TSMC to stop supplying Huawei with chips

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

Timing is the issue (as always)... might still very well be a few years for them to develop (and build at scale...) the tech to match current day Tier 1 semiconductors.

They already have fabs some wholly Chinese owned. They built sk hynix and tmsc fabs.  I really don't think they need to relearn/develop anything, just build another fab and start production.

[ThePointblank]

30 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I wouldn't dismiss the capability of the Chinese to build fabs of equivalent capability. We have been accustomed to Chinese stuff being cheap and of low quality, but that is by design.  It would be foolish to think they lack the skills and knowledge to compete in any given field.

The problem is that domestic fabs are only capable of 14nm production processes, and only barely so.

 

TSMC has what is in effect, lightyears lead on almost any other fabs out there. It will be many years before domestic Chinese fabs can catch up to TSMC, by which time TSMC would have leapfrogged again.

[divito]

Poor Huawei, getting caught up in ridiculous politics. I want to be able to have an upgrade path beyond my P30 Pro. 

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, divito said:

Poor Huawei, getting caught up in ridiculous politics. I want to be able to have an upgrade path beyond my P30 Pro. 

I don't get why you trust them.

 

I don't trust the US gov or china but I'd rather they lose out on outside tech.

[divito]

6 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I don't get why you trust them.

 

I don't trust the US gov or china but I'd rather they lose out on outside tech.

I never said I trusted them. If another company made something like a P30 Pro, then there wouldn't be an issue.

And "trust" with a tech company is kind of tinfoil hat anyways. There are no "local" options, so what exactly are North Americans supposed to do to cut down on outside tech?

You really have to hand it to the US government for all the propaganda that has infected everyone's mind regarding China and others, especially when it's the pot calling the kettle black in a lot of instances.

[GDRRiley]

6 minutes ago, divito said:

There are no "local" options, so what exactly are North Americans supposed to do to cut down on outside tech?

Well we do have local chips fabs. my point was china had a huge leg up by TSMC and I'm happy to see that end. if it slows down their companies I'm happy with that.

You get to pick your poison china who will steal any IP they can and use it vs the US who collects it but never use it. it seems pretty clear to me.

[mr moose]

17 minutes ago, ThePointblank said:

The problem is that domestic fabs are only capable of 14nm production processes, and only barely so.

 

TSMC has what is in effect, lightyears lead on almost any other fabs out there. It will be many years before domestic Chinese fabs can catch up to TSMC, by which time TSMC would have leapfrogged again.

There's like a dozen fabs in china capable of 5nm built by the Chinese operating with Chinese made machines. They might be owned by Sk hynix, micron, samsung and TMSC, but they were built in china.  Make no mistake, Huawei and the chinese government are no different than any other company/country, if they can get IP and data from other companies they will.  There is a damned good reason why Intel only ever built one fab in china.  

 

Also TSMC's lead is not that far in front of others, I don't know where you got that idea from, but Samsung are already at 5nm and Intel are working on their 7nm which is not far different from TMSC 5nm.  They really only surpassed Intel because Intel ballsed up their 10nm node. 

 

 

[xtroria]

2 hours ago, divito said:

Poor Huawei, getting caught up in ridiculous politics. I want to be able to have an upgrade path beyond my P30 Pro. 

LOL big brands in an authoritarian regime will always be part of the swamp

[ThePointblank]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

There's like a dozen fabs in china capable of 5nm built by the Chinese operating with Chinese made machines. They might be owned by Sk hynix, micron, samsung and TMSC, but they were built in china.  Make no mistake, Huawei and the chinese government are no different than any other company/country, if they can get IP and data from other companies they will.  There is a damned good reason why Intel only ever built one fab in china.  

 

Also TSMC's lead is not that far in front of others, I don't know where you got that idea from, but Samsung are already at 5nm and Intel are working on their 7nm which is not far different from TMSC 5nm.  They really only surpassed Intel because Intel ballsed up their 10nm node. 

 

 

Those fab machines are primarily made by ASML, a Dutch company, using IP from the US.

 

A couple of other companies produce lithographic machines, but they aren't as competitive as the ones from ASML, and they are all Western companies (Nikon, Canon, and Ultratech). As such ASML has a near monopoly on advanced lithographic machines, with about 2/3's of the world market for lithographic machines total (they've cornered the more advanced market, while their competitors primarily battle it out in the 28+nm category).

 

And it is not easy to try to reverse engineer these machines; for one, the optics inside are incredibly delicate and intricate part of their extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines is their optics, with the end result being that they are notoriously difficult, if not impossible to reverse engineer and copy.

