j20blackdragon
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Opinionated - China Chipping Away to Semiconductor Dominance
- Thread starter Martian2
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JSCh
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NOVEMBER 1, 2019
Researchers build a silicon-graphene-germanium transistor for future THz operation
by Chinese Academy of Sciences
Device design and fabrication. a A Si–Gr–Ge transistor is built by directly stacking a Si membrane, single-layer graphene and a Ge substrate. b Optical image of a Si–Gr–Ge transistor (scale bar: 20 μm). c SEM image of a Si membrane on graphene (scale bar: 4 μm). d Illustration of the cross-section of the transistor. e Illustration of the basic operating principle of the transistor. Credit: Nature Communications
In 1947, the first transistor, a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), was invented in the Bell Laboratory and has since led to the age of information technology. In recent decades, there has been a persistent demand for higher frequency operation for a BJT, leading to the inventions of new devices such as heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) and hot electron transistors (HET). The HBTs have enabled terahertz operations, but their cut-off frequency is ultimately limited by the base transit time; for the HETs, the demand of a thin base without pinholes and with a low base resistance usually causes difficulties in material selection and fabrication.
Recently, researchers have proposed graphene as a base material for transistors. Because of the atomic thickness, the graphene base is almost transparent to electron transport, leading to a negligible base transit time. At the same time, the remarkably high carrier mobility of graphene will benefit the base resistance compared with a thin bulk material. Graphene-based transistors (GBTs) generally use a tunnel emitter that emits an electron through an insulator. However, the emitter potential barrier height seriously limits the cut-off frequency. Theoretical study has indicated that a Schottky emitter may solve this potential barrier limitation.
A team of researchers at the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has built the first graphene-based transistor with a Schottky emitter, which is a silicon-graphene-germanium transistor. Using a semiconductor membrane and graphene transfer, the team stacked three materials including an n-type top single-crystal Si membrane, a middle single-layer graphene (Gr) and an n-type bottom Ge substrate.
Compared with the previous tunnel emitters, the on-current of the Si-Gr Schottky emitter shows the maximum on-current and the smallest capacitance, leading to a delay time more than 1,000 times shorter. Thus, the alpha cut-off frequency of the transistor is expected to increase from about 1 MHz by using the previous tunnel emitters to above 1 GHz by using the current Schottky emitter. THz operation is expected using a compact model of an ideal device. The electrical behavior and physical activity of the working transistor are discussed in detail in the published paper in Nature Communications.
With further engineering, the vertical semiconductor-graphene-semiconductor transistor is promising for high-speed applications in future 3-D monolithic integration because of the advantages of atomic thickness, high carrier mobility, and the high feasibility of a Schottky emitter.
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-silicon-graphene-germanium-transistor-future-thz.html
Researchers build a silicon-graphene-germanium transistor for future THz operation
by Chinese Academy of Sciences
In 1947, the first transistor, a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), was invented in the Bell Laboratory and has since led to the age of information technology. In recent decades, there has been a persistent demand for higher frequency operation for a BJT, leading to the inventions of new devices such as heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) and hot electron transistors (HET). The HBTs have enabled terahertz operations, but their cut-off frequency is ultimately limited by the base transit time; for the HETs, the demand of a thin base without pinholes and with a low base resistance usually causes difficulties in material selection and fabrication.
Recently, researchers have proposed graphene as a base material for transistors. Because of the atomic thickness, the graphene base is almost transparent to electron transport, leading to a negligible base transit time. At the same time, the remarkably high carrier mobility of graphene will benefit the base resistance compared with a thin bulk material. Graphene-based transistors (GBTs) generally use a tunnel emitter that emits an electron through an insulator. However, the emitter potential barrier height seriously limits the cut-off frequency. Theoretical study has indicated that a Schottky emitter may solve this potential barrier limitation.
A team of researchers at the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has built the first graphene-based transistor with a Schottky emitter, which is a silicon-graphene-germanium transistor. Using a semiconductor membrane and graphene transfer, the team stacked three materials including an n-type top single-crystal Si membrane, a middle single-layer graphene (Gr) and an n-type bottom Ge substrate.
Compared with the previous tunnel emitters, the on-current of the Si-Gr Schottky emitter shows the maximum on-current and the smallest capacitance, leading to a delay time more than 1,000 times shorter. Thus, the alpha cut-off frequency of the transistor is expected to increase from about 1 MHz by using the previous tunnel emitters to above 1 GHz by using the current Schottky emitter. THz operation is expected using a compact model of an ideal device. The electrical behavior and physical activity of the working transistor are discussed in detail in the published paper in Nature Communications.
With further engineering, the vertical semiconductor-graphene-semiconductor transistor is promising for high-speed applications in future 3-D monolithic integration because of the advantages of atomic thickness, high carrier mobility, and the high feasibility of a Schottky emitter.
