CHIP Wars: Semiconductor mayhem

[frugal.rock]

Was reading some news and was a little shocked.
Truth be told, it actually seems there is a "cold war" rolling out, purely in regards to chips.
Just initial impressions...
This isn't a well thought out thread, just somewhere for now to dump some links for myself and others.

US Quietly Tightens Grip on Exports of Chipmaking Gear to China

The US is tightening restrictions on China’s access to chipmaking gear, according to two major equipment suppliers, underscoring Washington’s accelerating efforts to curb Beijing’s economic ambitions.

www.bloomberg.com

Why China’s big chip breakthrough has rattled the US

SMIC has developed a 7nm semiconductor, placing the Chinese behemoth in the league of Intel and others.

www.trtworld.com

Global Chip Shortage and $53B Subsidy Boosts US Manufacturing

The COVID pandemic triggered the processor shortage in 2020, but it's now lasted more than two years.

www.cnet.com

 

[frugal.rock]

US market chippies related.

Intel, NASDAQ, INTC



Advanced Micro Devices, NASDAQ, AMD



Qualcomm, NASDAQ, QCOM



NVIDIA, NASDAQ, NVDA



NASDAQ, TSMC



NYSE, ETF, SOXL



NASDAQ, Philly Index

 

[frugal.rock]

 

[qldfrog]

Was reading some news and was a little shocked.
Truth be told, it actually seems there is a "cold war" rolling out, purely in regards to chips.
Just initial impressions...
This isn't a well thought out thread, just somewhere for now to dump some links for myself and others.

US Quietly Tightens Grip on Exports of Chipmaking Gear to China

The US is tightening restrictions on China’s access to chipmaking gear, according to two major equipment suppliers, underscoring Washington’s accelerating efforts to curb Beijing’s economic ambitions.

www.bloomberg.com

Why China’s big chip breakthrough has rattled the US

SMIC has developed a 7nm semiconductor, placing the Chinese behemoth in the league of Intel and others.

www.trtworld.com

Global Chip Shortage and $53B Subsidy Boosts US Manufacturing

The COVID pandemic triggered the processor shortage in 2020, but it's now lasted more than two years.

www.cnet.com

I would summarise that as
"Waky waky Jeff " A bit like Putin with his gas talking to the EU...
So now, fly to Taipei...
We are so f***ed but it's Ok, Australian government meets to decide if we need 7 or 5 days segregation if we sneeze

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Nvidia (-7.7%) has been told by the US government to stop selling some of its chips to China and Russia, to reduce the risk of those products being used for military applications

• China’s foreign ministry said the move is ‘tech hegemony’ and stretching the concept of national secretary, impacts the stability of global industrial and supply chains

 

[waterbottle]

Is GPU mining being made redundant? If so, that's a fundamental shift to the semiconductor market....

 

[Craton]

Is GPU mining being made redundant? If so, that's a fundamental shift to the semiconductor market....

Nvidia started throttling GPUs to inhibit the crypto miners mid 2021

Was reading some news and was a little shocked.
Truth be told, it actually seems there is a "cold war" rolling out, purely in regards to chips.
Just initial impressions...
This isn't a well thought out thread, just somewhere for now to dump some links for myself and others.

US Quietly Tightens Grip on Exports of Chipmaking Gear to China

The US is tightening restrictions on China’s access to chipmaking gear, according to two major equipment suppliers, underscoring Washington’s accelerating efforts to curb Beijing’s economic ambitions.

www.bloomberg.com

Why China’s big chip breakthrough has rattled the US

SMIC has developed a 7nm semiconductor, placing the Chinese behemoth in the league of Intel and others.

www.trtworld.com

Global Chip Shortage and $53B Subsidy Boosts US Manufacturing

The COVID pandemic triggered the processor shortage in 2020, but it's now lasted more than two years.

www.cnet.com

The Chip War has being ongoing for some time and building up a head of steam.

Back on 7th July 2022, ergo:-

ASML gives the world's leading chipmakers the power to mass produce patterns on silicon

US pressures the Netherlands to ban ASML from selling more chip tech to China​

The above speaks volumes IMHO.

 

[waterbottle]

What stops China from making their own lithography machines?

 

[Craton]

What stops China from making their own lithography machines?

Um, SMIC already been there, doing that as per @frugal.rock OP.

Why China’s big chip breakthrough has rattled the US

SMIC has developed a 7nm semiconductor, placing the Chinese behemoth in the league of Intel and others.

www.trtworld.com

To my mind the big question though, is China stealing IP (and more besides)?
From the article :

“SMIC hired hundreds of TSMC engineers by luring them with very large compensation packages. Whether they stole IP or not cannot be proven,” says Patel.

More on SMIC

TechWire Asia reads in part:

In December 2020, the largest chipmaker in China, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), was put on a US entity list, halting American equipment suppliers from providing the Chinese company with gear “uniquely required” to produce 10nm and more advanced chips. The ban, first imposed by former President Donald Trump, was based on national security concerns, citing the company’s ties with the Chinese military–which SMIC has outright denied

 

[qldfrog]

What stops China from making their own lithography machines?

let's rephrase it Mr @waterbottle :
What stops the West from making their own lithography machines?
We are well behind now in 2022...

