China is still using deep ultraviolet (DUV) chip etching which has a resolution of 193 nanometres, whereas the latest technology is extreme ultraviolet (EUV) which has a resolution of 13.5 nanometres. In practice it means they’re about four years behind the other chip manufacturers.
An EUV machine costs about $200 million and that’s the one banned for export to China.
Shipping the machine requires 40 shipping containers, 20 trucks and three Boeing 747s.
Having the schematics isn’t really enough - you also need the production lines and extreme tolerances to reliably build the machines.
Some chips are also export banned so Chinese firms have just been buying cloud time on the chips instead.
Longer term it is expected that China will develop a fully self sufficient semiconductor industry.
First you need the lithography machines (ASML). Then you need the process development (TSMC, Samsung, Intel). Then you need the EDA tools (Synopsys, Cadence).
SMEE announced a 28nm-capable lithography machine, SMIC has a gimped 7nm process, and Huawei has EDA tools capable down to 14nm.
However, necessity is the mother of invention. I’m expecting the next few years to see an explosion in specialized hardware coming out of Chinese companies.
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China is still using deep ultraviolet (DUV) chip etching which has a resolution of 193 nanometres, whereas the latest technology is extreme ultraviolet (EUV) which has a resolution of 13.5 nanometres. In practice it means they’re about four years behind the other chip manufacturers.
An EUV machine costs about $200 million and that’s the one banned for export to China.
Having the schematics isn’t really enough - you also need the production lines and extreme tolerances to reliably build the machines.
Some chips are also export banned so Chinese firms have just been buying cloud time on the chips instead.
Longer term it is expected that China will develop a fully self sufficient semiconductor industry.
Semiconductors are hard.
First you need the lithography machines (ASML). Then you need the process development (TSMC, Samsung, Intel). Then you need the EDA tools (Synopsys, Cadence).
SMEE announced a 28nm-capable lithography machine, SMIC has a gimped 7nm process, and Huawei has EDA tools capable down to 14nm.
However, necessity is the mother of invention. I’m expecting the next few years to see an explosion in specialized hardware coming out of Chinese companies.