 

The optics on these  machiens are made by Carl Zeiss AG, a German company and use specialized multi-layer masks and exotic optics materials polished down to a couple of nanometers scale accuracy, down to a few dozen atoms in variance. The reason is the very low tolerance and high sensitivity of EUV laser light to even the smallest lens imperfections, and these optics are the primary reason these machines are so expensive and take so long to manufacture. If the Chinese (or anyone else) could successfully copy and reproduce the optics (which I seriously doubt), then the most difficult part of their work would be done.
 

From my knowledge, ASML has never shipped their most advanced lithography machines to a Chinese firm; the Dutch government blocked the sale by denying export permits as lithographic machines fall under the purview of the Wassenaar Arrangement, which controls the export of certain dual-use technologies.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, ThePointblank said:

Those fab machines are primarily made by ASML, a Dutch company, using IP from the US.

 

A couple of other companies produce lithographic machines, but they aren't as competitive as the ones from ASML, and they are all Western companies (Nikon, Canon, and Ultratech). As such ASML has a near monopoly on advanced lithographic machines, with about 2/3's of the world market for lithographic machines total (they've cornered the more advanced market, while their competitors primarily battle it out in the 28+nm category).

 

And it is not easy to try to reverse engineer these machines; for one, the optics inside are incredibly delicate and intricate part of their extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines is their optics, with the end result being that they are notoriously difficult, if not impossible to reverse engineer and copy.

 

The optics on these  machiens are made by Carl Zeiss AG, a German company and use specialized multi-layer masks and exotic optics materials polished down to a couple of nanometers scale accuracy, down to a few dozen atoms in variance. The reason is the very low tolerance and high sensitivity of EUV laser light to even the smallest lens imperfections, and these optics are the primary reason these machines are so expensive and take so long to manufacture. If the Chinese (or anyone else) could successfully copy and reproduce the optics (which I seriously doubt), then the most difficult part of their work would be done.
 

From my knowledge, ASML has never shipped their most advanced lithography machines to a Chinese firm; the Dutch government blocked the sale by denying export permits as lithographic machines fall under the purview of the Wassenaar Arrangement, which controls the export of certain dual-use technologies.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/10/competing-with-china-on-technology-and-innovation-pub-80010

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2631-7990/ab1ff1/pdf

 

the dutch and German's are not the only people capable of making precision machines.

 

 

 

 

[ThePointblank]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/10/10/competing-with-china-on-technology-and-innovation-pub-80010

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2631-7990/ab1ff1/pdf

 

the dutch and German's are not the only people capable of making precision machines.

 

 

 

 

You aren't getting it.

 

You stated that "there's like a dozen fabs in china capable of 5nm built by the Chinese operating with Chinese made machines." That statement is factually wrong.

 

There are no fabs in China capable of 5nm operating with Chinese built and designed machines. Hell, there aren't any fabs running 5nm anywhere in commercially viable quantities; the bleeding edge right now is 7nm, and only Samsung and TSMC are capable of that. And neither companies are running sub 7nm production in China; TSMC is exclusively producing anything sub 7nm in Taiwan, and Samsung likewise is doing so solely in South Korea.

 

Both companies have only sampled production of 5nm parts, and even then, it means that in reality, the fab is shipping very early runs of chips made with this process to its launch customer(s), who will need to do a ton of testing and evaluation of their own, and may find the yields and reliability uneconomically low at this point… in preparation for a more mature and stable process a few months down the road. Probably give them later this year till the launch customers feel comfortable enough with the 5nm process to give TSMC and Samsung the go-ahead to mass produce their chips on the process.

 

The fabs that can run 7nm production are using machinery exclusively designed by ASML; they are the only game in town for sub 13nm process lithographic machines. Nobody else has been able to demonstrate lithographic machines capable of sub 13nm production other than ASML.

 

Even then, photolithography machines only handle the exposure part of this process. All the other steps are handled by other machines that are very high-tech pieces of equipment in their own rights and these machines are manufactured by different companies such as Applied Materials, and ASM.

[mr moose]

13 hours ago, ThePointblank said:

You aren't getting it.

 

You stated that "there's like a dozen fabs in china capable of 5nm built by the Chinese operating with Chinese made machines." That statement is factually wrong.

 

There are no fabs in China capable of 5nm operating with Chinese built and designed machines. Hell, there aren't any fabs running 5nm anywhere in commercially viable quantities; the bleeding edge right now is 7nm, and only Samsung and TSMC are capable of that. And neither companies are running sub 7nm production in China; TSMC is exclusively producing anything sub 7nm in Taiwan, and Samsung likewise is doing so solely in South Korea.

