They’re at 7nm now. Working towards 5nm. Yields leave much to be desired, but in the absence of other options cost doesn’t really matter. They’ll just have to make more wafers.
I haven’t seen any “China can’t silicon”. They are catching up sure, and they will eventually do 7nm well, but it seems like instead of praising China for progression, the pro-China people are like “see the west sucks China has 7nm!!!” When the reality is that the 7nm is as good as CPUs 15 years ago. Let’s appreciate that China isn’t siting around doing nothing and improving the competition. But not overhype something.
Sucking at a process is part of learning to do it better. But only if it is on a path of learning; practicing the skills that will be useful later.
They’ve stuck with DUV, which everybody else in the world decided was a dead end. Sticking with DUV may cause further progress to be impossible for all we know (maybe somebody should ask Intel). Going to EUV will require a different set of skills. They’ll have to replicate ASML’s machines to do so. Nobody else has figured it out. Their process on figuring out DUV tricks doesn’t tell us anything about their progress making that other type of machine.
I'm laughing at your comment because you seem to assume that China is doing nothing in EUV. I have somewhat inside knowledge and I can tell you that they have multiple teams working on multiple approaches.From SSMB to LPP, they are leaving nothing to chance.
I have been repeatedly pointing out that we don’t know, not claiming that they aren’t making progress. Do you deliberately misread your insider information as well?
It is a dead end path. They probably are exploring multiple paths in parallel. ein0p claimed that their progress down the dead-end path is evidence that they are making good progress down the productive path. It isn’t. That’s all I’m pointing out.
Don’t read more into the post than that. I’m not going to defend an affirmative claim that they aren’t making progress. They have a ton of engineers and are willing to invest in the field, so it is entirely plausible to believe that they’ll catch up.
That’s simply not true. Release day of iPhone 15 had people queued at the door and sold out online.
Release day of Mate 60 saw Huawei stores empty.
I trust the live videos on the release day providing more evidence of demand that sales numbers which are as manipulated as much as their covid numbers.
Ultimately chokepoint still around creating litho/entire semi supply chain. which TBF is coming along. Big Fund was wasetful but did produce a lot of uncoordinated domestic players, US sanctions now forcing them to coordinate. PRC probably only actor with entire indigenous semi supply chain on the horizon. Fabbing leading edge chips was always the "easy" part, there's a reason TSMC/Samsung were willing to open fabs on mainland before US sanctions/CHIPs act without massive subsidies. Other east asians know Chinese work culture is compatible, they can work how they work and make what they make. Hence SMIC/Huawei can do 7nm and eventually 5nm with some TW/SKR training in years prior.
Semi is probably going to be less like oil and more like agriculture in coming years, it's just something strategic many govs have to subsidize.
