readers out there. There are at least two PDF Chinese members who claimed to have yrs of semicon experience. Go ask them about the validity of that 'blob of blue'. :lol:
No problem with facts but you need to explain your facts, I have a cousin working in a semicon plant in Africa but doesn't mean he understands the situation in a semicon fab in the artic right? So explain and justify your points. You ever worked in a Chinese fab? What is their efficiency levels, their competency levels? What company are those? What is the current research levels of China, have you seen a Smee machine? What you are describing is a process technology instead of an equipment technology. Processes can be refined over time, equipment is a totally different beast. You may know how to make chips but doesn't mean you know how to make the machines. TSMC and Samsung are both technological less advanced than China because they use Asml machines, they can't produce those machines. China can produce the resist materials and almost the entire chain of machines except euv. Do you know the current status of our euv prototype? You know jackshit mate.
 
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What you are describing is a process technology instead of an equipment technology.

You know jackshit mate.
The fact that you tried to pull this on the readers mean it is YOU who knows jackshit, mate.

In semicon manufacturing, process technology and equipment technology are known and often they can be LEGALLY binding. If you change to a new photoresist, you can be legally obligated to let your customers know, and they in turn are legally obligated to keep that fact secret. Processes are tied to equipment technology. On a wafer with over 1000 dies, an SSD in the tester PC will outperform the computer with the old spin hard drive, reducing product testing time and increase shipment, potentially leading to increase market share. All this just from changing to an SSD in the tester's PC. The process is the wafer testing software. The new technology is the SSD. But because the SSD have greater I/O than the spinner drive, now the functional testing engineer must rewrite his code to have better memory allocation, just one example, because if he does not make the change, the odds of data corruption increases which will lead to false good dies. So in trying to prove me wrong, you ended up looking an ignorant fool, which is the usual.
 
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I see a big blob of blue from an u known source.
And I see someone who is intellectually lazy. The insinuation here is that since I did not post a source of that wafer map, the validity of my comment is automatically suspect.

Now...If you have any bit of intelligence, you would have used keywords search and you would have found this...


...Or this...


You would have recognized that the color scheme is irrelevant as manufacturers will have their own. But the important thing is that there has to be a wafer map that clearly outlined prime dies from non-prime dies. So my lack of sourcing is a non-issue.

Bottom line is that I know what I am talking about while the best you can do is put together a word salad and hope that bowl will make you sound like you know the subject, which you do not.
 
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The fact that you tried to pull this on the readers mean it is YOU who knows jackshit, mate.

In semicon manufacturing, process technology and equipment technology are known and often they can be LEGALLY binding. If you change to a new photoresist, you can be legally obligated to let your customers know, and they in turn are legally obligated to keep that fact secret. Processes are tied to equipment technology. On a wafer with over 1000 dies, an SSD in the tester PC will outperform the computer with the old spin hard drive, reducing product testing time and increase shipment, potentially leading to increase market share. All this just from changing to an SSD in the tester's PC. The process is the wafer testing software. The new technology is the SSD. But because the SSD have greater I/O than the spinner drive, now the functional testing engineer must rewrite his code to have better memory allocation, just one example, because if he does not make the change, the odds of data corruption increases which will lead to false good dies. So in trying to prove me wrong, you ended up looking an ignorant fool, which is the usual.
Process technology and equipment are two different things altogether. It maybe Co developed as in the case of TSMC with Asml for certain processes but not for the machine itself. The machines are tuned or programmed for certain propriety processes, understand numb numb? Else Asml wouildnt be able to sell machines to Samsung or others. This again shows you know jackshit. Might just be one guy working in a testing facility. Lol
And I see someone who is intellectually lazy. The insinuation here is that since I did not post a source of that wafer map, the validity of my comment is automatically suspect.

Now...If you have any bit of intelligence, you would have used keywords search and you would have found this...


...Or this...