 

Both companies have only sampled production of 5nm parts, and even then, it means that in reality, the fab is shipping very early runs of chips made with this process to its launch customer(s), who will need to do a ton of testing and evaluation of their own, and may find the yields and reliability uneconomically low at this point… in preparation for a more mature and stable process a few months down the road. Probably give them later this year till the launch customers feel comfortable enough with the 5nm process to give TSMC and Samsung the go-ahead to mass produce their chips on the process.

 

The fabs that can run 7nm production are using machinery exclusively designed by ASML; they are the only game in town for sub 13nm process lithographic machines. Nobody else has been able to demonstrate lithographic machines capable of sub 13nm production other than ASML.

 

Even then, photolithography machines only handle the exposure part of this process. All the other steps are handled by other machines that are very high-tech pieces of equipment in their own rights and these machines are manufactured by different companies such as Applied Materials, and ASM.

O.K, my point was not really best put,  Let me put it this way.  Dismiss the abilities of the Chinese at your own peril.  They have both the tooling and the knowledge to make their own.  Once a product sits in a Chinese factory you can bet your arse the Chinese are looking at how it works.

 

 

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

O.K, my point was not really best put,  Let me put it this way.  Dismiss the abilities of the Chinese at your own peril.  They have both the tooling and the knowledge to make their own.  Once a product sits in a Chinese factory you can bet your arse the Chinese are looking at how it works.

they don't. no one can match the lens making ability of Zeiss. they can copy almost any other part but the optics I'd expect them to take decades to do

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

they don't. no one can match the lens making ability of Zeiss. they can copy almost any other part but the optics I'd expect them to take decades to do

https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/

 

It looks like they are at the same stage as Intel, currently on 14nm with 7 and 3nm in R+D.  Sure Intel's 10nm is something akin to TMSC 7nm, Which has been my point the whole time, they are capable and just like the article I linked earlier, they have the research and knowledge.

 

Quote

 

Now, with funding from the government, SMIC is developing 12nm finFETs and what it calls “N+1.” 12nm is a scaled down version of 14nm. Slated by year’s end, N+1 is billed as a 7nm technology.

N+1 isn’t quite what it seems. “SMIC’s N+1 is equivalent to Samsung’s 8nm, which is slightly better than TSMC’s 10nm,” said Samuel Wang, an analyst at Gartner. “SMIC’s N+1 is unlikely for this year. 12nm may become production ready by the end of 2020.”

 

 

They are already looking at something akin to Samsungs 8nm by the end of this year.   Huewai are likely not fazed by TMSC as the chinese government had already decided it was not a good thing to be reliant on foreign companies and invested in self reliance.

 

[GDRRiley]

14 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It looks like they are at the same stage as Intel, currently on 14nm with 7 and 3nm in R+D.  Sure Intel's 10nm is something akin to TMSC 7nm, Which has been my point the whole time, they are capable and just like the article I linked earlier, they have the research and knowledge

a key line from them. this could mean 5 or 10 years

Spoiler

It’s unlikely that China will develop its own EUV system in the near term. And for that matter, the nation’s foundry and memory efforts are modest, at least for now. And China won’t overtake multinational chipmakers anytime soon.

 

[TehDwonz]

On 7/17/2020 at 6:32 PM, BuckGup said:

Has there ever been any credible proof as to not trust Huawei any less than I trust the US government anyways? 

Not really. Cisco have far more vulnerabilities and backdoors.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

a key line from them. this could mean 5 or 10 years

  Hide contents

It’s unlikely that China will develop its own EUV system in the near term. And for that matter, the nation’s foundry and memory efforts are modest, at least for now. And China won’t overtake multinational chipmakers anytime soon.

 

I would say that too if I were a journalist,  It's kinda at odds with the paragraph I quoted (being that they will likely have production in 6 months) and largely it just means they are not going to be bigger than the current global market anytime soon. They are just trying to become in control of their own.  

 

The point I am trying to make is simply not to dismiss their abilities.  What they say they can do and what they can do are different, Imagine if the the US dismissed the abilities of the Russians and the English during the cold war?   As I said before, there is a reason Intel only have one fab in China (it's not patriotism).   It just doesn't seem rational to me to assume that china can't build something on a technicality when they neither lack the skills, kowledge or materials to be able to do it.

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 lack the skills

I'm going to say the lack the skills in the level of optics needed.