 

[sptrawler]

UK Edges Closer to Blocking Chinese Takeover of Chip Plant

The UK is leaning toward restricting or blocking a Chinese company’s takeover of its biggest microchip factory, Newport Wafer Fab, after agreeing to extend a probe into the purchase, according to people familiar with the matter.

www.bloomberg.com

The UK is leaning toward restricting or blocking a Chinese company’s takeover of its biggest microchip factory, Newport Wafer Fab, after agreeing to extend a probe into the purchase, according to people familiar with the matter.

Unwinding the deal, more than a year after it was signed, would underscore an increasing crackdown on Chinese investment. Liz Truss, front-runner in the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, has branded Chinese tech giants a security risk and vowed to reduce the UK’s dependence on China. Rishi Sunak, her opponent in the contest, has named China the “biggest long-term threat to Britain.”

Newport Wafer Fab makes the silicon wafers on which microchips are etched. Once assembled the chips are largely used in simple applications like power switches, many of which go into cars. The facility has passed through a series of international owners since it was founded in 1982, and was bought by Nexperia in 2021 from former manager Drew Nelson.

 

[qldfrog]

UK Edges Closer to Blocking Chinese Takeover of Chip Plant

The UK is leaning toward restricting or blocking a Chinese company’s takeover of its biggest microchip factory, Newport Wafer Fab, after agreeing to extend a probe into the purchase, according to people familiar with the matter.

www.bloomberg.com

The UK is leaning toward restricting or blocking a Chinese company’s takeover of its biggest microchip factory, Newport Wafer Fab, after agreeing to extend a probe into the purchase, according to people familiar with the matter.

Unwinding the deal, more than a year after it was signed, would underscore an increasing crackdown on Chinese investment. Liz Truss, front-runner in the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, has branded Chinese tech giants a security risk and vowed to reduce the UK’s dependence on China. Rishi Sunak, her opponent in the contest, has named China the “biggest long-term threat to Britain.”

Newport Wafer Fab makes the silicon wafers on which microchips are etched. Once assembled the chips are largely used in simple applications like power switches, many of which go into cars. The facility has passed through a series of international owners since it was founded in 1982, and was bought by Nexperia in 2021 from former manager Drew Nelson.

how high tech is that, are we talking real IP and unique skills or just the politicians trying to boast national ego ?
a bit like our supposedly car industry was 10+y ago before it closed without a sight.
Do Chineses need this or were just looking at an entry point on the UK ground?

 

[qldfrog]

from wikipedia:
Although the building was originally commissioned by Inmos, by July 1984 Thorn EMI had taken over Inmos. Thorn EMI later sold Inmos to SGS-Thomson Microelectronics NV in March 1989.[9][10] A management buyout took over the factory in 1999, renaming the business, European Semiconductor Manufacturing Limited.[11] In March 2002, the factory was sold to International Rectifier Company (GB) Limited, then later in January 2015 it was acquired by Infineon Technologies, under its subsidiary company IR Newport Ltd.[12][13] In September 2017, Infineon sold the site to Neptune 6 Limited, under its subsidiary company of Newport Wafer Fab Limited.[14][13] In July 2021 the site again was sold, this time to Nexperia,[15] who also have plants in Hamburg and Manchester.
I somehow do not feel it must be a jewel -> to be traded and exchanged so often since 2015.and never by a big gun....

 

[divs4ever]

Um, SMIC already been there, doing that as per @frugal.rock OP.


To my mind the big question though, is China stealing IP (and more besides)?
From the article :

“SMIC hired hundreds of TSMC engineers by luring them with very large compensation packages. Whether they stole IP or not cannot be proven,” says Patel.

More on SMIC

TechWire Asia reads in part:

STEAL ??

not just use abandoned tech ??

Intel and some others have killed off some very useful chips ( once you weed out the redundant code )

if China is 'stealing' then maybe they have missed some tricks

 

[sptrawler]

Chip warfare: US-China tensions being ramped up in battle to be No.1

The US is increasing its efforts to deny China access to one of the most critical building blocks for 21st century technologies.

www.theage.com.au

While AMD said the impact of the ban was unlikely to be material, for Nvidia it seems it will be highly material, affecting about $US400 million ($590 million) of sales in the current quarter. It said it had been told the new licensing requirement was to reduce the risk the products might be used by China’s military.
The restrictions on the sales of advanced semiconductors – it appears Nvidia and others in the US will be able to continue to sell less sophisticated chips to China – follows the recent passage through Congress of the CHIPS Act, which provides more than $US52 billion of funding to boost domestic manufacturing of semiconductors in the US. Taiwanese and Korean chipmakers are now constructing manufacturing facilities in the US.