You would have recognized that the color scheme is irrelevant as manufacturers will have their own. But the important thing is that there has to be a wafer map that clearly outlined prime dies from non-prime dies. So my lack of sourcing is a non-issue.

Bottom line is that I know what I am talking about while the best you can do is put together a word salad and hope that bowl will make you sound like you know the subject, which you do not.
Again its a big blue blob from an unknown source, please tell me is it from Smic? And explain to me how does it define efficiency and yields? And prove that big blue blob is from Chinese fabs? Stop copy pasting Google stuff my dear expert.
 
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You do not see the problem for the customer that you just posted?

See this wafer map...???

YvsSWZh.jpg


I can walk into any semicon manufacturing company, including Huawei and even foundry contractors like TSMC, and have a meaningful conversation with any process engineer regarding what happened on the upper left quadrant. Is it hardware, software, or product related? Can you say the same? I will even be generous and give you a hint: edge dies.

The US ban affects foundry contractors like TSMC who works for Huawei. As a customer, I may not have the right to see your process recipes, but every manufacturer will give me info on how its semicon products are made. If I believe that your products are 'world class', it is because I seen enough of the equipment involved, the education of your engineers, the training of your line workers, the ISO cleanliness of your production floor, and the list is long.

Regarding the wafer map. If I find out that batch came from a production line that involves equipment that are not commonly accepted in the industry, such as from equipment suppliers like Advantest or TEL or Applied Materials, I can cancel our contract and there is nothing you can do about it because our contract stipulated that you are allowed to use only established industry equipment, not just your products pass benchmarks testing. You think that foundries can use any equipment they want? Why do you think the US ban had such a shock to the industry in the first place?

If I bought 1000 of your routers in the past, it is because I have done my homework regarding how your routers are made. Now I found out you made your own chips and installed them in the routers in our next contract? Your other customers may have blind trust in you, but do not expect the same from me. You did not tell me of the change so consider our next contract cancelled. Do you really believe this sort of thing never happened in the semicon industry?

You have 24 hrs to tell me if the problem on that wafer came from hardware, software, or product related, or even combinations of all three. And your answer had better be good because my bullshit meter works very well.
Your are give me time limits? who you think you are?
Dude i know you have the best job of the world as a wafer tester,but what you saying apply better to ICs products "maybe" rather end user products, Huawei if their end user products perform as good as before they will not have trouble selling their end user products, what the end user wants is performance/cost against the competition, they will take Huawei products and they will test it in their networks, if they pass the realibility test they will use it. For god sake most IT equipment procurers that dont even know who applied materials or TEL is, they know who Realtek or Qualcomm is and what performance is. And that apply even less for consumer products, smartphones, home routers,etc.
Maybe in the US or in a country with the political interest of outing Huawei of their networks, maybe just maybe in those places that would apply, "you should only manufacture with American equipment", until procurement get to expensive and they have to buy Huawei hardware again.
Or Maybe you are saying that they will be not capable of fulfilling their orders or that they will have delays until they perfect the art, Ok that understandable and that is a bigger worry for most telecom's companies. that is why they hoarded semiconductors to have enough for a few years until they perfect their abilities and one of the reasons why the electronic industry is dealing with a shortage of semiconductors.
Why are even discussing this? Lets wait and see.
 
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Your are give me time limits? who you think you are?
Someone who has experience in the industry.

Dude i know you have the best job of the world as a wafer tester,but what you saying apply better to ICs products "maybe" rather end user products, Huawei if their end user products perform as good as before they will not have trouble selling their end user products, what the end user wants is performance/cost against the competition, they will take Huawei products and they will test it in their networks, if they pass the realibility test they will use it.
IC products? The more and more non experience people like you continue, the more and more foolish you look.

Ever heard of IATF Certification? Most likely you and your Chinese pals have not.


The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) standardization and certification was created in the interests of inevitable automotive autonomous technology. Basically, any product, not just electrical and electronics, that is to be employed in the incoming autonomous vehicle application must be certified to different standards because failure at 100 km/hr usually involves in deaths.