[Delicieuxz]

23 hours ago, avg123 said:

yeaf there is no difference between the US and the compnany aiding the chinese government which has forced millions of people in labour camps, illegally occupying Hong Kong, murdering dissenters 

China isn't occupying Hong Kong - Hong Kong is lawfully a part of China. And the large majority HKers are not opposed to being in China: Just 17%, or about 1 in 6, HKers want independence from China. The rest who support the HK protesters (and a majority of HKers do) oppose the HK government, not China.

 

Interesting Poll Shows Hong Kongers Not Exactly Against China

One in six support Hong Kong independence from China: poll

Exclusive: Hong Kongers support protester demands; minority wants independence from China - Reuters poll

[SenKa]

On 7/17/2020 at 9:15 PM, avg123 said:

yeaf there is no difference between the US and the compnany aiding the chinese government which has forced millions of people in labour camps, illegally occupying Hong Kong, murdering dissenters 

Gotta hand it to western news outlets for twisting the story.

 

British-occupied HK and the PRC (Mainland china) forged the Sino-British Joint Declaration. This declaration, signed in 1997, stated that HK would remain capitalist and function under the "One Country Two Systems" system until 2047. China has debated the legitimacy of the document publicly since 2017, but has never acted against it under threat from the British and later the US (for some reason).

 

Public denouncement of the law by PRC officials doesnt go much deeper than China's own borders regardless. The G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) have voted to uphold the Sino-British Joint Declaration. This encompasses the 7 most influential countries in the world, minus China itself.

 

Annex II of the SBJD created the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group, which were to be in charge of handling democratic matters between the HKSAR (Hong Kong), and the PRC. This group mutually dissolved in 2000, and thus (as the PRC argues), the declaration is invalidated. If this were tried in the US, there is a high chance the PRC would be sided with for this reason.

 

Though my sample size is small, i have several friends in HK and none of them understand the point of the protests and consider themselves Chinese people. HK *is* chinese property, nobody who has read the laws should disagree with this.. While the PRC did arguably act out of line in their handling of the protests, it is just as arguable that those who partook in them had stepped out of line, *especially* since the bill that sparked them did nothing but allowed HK and Taiwan residents to be extradited to mainland china for crimes committed on the mainland. This is a decades if not centuries old concept, and one nearly every western country practices.

 

This is very on edge of the political conversation rule, and thus i have done by best to stick to simply explaining the facts of the situation rather than my own opinions.

[ThePointblank]

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

O.K, my point was not really best put,  Let me put it this way.  Dismiss the abilities of the Chinese at your own peril.  They have both the tooling and the knowledge to make their own.  Once a product sits in a Chinese factory you can bet your arse the Chinese are looking at how it works.

 

 

They do not have the tooling; the tooling, equipment, and technology is in the hands of Western countries, not the Chinese.

 

And advanced lithography machines are not something anyone can pull apart and study without the OEM being aware of it. Bleeding edge litho gear isn’t something you will want to fiddle with unless you are doing it along with the supplier - they won’t be handing over the repair manual. These OEM's have to put tech support on-site with customers to get it up and running as well, and to conduct maintenance and repairs.

 

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

https://semiengineering.com/china-speeds-up-advanced-chip-development/

 

It looks like they are at the same stage as Intel, currently on 14nm with 7 and 3nm in R+D.  Sure Intel's 10nm is something akin to TMSC 7nm, Which has been my point the whole time, they are capable and just like the article I linked earlier, they have the research and knowledge.

 

 

They are already looking at something akin to Samsungs 8nm by the end of this year.   Huewai are likely not fazed by TMSC as the chinese government had already decided it was not a good thing to be reliant on foreign companies and invested in self reliance.

 

No, SMIC was intending on doing their sub 12nm production on ASML produced machinery.

 

The export of the machines were denied late last year, and were never delivered. ASML’s export license expired unused on June 30, 2019, and no new license was granted in the following eight-week period during which a renewal request would normally be considered, according to a public database of licenses published by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

 

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

I would say that too if I were a journalist,  It's kinda at odds with the paragraph I quoted (being that they will likely have production in 6 months) and largely it just means they are not going to be bigger than the current global market anytime soon. They are just trying to become in control of their own.  

 

The point I am trying to make is simply not to dismiss their abilities.  What they say they can do and what they can do are different, Imagine if the the US dismissed the abilities of the Russians and the English during the cold war?   As I said before, there is a reason Intel only have one fab in China (it's not patriotism).   It just doesn't seem rational to me to assume that china can't build something on a technicality when they neither lack the skills, kowledge or materials to be able to do it.