The CHIPS Act was part of the larger $US280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, the largest five-year federal government funding for research and development in US history.
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The CHIPS and Science package was motivated by the sense that the US was losing its technology leadership over China, which has made no secret of its ambition of overtaking the US in artificial intelligence, 5G, aerospace, electric vehicles and biotech. Semiconductors are critical to most advanced technologies.
Indeed, it was China’s hubris in 2015, in making those ambitions overt in its “Made in China 2025″ national strategic plan, that alarmed the Trump administration and prompted it to ban China’s Huawei from selling its equipment in the US and the revoking of export licences from US component suppliers to Huawei, including chipmakers.
That was one of the early shots in what developed into a fully fledged trade war with China. Trump’s tariffs and other trade restrictions have remained in place under the Biden administration.
China has been fiercely critical of the Biden administration’s program to rebuild a domestic chip manufacturing sector – the US once had 40 per cent of the market but now only has about a 12 per cent market share – saying the program violates the World Trade Organisation’s fair trade principles and creates an unfair playing field.

That’s despite China having spent more than $US100 billion of a planned $US150 billion under a state-directed program to fast-track development of its own semiconductor sector, a program that presumably isn’t quite going to plan given recent corruption investigations of many of the sector’s leaders.

China is the world’s biggest market for the chips but manufactures mainly the less advanced chips it needs for its consumer goods manufacturers. It relies on imports from Taiwan, South Korea and the US for the more advanced chips.
The US effort to slow the rate of China’s technological progress goes beyond the investment in domestic manufacturing and R&D and bans on exports by US manufacturers.

The semiconductor industry is a complex global ecosystem. The US dominates design of advanced chips and the equipment that manufactures and the intellectual property that supports them but the manufacturing is dominated by Taiwan. South Korea is also a major manufacturer and Japan a major supplier of equipment and materials to the sector.
In terms of the machinery for manufacturing the leading-edge chips, Dutch-based ASML is the only supplier of the massive $US150 million machines that can produce the most advanced semiconductors in volume. Under pressure from the US, while ASML sells some of its older systems to China, it hasn’t exported its latest generation machines there since 2019.

The CHIPS Act specifically prohibits companies that receive US funding from increasing their production of chips in China, which will affect Taiwan’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and South Korea’s Samsung, both of which have US plants under construction and both of which are major suppliers to China.
It’s not that funding that is the most powerful coercive tool in the US armoury. Taiwan and South Korea rely on – and almost completely dependent on – America’s chip designers and equipment makers to produce the advanced chips that the US is focused on.

China might be their biggest market and they all have manufacturing facilities within China but the US dominance of the technology means they would have nothing to sell if they ran foul of the US, whereas China has no realistic alternative at present but to buy from them.
The mutual dependence of the US, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan at the core of the production of advanced chips has led to the formation of a US-led alliance, the so-called “Chip 4”, as a forum for discussing sectoral issues.
The US ambition is obvious. Apart from resolving some of the industry bottlenecks exposed by the pandemic – there are still shortages of semiconductors that affect everything from automobiles production to consumer electronics – the US will want to use Chip 4 to restrict or deny China access to the most advanced chips.
China has been making progress in development of its own capabilities but is still years behind where the bleeding edge of the Chip 4 group’s technologies have reached. The US is trying to maintain and extend that capability gap and the impact it will have on limiting China’s broader technology and military ambitions.

The CHIPs Act isn’t going to turn the US into a powerhouse of chipmaking – it would take trillions of dollars of subsidies and decades to do that – but is a step towards reducing its reliance on Taiwan-based manufacturing, where the threat from China has escalated.

 

[IFocus]

A friend has developed a device that will sell like hot cakes if and when he can get enough chips for manufacture its a real issue ATM he can only get 1000 at a time he needs 10K to 100K.

 

[sptrawler]

A friend has developed a device that will sell like hot cakes if and when he can get enough chips for manufacture its a real issue ATM he can only get 1000 at a time he needs 10K to 100K.

Hope you're in at the ground level with him.

 

[frugal.rock]

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023 By Bloomberg

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023

au.investing.com

 

[qldfrog]

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023 By Bloomberg

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023

au.investing.com

By the time this is completed, 50 billions might buy an empty wallmart warehouse in Missouri....a bit late i think.
As if throwing money could easily defeat decades of outsourcing, failing education systems and now a woke leftist goverment to ensure no brain drain can bring required engineers from overseas...maybe Ukrainian refugees? But they are white so no..
Good intentions still but i suspect poor results plus when done this way top down, usually a waste of money.,.

 

[qldfrog]

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023 By Bloomberg

US Lays Out $50 Billion Chips Plan and Will Issue Funds Guide in 2023

au.investing.com

By the time this is completed, 50 billions might buy an empty wallmart warehouse in Missouri....a bit late i think.
As if throwing money could easily defeat decades of outsourcing, failing education systems and now a woke leftist goverment to ensure no brain drain can bring required engineers from overseas...maybe Ukrainian refugees? But they are white so no..
Good intentions still but i suspect poor results plus when done this way top down, usually a waste of money.,.