Here are 16949's requirements:


The requirements delineated in IATF 16949:2016 cover every aspect of the production process, including:
  • Planning
  • Product development
  • Quality control
  • Manufacturing process
  • Machine performance
  • Continual improvement
  • Corrective action
It means IATF inspectors will audit everything you do and make that is one degree from anything that move that is under computer controlled, and that means automobiles, buses, trains, and trucks. It covers the education level of your workers, the ergonomics of your equipment so that your workers can operate the machinery safely, how you handle chemicals, how you test your products, and the NON-PRODUCT RELATED list is long.

This company is a supplier to the automotive industry and 16949 certified.

Do you see any electronics in their services?

Here is an example of Huawei capacitors that are IATF certified.


We strictly observe ISO9001 & TS16949 quality management system, ISO14001 environmental management system, QCO80000 hazardous substance management system and UL certifications on high voltage products. Our factories have been enhancing the reliability of our capacitors by implementing the processes of international agency approvals and certificates.


Do those look like ICs to you? Huawei did say 'electrolytic' capacitors.

Here are TDK's and Nichicon's IATF certification that covers their electrolytic capacitors.



How many Huawei's products are for automotive applications? How could Huawei lose 16949 certification? Is it possible that by changing foundry fab contractor that Huawei WOULD lose 16949 certification? You can bet your next yr's salary -- whatever you make -- that 'Yes'.


"SMIC doesn't have 7nm capability," says Gwennap. "They are several years behind TSMC in that regard and just started on 14nm. Huawei would have to take existing designs and completely redo them to work at SMIC and in the process probably end up losing a certain amount of performance or capability because of SMIC's older technology."

It is not just about IATF certification.

When you are moving billions of currency on the trading market, that is akin to moving at 100 km/hr on the highways. Companies cannot afford to lose milliseconds behind the competition. Now they just learned that their supplier Huawei is forced to produce inferior electronics?

Huawei is in a shitworld of hurt and everybody in the industry knows it.
 
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The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) standardization and certification was created in the interests of inevitable automotive autonomous technology. Basically, any product, not just electrical and electronics, that is to be employed in the incoming autonomous vehicle application must be certified to different standards because failure at 100 km/hr usually involves in deaths.
And that's part of reason why automotive still sits on 200mm, and in fact get incomparably shittier chips than people on 300mm.
 
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You do not see the problem for the customer that you just posted?

See this wafer map...???

YvsSWZh.jpg


I can walk into any semicon manufacturing company, including Huawei and even foundry contractors like TSMC, and have a meaningful conversation with any process engineer regarding what happened on the upper left quadrant. Is it hardware, software, or product related? Can you say the same? I will even be generous and give you a hint: edge dies.

The US ban affects foundry contractors like TSMC who works for Huawei. As a customer, I may not have the right to see your process recipes, but every manufacturer will give me info on how its semicon products are made. If I believe that your products are 'world class', it is because I seen enough of the equipment involved, the education of your engineers, the training of your line workers, the ISO cleanliness of your production floor, and the list is long.

Regarding the wafer map. If I find out that batch came from a production line that involves equipment that are not commonly accepted in the industry, such as from equipment suppliers like Advantest or TEL or Applied Materials, I can cancel our contract and there is nothing you can do about it because our contract stipulated that you are allowed to use only established industry equipment, not just your products pass benchmarks testing. You think that foundries can use any equipment they want? Why do you think the US ban had such a shock to the industry in the first place?

If I bought 1000 of your routers in the past, it is because I have done my homework regarding how your routers are made. Now I found out you made your own chips and installed them in the routers in our next contract? Your other customers may have blind trust in you, but do not expect the same from me. You did not tell me of the change so consider our next contract cancelled. Do you really believe this sort of thing never happened in the semicon industry?

You have 24 hrs to tell me if the problem on that wafer came from hardware, software, or product related, or even combinations of all three. And your answer had better be good because my bullshit meter works very well.
Looks like a bad wafer to me than anything.

