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Huawei Mate 70 series will soon step into the real world. The flagship lineup is getting support from all sides to result in huge success. But it seems a few Chinese suppliers including SMIC may face profit risks amid Huawei Mate 70 launch preparations.
"However, reports said that SMIC has laid the production lines for a 5nm chip at the outset of this year. The alleged chip has entered the small-scale production already and claims to improve the power efficiency."
And I am sure they are working on 3nm. There is no stopping SMIC, absolutely.
TSMC N7 also started out without EUV. I do not know why people think SMIC cannot make 7nm aka N+2 profitably.
Especially when N+2 seems to have lower manufacturing requirements than N7. Check out the gate pitch and other parameters of both processes. There is no evidence whatsoever of N+2 either having low yield or being uneconomic.
I guess some people have to cope.
TSMC N7 also started out without EUV. I do not know why people think SMIC cannot make 7nm aka N+2 profitably.
Especially when N+2 seems to have lower manufacturing requirements than N7. Check out the gate pitch and other parameters of both processes. There is no evidence whatsoever of N+2 either having low yield or being uneconomic.
I guess some people have to cope.
There is plenty of evidence - I have posted several articles about yield difficulties and extra wear and tear on equipment due to all the extra multi-patterning steps. Especially non-economical when applied to commodity smartphone chips competing against others using EUV (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm). Plus the Mate 70 launch has already been delayed from Sept. due to production issues - insufficient quantities for the the launch. But you just blatantly ignore the writing on the wall. The real tell is what happens to SMIC revenues and profits if they put this Kirin chip into volume. We'll see.
There is plenty of evidence - I have posted several articles about yield difficulties and extra wear and tear on equipment due to all the extra multi-patterning steps. Especially non-economical when applied to commodity smartphone chips competing against others using EUV (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm). Plus the Mate 70 launch has already been delayed from Sept. due to production issues - insufficient quantities for the the launch. But you just blatantly ignore the writing on the wall. The real tell is what happens to SMIC revenues and profits if they put this Kirin chip into volume. We'll see.
Is Huawei buying wafers or good die? It may not hit SMIC revenue. China is brute forcing the 7nm and 5nm chips and that means low yields which hopefully will improve in time. I'm sure the Chinese Government has a close eye on this one and will make things much more pleasing to the public eye.
There is plenty of evidence - I have posted several articles about yield difficulties and extra wear and tear on equipment due to all the extra multi-patterning steps. Especially non-economical when applied to commodity smartphone chips competing against others using EUV (Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm). Plus the Mate 70 launch has already been delayed from Sept. due to production issues - insufficient quantities for the the launch. But you just blatantly ignore the writing on the wall. The real tell is what happens to SMIC revenues and profits if they put this Kirin chip into volume. We'll see.
Poorly substantiated rumors. If you read the TechInsights report they make no claims of poor yields of the SMIC N+2 process. In fact quite the opposite. They claim the structures look better under a microscope than similar processes from Samsung. And Samsung has EUV.
I also said it before here that other people claim the delays with the Mate 70 are due to lack of application support for Huawei's new OS. They removed the OS backwards compatibility with Android in HarmonyOS NEXT. They are waiting until certain key apps in the Chinese market are ported from Android to the new OS before making the launch.
The kernel of HarmonyOS NEXT does not include the compatibility layer of AOSP framework with Android libraries from EMUI in the user space and cannot run Android apk apps natively, as is the case with the dual framework HarmonyOS.