More information: Chi Liu et al. A vertical silicon-graphene-germanium transistor, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12814-1
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-silicon-graphene-germanium-transistor-future-thz.html
JSCh
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SMIC to move 12nm FinFET process to risk production by year-end 2019 | DIGITIMES
Lena Li, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES
Thursday 14 November 2019
China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has kicked off volume production of 14nm FinFET chips, and plans to move a newer 12nm FinFET process to risk production by the end of 2019, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Lena Li, Taipei; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES
Thursday 14 November 2019
China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has kicked off volume production of 14nm FinFET chips, and plans to move a newer 12nm FinFET process to risk production by the end of 2019, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Last edited:
JSCh
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JSCh
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Chinese foundry HSMC gearing up for 14nm, 7nm chip production
Lena Li, Shanghai; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES
Friday 22 November 2019
Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (HSMC), a logic IC foundry founded in late 2017, is gearing up for 14nm and 7nm process manufacturing eyeing to be China's most advanced contract chipmaker.
Lena Li, Shanghai; Jessie Shen, DIGITIMES
Friday 22 November 2019
Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (HSMC), a logic IC foundry founded in late 2017, is gearing up for 14nm and 7nm process manufacturing eyeing to be China's most advanced contract chipmaker.
j20blackdragon
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Holy crap.
j20blackdragon
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Kirin A1, a chip small enough to fit into an earbud.
Note the DSP and application processor integrated into a single chip.
Note the DSP and application processor integrated into a single chip.
j20blackdragon
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Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips
By Asa Fitch and Dan Strumpf
Dec. 1, 2019
American tech companies are getting the go-ahead to resume business with Chinese smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co., but it may be too late: It is now building smartphones without U.S. chips.
Huawei’s latest phone, which it unveiled in September—the Mate 30 with a curved display and wide-angle cameras that competes with Apple Inc.’s iPhone 11—contained no U.S. parts, according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a Japanese technology lab that took the device apart to inspect its insides.
In May, the Trump administration banned U.S. shipments to Huawei as trade tensions with Beijing escalated. That move stopped companies like Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. from exporting chips to the company, though some shipments of parts resumed over the summer after companies determined they weren’t affected by the ban.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees export licenses, last month said U.S.-based chip makers were being granted licenses to resume some other deliveries. The department has received nearly 300 license applications, he said.
Meanwhile, Huawei has made significant strides in shedding its dependence on parts from U.S. companies. (At issue are chips from U.S.-based companies, not those necessarily made in America; many U.S. chip companies make their semiconductors abroad.)
Huawei long relied on suppliers like Qorvo Inc., the North Carolina maker of chips that are used to connect smartphones with cell towers, and Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Woburn, Mass.-based company that makes similar chips. It also used parts from Broadcom Inc., the San Jose-based maker of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips, and Cirrus Logic Inc., an Austin, Texas-based company that makes chips for producing sound.
While Huawei hasn’t stopped using American chips entirely, it has reduced its reliance on U.S. suppliers or eliminated U.S. chips in phones launched since May, including the company’s Y9 Prime and Mate smartphones, according to Fomalhaut’s teardown analysis. Similar inspections by iFixit and Tech Insights Inc., two other firms that take apart phones to inspect components, have come to similar conclusions.
With the Mate 30, audio chips supplied in older versions came from Cirrus Logic. In the newer Mate 30 models, chips were provided by NXP Semiconductors NV, a Dutch chip maker, according to Fomalhaut. Power amplifiers provided by Qorvo or Skyworks were replaced with chips from HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chip design firm, the teardown analysis showed.
“When Huawei came out with this high-end phone—and this is its flagship—with no U.S. content, that made a pretty big statement,” said Christopher Rolland, a semiconductor analyst at Susquehanna International Group. He said that in recent meetings, Huawei executives told him that the company was moving away from American parts, but it was still surprising how quickly it happened.
A Huawei spokesman said it is the company’s “clear preference to continue to integrate and buy components from U.S. supply partners. If that proves impossible because of the decisions of the U.S. government, we will have no choice but to find alternative supply from non-U.S. sources.”
The Shenzhen-based manufacturer has many phone models and the technology inside can vary depending on where a handset is being sold. Atif Malik, a Citigroup Inc. semiconductor analyst, said in a recent note there was “growing China domestic substitution risk” for U.S. companies, especially in lower-priced phones.
The U.S. has long considered Huawei telecommunications equipment a security threat, citing fears that its gear could be used to spy on Americans—something the company has said it wouldn’t do. Its smartphones, hugely popular in Europe and China, are effectively unavailable in the U.S. More recently, the company has become a bargaining chip in the U.S.-China trade war, with Beijing insisting on relief for Huawei as a condition for a trade deal.
