TSMC's Tech : China's SMIC Shipping 7nm Chips
According to the TECHINSIGHT analysts, China Foundry SMIC has been producing chips based on its 7 Nm process node for a Bitcoin socio socio, and have been sending since July 2021 (h/t the semi -analysis).
Techinsights has inversely modified the chip, saying that "the initial images suggest that it is a close copy of the TSMC 7NM process technology", a revealing discovery after TSMC, based in Taiwan, has sued SMIC twice in the past in the past for copying your technology. The discovery occurs when China continues to build its own production of its own harvest semiconductors, with the very sanctioned SMIC that leads the way, while the United States government is about to approve large subsidies for chip manufacturers based in headquarters the United States.
The Techinsights report says that TSMC, Intel and Samsung have developed much more sophisticated technology than the 7 NM of SMIC and are at least two nodes ahead. Anyway, you cannot exaggerate the importance of SMIC sending. However, the company can obviously use its existing tools to produce 7 Nm (and possibly smaller) chips, although with less desirable economy and performance. It is not a concern for China, since it seeks the technological independence of Western countries by developing their own indigenous chips supply.
SMIC originally announced its 7 Nm node at the beginning of 2020, then and its Innosilicon partner announced that they had recorded a chip in the N+1 version of the 7 Nm node later that year. It is not clear if the Minerva Bitcoin mining chip, which Techinsight bought in the open market, has an association with the Innosylicon initiative. At that time, SMIC said that it also had a N+2 version of its 7 nm node in the works, but we are not sure if the Minerva chips (seen below) use the N+1 or N+version 2 of the technology process.
Taiwan-based TSMC has sued SMIC twice (in 2002 and 2006) for copying its process technology, and TechInsights' assertion that SMIC has likely copied TSMC's 7nm could lead to further legal battles between the two firms.
The MinerVa Bitcoin mining chip looks to be quite basic and measures only 4.6 x 4.2 mm, implying that SMIC is still in the early stages of chip development. Nevertheless, these types of small, simple, and rudimentary chips often serve as learning nodes while the process technology is further refined:
"This low-volume production product may be the steppingstone for a true 7nm process that incorporates scaled logic and memory bitcells. Since bitcoin miners have limited RAM requirements, they likely do not feature the typical bitcell memory that the true 7nm technology definition requires (both scaled logic and bitcell adoption). This chipset likely demonstrates the logic part but not the bitcell aspect," said TechInsights.
Mining chips are perfect for working out the kinks in a new process node — as you can see in the image above, these small chips are deployed en masse to create powerful machines. In this case, the miner has 120 chips per board to create a machine that consumes up to 3300W of power. We can expect that SMIC will eventually make larger, more complex chips based on its 7nm process node as yields improve over time.
As a reminder, the process naming node convention, like "7nm," has become more of a marketing exercise for the chipmakers rather than a metric tied to any physical measurement. However, in the real world, a plethora of factors influence the economics and performance of a process node, which you can read about here.
TechInsights sells individual reports based on chip analysis - digital floorplan analysis, advanced CMOS process analysis, and process analysis - with more detail, including transistor density, to provide a better idea of how the SMIC node stacks up against competing industrial nodes.
The US has long blocked SMIC from purchasing EUV tools from ASML and has recently considered tightening sanctions further by restricting the company's access to DUV chip generation tools, even is relatively simple. This tactic will slow China down, but it will continue to invest money in developing its own ecosystem of chip-making tools and software (EDA).
As SMIC has demonstrated, it is possible to use less complex equipment to create advanced process nodes even if they are less cost-effective, which opens up even more revenue for the company. from chip designers. Whether these chips will be subject to export restrictions due to regulatory challenges remains to be seen, but China has a burgeoning ecosystem of chip designers who can use their designs. their design at home, perhaps reducing the impact of sanctions.
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