from Hacker News

China's chip capabilities just 3 years behind TSMC, teardown shows

by rjzzleep on 9/2/24, 4:09 AM with 119 comments

• by audunw on 9/2/24, 7:50 AM

  SMIC has been forced to focus only on DUV technolog, and take that as far as it can go. That’s not bad for the short term. DUV is actually just as good if not better than EUV for the nodes they’re working on.

  TSMC is putting a lot of their R&D into next generation technologies like EUV, backside power, advanced packaging/chiplet stuff, glass substrates etc

  I’m not sure SMIC will be able to keep up when these efforts bear fruit. Eventually they’ll need EUV to unlock further progress.

  SMIC has been able to poach talent by throwing mountains of money at them. This might not be possible going forward. Not being able to work on EUV could be career suicide, and I’m not so sure China can be so frivolous with their money anymore. They have to start raising taxes to compensate for the loss of land lease revenue.

• by pragmomm on 9/5/24, 11:23 PM

  Article is misleading, this is in terms of chip design, not in terms of equipment manufacturing which is what they need to scale or improve yield. SMIC has the equipment they bought before sanctions and no ability to make new comparable or better equipment. So really, this is just SMIC squeezing a little more out of what they already have. Their yield still sucks and can’t be dramatically improved.

  Also, 7nm mainstream cpu made by TSMC was released 2018

• by h_tbob on 9/6/24, 1:42 AM

  I wonder if the CHIPS act was a bad idea strategically.

  Theoretically the more intertwined our economies, the less likely war is, as we all have more to lose.

  By isolating china, they reduce the perceived dependence they have, as their industries grow.

  Thus wisdom would indicate that it is not the right time to cut off any nation.

• by DHaldane on 9/6/24, 12:16 AM

  This is an old story, rehashed without new information.

  That 7nm chip from SMIC is what prompted the export controls -- nobody thought they were close before that.

• by mullingitover on 9/6/24, 12:24 AM

  China chasing TSMC is probably a fool's errand. They might catch up for a bit, but they'll always be renters in the houses that ASML builds (and they can be evicted/sanctioned out at any time[1]).

  Rage Against the Machine said it best: "F** tha G-ride I want the machines that are makin' em."

  Call me when they get serious about their domestic lithography business.

  [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ch...

• by downrightmike on 9/6/24, 12:12 AM

  3 years is really 6, which in reality is never. The chip industry has been through this before many times.

• by seanmcdirmid on 9/6/24, 12:09 AM

  Does the teardown consider yields (reading it, they just include an aside comment)? It is easy to make cheap, it is easy to make fast, the hard part is making cheap and fast (the same goes for jet turbine, the other side of China's tech push).

• by yieldcrv on 9/6/24, 1:42 AM

  > U.S. export curbs on chip technology have spurred China to become more self-reliant in producing semiconductors.

  everyone needs to be more self-reliant in producing semiconductors

  how far behind is the US on TSMC? because I want that Arizona supply chain to be up and running Chairman Nao!

  literally nobody should be basing any of their decisions on the possibility of China invading China. No wonder TSMC makes up dumb excuses about their issues deploying in the US, they need to stall and delay the obvious, that's the only... chip... they have.

• by andrewflnr on 9/5/24, 11:43 PM

  Is it just me or are we past the stage where being at the absolute apex of chip development is strategically important? For at least a decade, chips have been fine and even pretty often overpowered for the vast majority of applications. You want to have access to chips, yes, but who cares if they're five years out of date?

• by mensetmanusman on 9/6/24, 2:06 AM

  This is great. Making this tech anti fragile by less over reliance on one or two sources is a good for humanity.

• by onlyrealcuzzo on 9/6/24, 12:30 AM

  You know what's 3 years behind the iPhone 15?

  The iPhone 12.

  Barely anyone wants to buy one.

  You know what's 3 years behind the h100? Definitely something no one is seriously buying.

  3 years behind is still way too far behind.

  It took them 15 years to get 3 years behind.

  It could take them another 15 to be 1 year behind.

  And by then - who know - the chips of today might not matter. There might be some new kind of chip that they're even farther behind on.

  Your guess is as good as mine that far in the future.

• by linotype on 9/2/24, 3:39 PM

  Eventually they’re going to catch up with the state of the art, then their progress will stall.

• by m3kw9 on 9/6/24, 2:16 AM

  3 years is a lot in tech actually. In 3 years down the line a lot can change

• by prinzmaus on 9/7/24, 11:58 PM

  So, China is about as far behind TSMC as Intel is?

• by more_corn on 9/5/24, 12:23 AM

  Perfect timing for a planned 2027 disruption of the TSMC assembly line.

• by atleastoptimal on 9/6/24, 1:12 AM

  I don't understand why there are such extreme export controls wrt China. Isn't a more technologically capable China better for everyone because it increases the supply of high-quality parts? Is it just revenge for Chinese nationals stealing IP ?