Sanctions and blockades are killing China as much as they are killing Russia. In the case of Vladimir Putin’s country, its infrastructure and technology are sorely lacking in chips, more than a decade behind. For this reason, they counted on China as an ally and partner, where the two would exchange energy, natural resources, and technology, selling themselves at the expense of a “friend”. But the game may have changed the rules because, in an unexpected move and after frequent public claims, suddenly, minimum wageChina’s biggest chipmaker has called it quits 14 nm y 7 nm, Has America won the battle?
Total blockade by China’s rivals in the West and East. SMIC, as a giant in Xi Jinping’s country, is currently at a loss, losing 1 in this first quarter of the year$.840 million And the expectations for the next one aren’t great, as they barely exceed the feat achieved in 2022 by a single digit. Where are the problems then?
SMIC continues to invest in FABs, but no longer names its 14nm and 7nm
New production lines and a new high-performance FAB will cost $7.5 billion, bearing in mind that we’re talking about mature nodes of at least 28 nm. But all of a sudden, in the middle of the quarterly report and after talking about this new FAB… no trace of 14 nm 7 nm.
This is not normal, because this FAB is built to hold exactly these two new nodes. Not only are their names not in the report, but they are completely missing.
All of a sudden we can log into their website and… no trace. 90 nm, 65 nm, 55 nm, 40 nm, and 28 nm but the company is no longer considering 14nm and 7nm as it was two weeks ago.
Of course, it is really difficult to fit all its partners, because the great expectation of many countries was to be able to choose from the 6 most common options in the industry, where China will compete in price thanks to manufacturing technology and design. Similar to TSMC.
ASML DUV scanner and EU/US blockade
Both 14 nm and 7 nm were part of SMIC’s more ambitious strategy for China, where both lithographic processes would be carried out with classical immersion technology, i.e., DUV, The problem is that the United States and Europe seem to have nipped it in the bud and blocked all internal and external ties with China and any partner for its technology and manufacturing equipment.
The danger is clear, as we saw a month ago, blockades and sanctions extend beyond China, so no country wants to risk selling scanners to Xi Jinping. Obviously, the country of silk was already counting on it and that’s why it retreated from SMIC with 14 nm y 7 nm, Instead, it looks like they’re going to focus on offering patents that will allow them to close the gap in the future.
as you did Samsung with its 3 nm, where he momentarily left the nanometer race to rejoin after a break and work on the back-end with GAA transistors, where he now has an advantage over Intel and TSMC. Could China be a future threat to the rest of the manufacturers? At the moment, without Western technology, this seems unlikely, as even TSMC has not been able to become independent from Europe and the US.
