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Comment by minorannoyance2 | Hacker News Reader

While a common misconception it is not actually unexpected news, SMIC was reported to be able to reach 7nm years ago and their capabilities mostly track with those expectations over the years (not an expert in any way, but I have read those reports for the last 5 years).

What was blocked through sanctions is the EUV machines, not the DUV. And then there is plenty of reports of China stealing tech from TSMC/Samsung/others. And both TSMC and Samsung have done 7nm with DUV before. So this was expected.

To give some additional context - actual fully native capability of SMIC up until very recently has been 28nm, with this copied tech they can do a replica of TSMC 7nm. But that's it, without EUV it is very unlikely they can go much further with this. All of the new nodes that will be coming soon are to the best of our current understanding physically impossible to achieve with DUV.

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Actually Korean industry experts expect that SMIC will probably be able to create 3nm and 5nm without access to EUV[1] machines. This guy claims that 7nm is the last feasible node with DUV only[2], but what does China care about the infeasibility of the node? They have over a billion people produce an order of magnitude more engineers per year than we do and print their own money.

DUV is blocked through sanctions as well. Please don't make misleading claims. The ban also goes way beyond just lithography and includes a lot of other tooling. On top of that the sanctions seem to have been extended to not only block access to the machines but also to after purchase servicing, which actually led China to threaten ASML to buy back the machines should that be the case.

And yes TSMC was indeed producing 7nm using DUV before using EUV, but that doesn't mean that our wonderfully talented politicians and think tanks understand any of that given that just last year these geniuses were gloating that the export controls would throw back Chinas access to advanced chips decades.

[1] https://m.sedaily.com/NewsViewAmp/29UKVB5O3N

[2] https://twitter.com/Tech_Reve/status/1699664604568355135

That first article has an interesting assertion about sub-7nm, but is not a great source and doesn’t appear to offer any other details or references.

I would be very surprised if they are able to do anything without EUV.

>They have over a billion people produce an order of magnitude more engineers per year than we do and print their own money

The semis industry is truly a "globalism" industry

ASML is a system integrator. It uses laser from cymer, glass from zeiss...etc.

For fab like TSMC to make chip require TSMC to develop a node process, chemicals from Japan (the trade spat between South Korea and Japan result in Samsung executes going to Japan) machine from various vendors like ASML, applied material..etc.

i don't think one country can do it all by itself. Not US, Japan, Dutch or China...etc.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-South-Korea-rift/Sam...

edit:

>a billion people produce an order of magnitude more engineers per year

Is this quantity over quality? i was educated in Taiwan up to high school before i come to States. Let me tell you, the way they educated student is call "stuffing the duck". They spoon-feed you info until you're "full" (remember the answers). That kind of education does not produce Steve Jobs and the cram school is everywhere in Asia.

> i don't think one country can do it all by itself. Not US, Japan, Dutch or China.

That is indeed what most people and I used to think, so if this is what's going to happen it's all the more impressive. German economy minister just said that German companies need to choose between the US and China. Germany's chemical industry leader BASF warned last year that the EU sanctions will decimate its industry[1](they recently announced a 76% profit loss[2]) and announced a cutback on its EU presence. TSMC founder Morris Chang said last year that Globalization is "almost dead" [3]

It doesn't matter if it's globalized or not, if China is locked out of it they will have to produce in on their own. They already have preferred access to the worlds biggest commodity and energy exporter now.

ASML by the way doesn't just create Lithography machines that people used. They are customized with the IP from Samsung for Samsung lithography machines, just like they're customized with TSMC IP for TSMC lithography machines.

> the trade spat between South Korea and Japan result in Samsung executes going to Japan

Can you elaborate on this? Would love to know more about that.

Kishida's government actually suggested even stricter restrictions on exports than the Biden administration did. The Chinese seem pissed and are actually starting to get litigative against Japanese companies. Let's not forget that on a company by company bases Huawei is actually the biggest single company 5G patent holder followed by Samsung, LG, Nokia and ZTE[1]. The same applies to RISC-V.

> Is this quantity over quality? i was educated in Taiwan from up to high school before i come to States. Let me tell you, back then the way they educated student is call "stuffing the duck". They basically spoon-feed you info until you're "full" (remember the answers). That kind of education does not produce Steve Jobs and the cram school is everywhere in Asia.

Maybe. But I was visiting the communication network society in Germany every year before Covid and the professors there certainly didn't think so.

But look at the board of directors of the biggest engineering schools in China. Look at board of NTHU in Hsinchu. I went to Semicon today and will go again tomorrow and I walk through those Halls with a big imposter syndrome, being thoroughly impressed by Taiwanese companies, but I still can't help but feel like Taiwan has lost its way. Too occupied with geopolitical games at a policy level. Look at the papers being churned out from the US top universities. 80% of the authors are of indian, chinese, possibly Taiwanese decent, 10% from other places and some from 3rd/4th gen US Americans.