The semi industry in China is well, Chinese industry. Domestic 200mm fabs were always having a windfall for a simple reason of them being n times cheaper than any other foreign option.

Now, US spooked the industry very good, and it may even push people into the 300mm age as the premium for domestically made chips will raise eventually.

China is world's biggest semiconductor market, bigger than the rest of the world combined, want you or not.

Any like a real embargo will be windfall for our domestic IC industry.

Taiwanese had an option to "strangle" mainland's industry for decades, now think, why do you thing they didn't, and even went as far as protesting Trump's bans? It's simple, ICs sold to China makes them tons of money.
 
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SMIC To Set Up $12 Billion Plant In Shanghai, China For Sub-14nm Chip Nodes

The Municipal and Development Reform Commission of the Chinese Eastern Port city Shanghai has announced the list of major construction projects for 2021. This list focuses on-chip fabrication firms, adding a host of other names in addition to the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), which is widely thought of as China's only alternative to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in the wake of stringent American sanctions.

The list covers several industries which the Shanghai authorities have deemed necessary for social development and keeping up with global industries. It consists of 166 projects in total, out of which seven chip firms including SMIC have also made the cut.

Through the project list, SMIC will be able to set up its SN1 12-inch (300mm) wafer production line and it will be joined by Huali Microelectronics, who also plans to establish a 12-inch line. 12-inch silicon wafers are generally used to integrated circuit chips that are used in a host of consumer electronics. Huali's Huahong No. 5 plant in Mainland China was also the country's first fully-automated chip production line. It covers the 55nm, 40nm and 28nm process nodes and is capable of producing 35,000 wafers-per-month. The company is also building a second plant in the Kangqiaozhen subdistrict of Pudong, Shangai to manufacture 40,000 12-inch wafers-per-month, start from the 28nm process and go as low as 14nm.

SMIC's SN1 plant is also located in Pudong, and it will focus on developing advanced process technology nodes below 14nm. Through the plant, the chipmaker hopes to produce 35,000 units-per-month, and the facility requires a $12 billion investment. The chipmaker is moving ahead with its plans to manufacture 7nm chips, but its plans of moving further down are hampered by an inability to secure Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) machines that use smaller light wavelengths and enable fabs to easily reduce transistor sizes over standard diffusion lithographic equipment.

Dutch company ASML's EUV machines are at the heart of modern-day chip fabrication. Image: ASML
Other chip firms part of the list include Jita Semiconductor, Jingce Semiconductor's R&D headquarters and manufacturing base, Geke Semiconductor, Dingtai Semiconductor, Xinsheng Semiconductor, Shanghai Tianyue and Shanghai Lingang. The projects include Jingce's R&D headquarters and manufacturing base, Geke's 12-inch imaging solution R&D project, Dingtai's 12-inch automated wafer manufacturing facility, Xinsheng's 12-inch IC silicon wafer R&D and manufacturing project, Tianyue's silicon carbide development and Lingang's 4-inch and 6-inch mass production lines.

Of all the companies mentioned, Xinsheng is the most ambitious. The firm, headquartered in the Baoan district of Shenzen city, aims to beef up its production to produce up to one million pieces-per-month. Currently, it is capable of manufacturing 150,000 pieces/month, and it was the first Chinese company to successfully sell 12-inch wafers on a large scale. Its capacity expansion to 300,000 pieces/month is in the second stage of development and the chipmaker hopes that the phase will be complete by the end of this year.

In addition to chip fabrication, a burgeoning upstream and downstream industry is also taking shape in China. In this supply chain, equipment manufacturing companies are perhaps the most important, as they highlight efforts towards achieving freedom from international sanctions. China Microelectronics, Xiamen Sheng Mei Shi Automation Equipment Co., Ltd and KST are part of the equipment manufacturing chain, but their progress in achieving global parity is unclear.


 
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Someone who has experience in the industry.


