After the US government imposed sweeping sanctions on China’s semiconductor sector, the country’s semiconductor champion SMIC blocks access to wafer fab equipment that could be used to manufacture chips using the 14nm node and below. After that, we started working on even tighter limits. The US government is now ready to extend sanctions, and this time we will ensure that Japan and the Netherlands support them. The new sanctions will set China’s semiconductor sector back at least a decade.
Chinese chip makers seek to limit access to wafer fab equipment that can be used to make chips on 40nm-class process technology and below, reports the U.S. Digi Times, citing industry sources. If all restrictions are imposed and export licenses are not given to him to sell advanced chip-making tools to SMIC and other Chinese chip makers, this could set the People’s Republic’s semiconductor industry back at least a decade. Become. But it also hits wafer fab equipment (WFE) manufacturers, potentially impacting the industry as a whole.
When it comes to hurting WFE makers, ASML, the world’s leading lithography equipment maker, appears to be hurting less than American and Japanese makers. Export restrictions announced by the Dutch government last week prohibit the shipment of ASML’s Twinscan NXT:2000i, NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i scanners. bloomberg report. In contrast, about 17 chip-making tools made by US-based manufacturers require an export license from the US Department of Commerce. bloombergThe new restrictions will double that number, the report claims, and companies like Applied Materials, KLA and Lam Research will rightly be hit.
After the Trump administration restricted SMIC’s access to fab tools capable of producing chips at the 10nm class node and below, the company announced several new fabs focused on the 28nm manufacturing process. SMIC recently said it will start mass production one or two quarters later than expected, one of its 300 mm fabs, because it didn’t get the tools it needed on time. But if the US succeeds in banning the sale of 28nm-capable tools to SMIC, foundries will have to rethink their plans for new production facilities.
On the other hand, if China wants to make its semiconductor industry self-sufficient and adopt advanced production nodes, it will need to ensure fab tool producers such as AMEC (lithography), Kingsemi (etching, deposition) and Naura (etching). It stands shoulder to shoulder with its American and European rivals. The state-of-the-art scanner owned by AMEC is the technology he used to make CPUs in the early 2000s, which is going to take years as he can only make ICs at the 90nm class node. is.
Hundreds of Chinese chip designers will have to outsource production to companies like TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries, Vanguard if SMIC loses ability to produce chips on 28nm, 14nm/12nm and higher manufacturing processes there is. While this is certainly good for these contract chip makers, it is disastrous for SMIC in particular, and for the Chinese semiconductor industry in general. And that seems to be the intent of the sanctions.