With the documented surveillance of Chinese scientists many Chinese scientists have decided to return to their birthplace[]. Back in the day the founder of SMIC studied in Taiwan. Nowadays Taiwan leaks talent to China because they have had stagnating wages for 30 years.

By the way if you speak to people on the street you will see that many people have not forgotten what the USA did to Japans semiconductor industry in 1986.[6]

[1] https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/basf-chef...

[2] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/basf-gewinn...

[3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Most-read-in-2022/TSMC-fou...

[4] https://www.iplytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Who-Lead...

[5] https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/a-chinese-americ...

[6] https://www.bnext.com.tw/article/62917/japan-semiconductor?

> the trade spat between South Korea and Japan result in Samsung executes going to Japan

>Can you elaborate on this? Would love to know more about that.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-japan-laborers...

>Though it remains unclear exactly how far Tokyo could slow the export approval process or if it will shift towards a ban, South Korean chipmakers are worried the situation could develop into a full-blown crisis.

>“These materials, they are not something that we can find at another store and buy quickly,” said a source at one South Korean chipmaker, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter."

edit: Japan produce the best chemicals use for chip making. I believe no one country can do it all.

I see, one thing I noticed during Covid is that when China stopped exporting medical equipment due to the emergency ban, Japan immediately engaged companies like Iris-Ohyama to bring their production facilities back to Japan.

To my understanding Japan is the only country that said they want production back home, immediately worked on implementing their subsidy program and immediately executed on the production of facilities, such as the TSMC fab. The US talked about it and the EU talked about it,they came around for long subsidy planning and production planning. The EU as always being the slowest of the bunch.

>i don't think one country can do it all by itself

Decades ago US basically wholey dominated semi and it was strategic lapse in judgement that industry has globalized so much, away from US control, something they're looking to regain and technically could if semi wasn't so entangled into US east asian security architecture. Current western semi industry is basically US+JP+DE+NL+SKR+TW. Aggregated effort of ~700M, where US is half that. And in US it's not well compensated job where industry had/has first dibs on talent. Nor extremely high industrial policy except in East Asia, but in general it hasn't gotten strategic priority until recently.

At the end of the day, PRC large enough that talent generation can match/exceed in terms of quantity. In terms of talent quality, TW, SKR, JP all have rote education which was still enough for them excel in different aspects of the supply chain, from equipment, to production, to inputs. Meanwhile even Chaebol and Zaibatsu culture was enough to produce absolute electronic giants. How much of Steve Job's vision was built by East Asian talent? Statistics alone will create outlier Steve Jobs, the hard part is building large pool of technical talent. Looking at current trends PRC pretty much only actor on trend to address semi/IC industry shortage by end of decade (most countries above projected to 100-300k shortage). PRC currently pumping about 30k IC graduates a year, still 200k short, 520k/720k out of # of IC talent 2018 white paper identified PRC would need for complete indigenous supply chain. Semi is a hard and large sector (like aviation), but (IMO) "do it yourself" is likely viable with talent base and proper industrial/talent policy. For reference US aerospace has about 700k jobs. They're currently the only major "do it yourself" aerospace power - they have the bodies to do it all essentially indigenously, vs next competitor, EU who has to work as a bloc.

>Actually Korean industry experts expect that SMIC will probably be able to create 3nm and 5nm without access to EUV[1] machines. This guy claims that 7nm is the last feasible node with DUV only[2], but what does China care about the infeasibility of the node?

Very well said actually, I didn't want to speculate further, but I certainly do think that it's probable SMIC will squeeze more than 7nm out of DUV if they can't acquire EUV, in that case it's no longer a matter of reasonable cost/yields.

>DUV is blocked through sanctions as well. Please don't make misleading claims.

Apologies for the poor wording, but this was neither supposed to be misleading nor is, to the best of my knowledge, misleading in the sense you imply. I am fairly certain I read about DUV deliveries sometime in 2020-2021 and according to this[1] the ban on DUV only effectively starts this year. My point was that that they weren't blocked from DUV, as in in the past, and that allowed SMIC and China in general a lot easier access to DUV. It's only with EUV that we could talk about actually developing a native capability alone.

>And yes TSMC was indeed producing 7nm using DUV before using EUV, but that doesn't mean that our wonderfully talented politicians and think tanks understand any of that given that just last year these geniuses were gloating that the export controls would throw back Chinas access to advanced chips decades.

Not the way I would phrase it, but I would be hard pressed to disagree.

[1] https://technode.com/2023/09/04/asmls-export-of-chip-making-...

> in that case it's no longer a matter of reasonable cost/yields.

This is an interesting point. Considering the extremely difficult engineering problem of the ASML machines, China might opt for an entirely different technology that, although more expensive and impractical for those with access to ASML EUV machines, could eventually allow them a better evolutionary path towards smaller geometries.

Blocking access to tech can have unintended effects.

You hit the nail on the head.

SMIC can get a bit further with DUV, but they are certainly going to get eaten up with multi patterning. The additional cost and complexity from this will be significant.

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