TSMC Completes Construction of 5nm Fab 21 in Arizona
tomshardware.com
tomshardware.com
So it’s quite a ways away from being operational.
I'm more concerned that it's a 1d building.
Terribly far from the kind of "complete" which would be relevant news here.
They try to minimize labor cost in the US. Salary and overtime pay are much lower in Taiwan so they try to use the engineering resource in Taiwan as much as possible.
SMIC is supposedly shipping 7nm chips now. There was a big national security thing to prevent SMIC from getting access to ASML EUV steppers. Does their 7nm process mean they now have made their own EUV gear? Or did they get ASML steppers after all? It seemed weird for such a critical technology to stay single sourced from just one company for so many years.
http://www.monolithic3d.com/blog/the-quad-patterning-era-beg...
But I’m curious if someone knows the details.
The real shocker is that they've been pumping out 7nm commercially since at least a year, which is a feat that most thought was still a ways ahead. It means that they are far more capable than previously thought.
This seems like a real failure in intelligence gathering. How do you think this happened?
China is still working on their domestic EUV machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQGnwKBxAKk
While stating that SMIC might still be around 4-6 years behind the competition, I was completely shocked to hear it was only that.
The next few years are going to be some very interesting times.
The note about economic competitiveness is bizarre. If TSMC was more economical than SMIC, Minerva would have went with TSMC. And it's clear they are not selling at a loss, because their earnings report <28nm category has been increasing profit.
I suggest sticking to the SemiAnalysis report, honestly. Asianometry has no additional information, and the video lacks some of it. The rest is going beyond or against the information we have.
It's mostly that ASML's competition generally wasn't keeping up. They have a monopoly even on last-gen DUV. Canon and Nikon didn't keep up and couldn't afford to work on EUV.
And the laser needed to make EUV machines work is from Cyner, ASML bought this company.
Took all the risk? Geez.
Not really. They acquired Cymer for their EUV tech.
What's the logic behind the national security thing of SMIC shipping 7nm?
By national, which nation is being referred here?
I thought technology competition is the best kind of capitalism, right? How is it a national security thing that your competitor is catching up? Isn't that a good thing that capitalism is actually working?
If anything, the fact that foreign students in Chinese universities almost always go back to their original countries is also a large factor in proliferation of technology outside of China.
First time hearing such claim. Mind to provide to some decently-compiled reports on "Chinese capitalism benefiting China mostly"?
For instance, China has stopped buying a lot of stuff from Australia because of politics
So yeah, I wouldn’t want to rely on China for chips (or anything really, though that is impossible nowadays)
They disapprove?
That's a fundamentally flawed gloss over an otherwise simple fact: Australia takes a political stance that fundamentally treat China as an enemy, the same way as what the West's stance towards USSR, at a moment China has not taken any political stance like USSR towards the West.
Imagine that you frequent a bar, often engaging in chat with all sorts of people. For whatever reason (let's for now not mud the discussion on why some countries decide to take the above mentioned political stance) some guys used to chat normally with you, suddenly reject you altogether, and are plotting to label you an unwelcome person to the bar, so that you are disallowed to enter the bar. Would you start picking the weak guys of this small clique and try to thwart this plot?
> I wouldn’t want to rely on China for chips
Sure, but you dont need to, you depend on TSMC.
And you still not answer the simple question.
Given the fact that depending on China for advanced chip manufacturing is security issue, why China herself depend on their own chip manufacturer a national security thing for US? Isn't that a thing has nothing to do with US national security?
Australia spent decades gearing their economy to China’s [0]. The fury that erupted due to Xi’s string of fuckups, from trade disputes [1] to domestic meddling [2] to security encroachments after breaking its agreement with Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan [3] was significant enough that its people chose to incur economic pain for self preservation.
> some guys used to chat normally with you, suddenly reject you altogether, and are plotting to label you an unwelcome person to the bar, so that you are disallowed to enter the bar
Well yes, if they learn you beat your wife at home and then beat up their buddy at the bar all while never buying anyone drinks as they purchase you rounds, you’re going to be told to fuck off.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia–China_relations#Ec...
[1] https://amp.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3136010/a...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-inf...
[3] https://www.voanews.com/amp/china-a-military-threat-to-austr...
> Australia spent decades gearing their economy to China’s [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93China_rela...
What's the point economic ties between 2 countries are tied from both ends. Are you suggesting Aus is friendly to CN, as friendly as CN is towards AUS?
I see no point of this in supporting any claim regarding AUS' change of political stance. All things considered, it should be clear that it was AUS that starts to act threateningly towards CN, without CN provoking.
> The fury that erupted due to Xi’s string of fuckups, from trade disputes [1]
to security encroachments after breaking its agreement with Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan [3]
Trade disputes was triggered by AUS' political stance. You got cause and effect wrong.
> domestic meddling [2]
This is amusing report. You cannot label natural increasing of influence with intentional political manipulation. That's why Hollywood can affect nation's sentiment and culture, so much so that modern young people are strikingly resemble each other at different countries. The countries affected by Hollywood can censor the movie, but they never claim Washington's "meddling", or that claim is anyway sensible.
But the same thing does not apply the reverse. Or any White countries.
Now you reveal where the white supermacy lives.
> security encroachments after breaking its agreement with Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan [3]
Those are domestic issues, let's not mudding the water by mixing international and domestic affairs.
But anyway, these are normal operation taken routinely by any sovereign nations. National security law, sovereign integrity, etc.
> significant enough that its people chose to incur economic pain for self preservation.
What? Where is the logical connection from someone becoming rich with someone else feeling unsafe?
To simplify things a bit, the "rich west" has been attempting to impose to everyone that tech created in the "rich west" should just bring benefits to the "rich west".
Great for Arizona! Great to manufacture more chips in the US.
I don’t expect global supply chains to continue to exist in their current form when the US loses reserve currency status and paying for the US Navy to ensure the safety of global ship traffic ceases. As a US tax payer, it infuriates me to have military bases in so many countries, but on the other hand our Navy has clear value, at least in my opinion.
Also, did they take this initiative themselves, goaded into it, or even coerced? I recall reading recently how the US started making demands to foreign semi manufacturers to get details of manufacturing processes, supply chains, customer bases etc.
Investments like these will overwhelmingly favor the US in the long run.
If America says "JUMP" TSMC says how high.
Maybe they'll think twice about building the next one in the middle of a frigging desert during a regional mega drought.
https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shorta...
There is nowhere near a crisis level of water shortage in the Colorado river basin. It’s still well within the planned tiers of the Colorado river compact. AZ’s cut is on par with CA’s. Maybe you’re thinking of NV?
A fab uses significantly less water than a farm, can benefit much better from solar, and should be placed in a place like that receives effectively no natural disasters. About the dumbest place to put this would be somewhere on the San Andreas fault or cascadia subduction zone. AZ, NV, and NM are some of the best places for anything expensive that needs stability environmentally.
The reservoirs are at all time lows, and weather projections say the compact will hit the 'automatically cancel this agreement and enter emergency renegotiation phase' in a few years. I suppose that is a planned tier.
Probably for mid-range chips I guess.