It's because semiconductor lithography machines are covered under the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. The Chinese are not a party to that arrangement, and thus transfers of the more advanced semiconductor equipment invites much more scrutiny, especially to China.

[mr moose]

17 minutes ago, ThePointblank said:

 

They do not have the tooling; the tooling, equipment, and technology is in the hands of Western countries, not the Chinese.

 

And advanced lithography machines are not something anyone can pull apart and study without the OEM being aware of it. Bleeding edge litho gear isn’t something you will want to fiddle with unless you are doing it along with the supplier - they won’t be handing over the repair manual. These OEM's have to put tech support on-site with customers to get it up and running as well, and to conduct maintenance and repairs.

 

 

No, SMIC was intending on doing their sub 12nm production on ASML produced machinery.

 

The export of the machines were denied late last year, and were never delivered. ASML’s export license expired unused on June 30, 2019, and no new license was granted in the following eight-week period during which a renewal request would normally be considered, according to a public database of licenses published by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 

 

It's because semiconductor lithography machines are covered under the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. The Chinese are not a party to that arrangement, and thus transfers of the more advanced semiconductor equipment invites much more scrutiny, especially to China.

Whatever dude,  I'm not here to convince people what they should believe.  Just pointing out it is foolish to ignore China on the grounds you think they are incapable.

 

 

[descendency]

On 7/18/2020 at 12:20 AM, divito said:

I never said I trusted them. If another company made something like a P30 Pro, then there wouldn't be an issue.

And "trust" with a tech company is kind of tinfoil hat anyways. There are no "local" options, so what exactly are North Americans supposed to do to cut down on outside tech?

You really have to hand it to the US government for all the propaganda that has infected everyone's mind regarding China and others, especially when it's the pot calling the kettle black in a lot of instances.

Great Firewall. The US is just retaliating for this finally. 

[GOTSpectrum]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Whatever dude,  I'm not here to convince people what they should believe.  Just pointing out it is foolish to ignore China on the grounds you think they are incapable.

 

 

I agree with Mr Moose, 

 

You throw enough money and minds at a problem that has already been solved once and you will get to the solution, china has both a great deal of money, and a great deal of minds, highly educated, some in the top echelon of their fields. 

 

It is funny to me that many people still have this view of China as a back water, 'Soviet' style country. They are some HIGHLY educated, highly driven people. And if you give them a machine and say, make this, they will find a way.

 

It doesn't have to be perfect, it may be a case of UV with multi-patterning, in the beginning at least, but they will find a way to advance on every generation oh machine they make. Deals for optics, IP, designs, ect can take a god awful amount of time, something the Chinese government don't really have to do. 

[ThePointblank]

1 hour ago, GOTSpectrum said:

I agree with Mr Moose, 

 

You throw enough money and minds at a problem that has already been solved once and you will get to the solution, china has both a great deal of money, and a great deal of minds, highly educated, some in the top echelon of their fields. 

 

It is funny to me that many people still have this view of China as a back water, 'Soviet' style country. They are some HIGHLY educated, highly driven people. And if you give them a machine and say, make this, they will find a way.

 

It doesn't have to be perfect, it may be a case of UV with multi-patterning, in the beginning at least, but they will find a way to advance on every generation oh machine they make. Deals for optics, IP, designs, ect can take a god awful amount of time, something the Chinese government don't really have to do. 

Considering it took ASML and industry partners over 15 years to get a viable EUV scanner system built for high volume manufacturing to be able to produce sub 7nm chips, and they are the only ones out there with a working unit, it will take the Chinese well over another decade to figure out the technology and get it to the point where they can mass produce with the systems.

 

The semi-conductor industry is a very high cost intensive industry, with large needs for capital to build the fabs, acquire the tools, and hire highly technically skilled people to be able to design and build chips. China has the potential for the latter down already, but the issue is former. It has been trying to close the gap here in technical know-how through attempting acquisitions, but the current political climate in Washington and in the West from here on makes another effort to outright buy the expertise makes this unlikely.

 

And at this current pace, China in order to catch up would need the decades of human capital and expertise these companies have collected. It is one thing to talk about theoretical science, it's another to demonstrate the applied sciences needed for high end semiconductor production. Calibrating and perfecting the application of a theory is much harder than just mere application. It takes years and years of experience, trial and error, even sometimes lucky mistakes to really master applying a complicated theory. In said process, sometimes new scientific phenomenons are observed and need to be explained.

 

This isn't an industry where you can start from scratch and be among the best in a few years.