Huawei executives say they anticipated the blacklisting after years of U.S. pressure on the company and last year they began stockpiling spare parts. In other cases, the phone maker identified non-U.S. suppliers or started working on its own replacement parts, according to Huawei executives.
Huawei has said it bought $11 billion of U.S. technology last year, though not all of it was subjected to export restrictions, a Huawei spokesman said.
Several U.S. chip makers, like Qorvo, Skyworks, and Broadcom, this year warned of earnings hits because of the partial U.S. export ban.
Huawei’s drive to shake off its dependence on U.S. parts goes beyond smartphones. John Suffolk, the company’s top cybersecurity official, said in an interview that the company is now capable of producing—without U.S. components—the 5G base stations that are a key part of the infrastructure needed for the high-speed network.
“All of our 5G is now America-free,” Mr. Suffolk said. “We would like to continue using American components,” he said. “It’s good for American industry. It’s good for Huawei. That has been taken out of our hands.”
Huawei began testing these base stations over the summer, a spokesman said. Though its ability to produce them is still limited to about 5,000 a month, the spokesman said the figure should increase to about 125,000 a month next year.
“Independence of U.S. supply indicates that the strategies of the U.S. in trying to isolate Huawei are not working,” said Handel Jones, president of consulting firm International Business Strategies Inc.
Despite this progress, Huawei still has one big supply-chain vulnerability. Its smartphones run on the Google Android operating system and make use of a number of Google-made apps. While Android is open source and can be used freely, the apps—including YouTube, Google Maps and the Play app store—aren’t. At its launch in September, the Mate 30 was Huawei’s first major phone to launch without Google’s proprietary apps. Google declined to comment.
The Chinese company’s booming smartphone business could suffer—especially in overseas markets—if it doesn’t regain access to the apps, analysts have said. Huawei has unveiled a self-developed operating system, called HarmonyOS, to replace Android. But the operating system wasn’t originally designed for smartphones and Huawei executives have said they would prefer to stick with Android.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-manages-to-make-smartphones-without-american-chips-11575196201
By Asa Fitch and Dan Strumpf
Dec. 1, 2019
American tech companies are getting the go-ahead to resume business with Chinese smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co., but it may be too late: It is now building smartphones without U.S. chips.
Huawei’s latest phone, which it unveiled in September—the Mate 30 with a curved display and wide-angle cameras that competes with Apple Inc.’s iPhone 11—contained no U.S. parts, according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a Japanese technology lab that took the device apart to inspect its insides.
In May, the Trump administration banned U.S. shipments to Huawei as trade tensions with Beijing escalated. That move stopped companies like Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. from exporting chips to the company, though some shipments of parts resumed over the summer after companies determined they weren’t affected by the ban.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees export licenses, last month said U.S.-based chip makers were being granted licenses to resume some other deliveries. The department has received nearly 300 license applications, he said.
Meanwhile, Huawei has made significant strides in shedding its dependence on parts from U.S. companies. (At issue are chips from U.S.-based companies, not those necessarily made in America; many U.S. chip companies make their semiconductors abroad.)
Huawei long relied on suppliers like Qorvo Inc., the North Carolina maker of chips that are used to connect smartphones with cell towers, and Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Woburn, Mass.-based company that makes similar chips. It also used parts from Broadcom Inc., the San Jose-based maker of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips, and Cirrus Logic Inc., an Austin, Texas-based company that makes chips for producing sound.
While Huawei hasn’t stopped using American chips entirely, it has reduced its reliance on U.S. suppliers or eliminated U.S. chips in phones launched since May, including the company’s Y9 Prime and Mate smartphones, according to Fomalhaut’s teardown analysis. Similar inspections by iFixit and Tech Insights Inc., two other firms that take apart phones to inspect components, have come to similar conclusions.
With the Mate 30, audio chips supplied in older versions came from Cirrus Logic. In the newer Mate 30 models, chips were provided by NXP Semiconductors NV, a Dutch chip maker, according to Fomalhaut. Power amplifiers provided by Qorvo or Skyworks were replaced with chips from HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chip design firm, the teardown analysis showed.
“When Huawei came out with this high-end phone—and this is its flagship—with no U.S. content, that made a pretty big statement,” said Christopher Rolland, a semiconductor analyst at Susquehanna International Group. He said that in recent meetings, Huawei executives told him that the company was moving away from American parts, but it was still surprising how quickly it happened.
A Huawei spokesman said it is the company’s “clear preference to continue to integrate and buy components from U.S. supply partners. If that proves impossible because of the decisions of the U.S. government, we will have no choice but to find alternative supply from non-U.S. sources.”
