According to reports, the Chinese semiconductor giant SMIC has been producing 7-nanometer or 7nm chips since the previous year. This is the clearest indication to date that China has found a way to develop advanced components despite efforts made by the United States to limit the country’s ability to produce its own silicon.
After doing an analysis of the chip’s die, an American semiconductor analyst company called TechInsights came to this conclusion based on their results. TechInsights recently purchased a cryptocurrency-mining ASIC that was built by SMIC and discovered that it used a 7nm process. According to the information presented on its website, the ASIC was developed by a firm known as MinerVa, which has been manufacturing the chip in large quantities since July 2021.
According to TechInsights, the 7nm process that SMIC appears to be using appears to be a “close duplicate” of the one that the foundry giant TSMC uses. Despite this, the company stated that the unique chip was likely a “steppingstone” for SMIC to achieve a “full 7nm process,” which incorporates scaled logic bitcells as well as memory bitcells.
Because crypto-mining ASICs “likely does not feature the typical bitcell memory that true 7nm technology definition requires,” it is more plausible that the chip is primarily a demonstration of 7nm logic. The reason for this is because true 7nm technology definition requires having typical bitcell memory.
According to TechInsights, “This is the most advanced technological product TechInsights has seen from SMIC so far,” and “it may be leading to a real 7nm process that combines scaled logic and memory bitcells.” TechInsights made this statement after observing SMIC’s latest innovation.
The United States government, out of worries for its own national security, has been working to restrict China’s capacity to produce sophisticated semiconductors for some time now, so this new breakthrough is likely to be seen as bad news by that institution.
Despite the fact that the 7nm crypto-mining chip is most likely intended for consumer or commercial use, the process node will most likely end up in military applications in China as a result of the country’s “military-civil fusion” doctrine. According to this doctrine, private companies are required to share their technologies with the nation’s military. While the 7nm crypto-mining chip is probably intended for consumer or commercial use, the process node will likely end up in military applications.
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The United States government included SMIC, the Middle Kingdom’s largest domestic chipmaker, on its list of entities controlled by the Treasury Department in December 2020 because to China’s efforts to advance its military technology. This was done with the intention of stopping SMIC from acquiring particular American technology. The United States imposed a particular limitation on the importation of goods that would enable SMIC to produce chips with a feature size of 10 nm or below.
Even prior to that, the United States of America was successful in exerting pressure on the Dutch government to prevent ASML, the only provider of extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) lithography machines used to make chips on leading-edge nodes such as 7nm, from selling such systems to China. This was accomplished by using a combination of diplomatic and economic means.
In spite of these efforts, China has allegedly been successful in creating completed goods on a node measuring 7 nanometers.
When it comes to the creation of cutting-edge chips, EUV systems are not required to be used, which is one of the reasons SMIC is able to achieve this. To produce 7nm devices, the chip manufacturer most likely relies on an earlier generation of lithography machinery known as deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV).
There has been anything like happen before. Before adopting the equipment for newer processes, TSMC and Samsung built many 7nm nodes using conventional lithography without using EUV. According to TechInsights, this did come “at the cost of additional process complexity and design rule constraints.” Nevertheless, this was possible. EUV is currently being used by the industry’s largest foundries in order to cut down on the difficulty and expense of producing such chips.
The inference is that despite the fact that SMIC have the capability to manufacture 7nm devices, doing so will not be simple. According to TechInsights, this also means that the corporation will have to deal with more yield concerns than it would if it were employing EUV. [Citation needed]
Despite the fact that DUV is more commonly used to manufacture less sophisticated semiconductors for a variety of devices, this is likely one of the reasons why the United States has apparently been attempting to convince officials in the Netherlands to prohibit ASML from selling DUV equipment to China. A report from BusinessKorea indicates that SMIC intends to invest $11 billion in order to expand its DUV capacity by the year 2023.
Chip industry observer Dylan Patel made a further observation on the implications of SMIC’s 7nm capability. He stated that the development indicates that China is now further ahead than the United States or Europe in having 7nm contract chip manufacturing capabilities. This is because the American chipmaker Intel has not yet made its 7nm process available to foundry customers. China is now further ahead than the United States or Europe.
This is not great news because one of the other two regions with advanced chip foundry capabilities, Taiwan, is facing continuous aggression from China. This has sparked fears that losing access to the island nation’s chips could trigger a “deep and immediate recession” in the United States. Taiwan is one of the two other regions with advanced chip foundry capabilities.