IC products? The more and more non experience people like you continue, the more and more foolish you look.

Ever heard of IATF Certification? Most likely you and your Chinese pals have not.


The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) standardization and certification was created in the interests of inevitable automotive autonomous technology. Basically, any product, not just electrical and electronics, that is to be employed in the incoming autonomous vehicle application must be certified to different standards because failure at 100 km/hr usually involves in deaths.

Here are 16949's requirements:


The requirements delineated in IATF 16949:2016 cover every aspect of the production process, including:
  • Planning
  • Product development
  • Quality control
  • Manufacturing process
  • Machine performance
  • Continual improvement
  • Corrective action
It means IATF inspectors will audit everything you do and make that is one degree from anything that move that is under computer controlled, and that means automobiles, buses, trains, and trucks. It covers the education level of your workers, the ergonomics of your equipment so that your workers can operate the machinery safely, how you handle chemicals, how you test your products, and the NON-PRODUCT RELATED list is long.

This company is a supplier to the automotive industry and 16949 certified.

Do you see any electronics in their services?

Here is an example of Huawei capacitors that are IATF certified.


We strictly observe ISO9001 & TS16949 quality management system, ISO14001 environmental management system, QCO80000 hazardous substance management system and UL certifications on high voltage products. Our factories have been enhancing the reliability of our capacitors by implementing the processes of international agency approvals and certificates.


Do those look like ICs to you? Huawei did say 'electrolytic' capacitors.

Here are TDK's and Nichicon's IATF certification that covers their electrolytic capacitors.



How many Huawei's products are for automotive applications? How could Huawei lose 16949 certification? Is it possible that by changing foundry fab contractor that Huawei WOULD lose 16949 certification? You can bet your next yr's salary -- whatever you make -- that 'Yes'.


"SMIC doesn't have 7nm capability," says Gwennap. "They are several years behind TSMC in that regard and just started on 14nm. Huawei would have to take existing designs and completely redo them to work at SMIC and in the process probably end up losing a certain amount of performance or capability because of SMIC's older technology."

It is not just about IATF certification.

When you are moving billions of currency on the trading market, that is akin to moving at 100 km/hr on the highways. Companies cannot afford to lose milliseconds behind the competition. Now they just learned that their supplier Huawei is forced to produce inferior electronics?

Huawei is in a shitworld of hurt and everybody in the industry knows it.
Dude you are all over the place, its hurts, first you talk about wafers, then equipment saying that "if you dont use that or this American equipment we wont buy your products" which is different from "if your equipment is not standard certificated we wont buy your products", my guess is that most Chinese equipment, material and software are already certificated or in the process of getting certificated. Then give a example of automotive standards when the main bulk of Huawei business is telecom, networking and consumer products. At least give me an example of telecom and networking standards, Huawei automotive bussiness is mostly in China. You see the certification for that capacitor that you put as an example, is probably made by Huawei factory in China with mostly Chinese made equipment. and they still manage to get certificated. it will be the same for their ICs products that mostly will be use in their end user products.
But i get you idea. Huawei as a company will make sure that all the process that they develop get patented, follow and get certification by the correct national and international standards bodies, JEDEC, ISOs, whatever, most Chinese semiconductor equipment manufacturers are probably already certificated internationally and the same goes for the materials manufacturers. That is a given, that is not disputable, we dont even need to discuss this, Huawei is one of the most certificated companies in the world. you can bet your yr salary by the time Huawei process are running they will be already certificated. like i say before the reason the hoarded components is to have time to develop their process. the whole automotive industry is suffering for that.
Are you are an expert? disputable, maybe you have your dream job as a wafer tester or maybe you are just a google search warrior, Either way i dont care.
This is not disputable, we can talk after they develop their process about efficiency or if they will be able manufacture enough chips to fulfill their orders or if the fabs will be able to keep with their growth or if they will be able to jump to more advance nodes or if the cost of running a semiconductor fab will be too high. Anything else is a waste of time.
 
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