The Shenzhen-based manufacturer has many phone models and the technology inside can vary depending on where a handset is being sold. Atif Malik, a Citigroup Inc. semiconductor analyst, said in a recent note there was “growing China domestic substitution risk” for U.S. companies, especially in lower-priced phones.
The U.S. has long considered Huawei telecommunications equipment a security threat, citing fears that its gear could be used to spy on Americans—something the company has said it wouldn’t do. Its smartphones, hugely popular in Europe and China, are effectively unavailable in the U.S. More recently, the company has become a bargaining chip in the U.S.-China trade war, with Beijing insisting on relief for Huawei as a condition for a trade deal.
Huawei executives say they anticipated the blacklisting after years of U.S. pressure on the company and last year they began stockpiling spare parts. In other cases, the phone maker identified non-U.S. suppliers or started working on its own replacement parts, according to Huawei executives.
Huawei has said it bought $11 billion of U.S. technology last year, though not all of it was subjected to export restrictions, a Huawei spokesman said.
Several U.S. chip makers, like Qorvo, Skyworks, and Broadcom, this year warned of earnings hits because of the partial U.S. export ban.
Huawei’s drive to shake off its dependence on U.S. parts goes beyond smartphones. John Suffolk, the company’s top cybersecurity official, said in an interview that the company is now capable of producing—without U.S. components—the 5G base stations that are a key part of the infrastructure needed for the high-speed network.
“All of our 5G is now America-free,” Mr. Suffolk said. “We would like to continue using American components,” he said. “It’s good for American industry. It’s good for Huawei. That has been taken out of our hands.”
Huawei began testing these base stations over the summer, a spokesman said. Though its ability to produce them is still limited to about 5,000 a month, the spokesman said the figure should increase to about 125,000 a month next year.
“Independence of U.S. supply indicates that the strategies of the U.S. in trying to isolate Huawei are not working,” said Handel Jones, president of consulting firm International Business Strategies Inc.
Despite this progress, Huawei still has one big supply-chain vulnerability. Its smartphones run on the Google Android operating system and make use of a number of Google-made apps. While Android is open source and can be used freely, the apps—including YouTube, Google Maps and the Play app store—aren’t. At its launch in September, the Mate 30 was Huawei’s first major phone to launch without Google’s proprietary apps. Google declined to comment.
The Chinese company’s booming smartphone business could suffer—especially in overseas markets—if it doesn’t regain access to the apps, analysts have said. Huawei has unveiled a self-developed operating system, called HarmonyOS, to replace Android. But the operating system wasn’t originally designed for smartphones and Huawei executives have said they would prefer to stick with Android.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-manages-to-make-smartphones-without-american-chips-11575196201
JSCh
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Changxin Storage Announces New Roadmap: Production of 19nm Computer Memory Has Begun
December 2, 2019
Changxin Storage Technology Co., Ltd. (CXMT) has begun production of computer memory based on the 19nm process, and the company has developed at least two 10nm process roadmaps, with plans to produce various types of dynamic random memory (DRAM) in the future. In order to increase production, Changxin Storage also plans to build two other fabs. As part of the Made in China 2025 project, it is expected to support about half of the world’s DRAM needs.
...
Changxin Storage Announces New Roadmap: Production of 19nm Computer Memory Has Begun – small tech news
December 2, 2019
Changxin Storage Technology Co., Ltd. (CXMT) has begun production of computer memory based on the 19nm process, and the company has developed at least two 10nm process roadmaps, with plans to produce various types of dynamic random memory (DRAM) in the future. In order to increase production, Changxin Storage also plans to build two other fabs. As part of the Made in China 2025 project, it is expected to support about half of the world’s DRAM needs.
...
Changxin Storage Announces New Roadmap: Production of 19nm Computer Memory Has Begun – small tech news
JSCh
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SMIC Chairman Says U.S.-China Trade War Has Little Impact on China’s Chip Ambitions
SMIC’s development of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is on track as it has smoothly resolved the issue of receiving EUV equipment with ASML, said the chairman of the Chinese semiconductor company in Seoul recently.
...
SMIC Chairman Says U.S.-China Trade War Has Little Impact on China’s Chip Ambitions - 비즈니스코리아 - BusinessKorea
- By Kim Eun-jin
- December 9, 2019, 10:06
SMIC’s development of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is on track as it has smoothly resolved the issue of receiving EUV equipment with ASML, said the chairman of the Chinese semiconductor company in Seoul recently.
...
SMIC Chairman Says U.S.-China Trade War Has Little Impact on China’s Chip Ambitions - 비즈니스코리아 - BusinessKorea
After Qinghua spent $70 billion bucks on memory, that should've been the time for them to finally deliver.
It would've been good news if not the circumstances. Such a facepalm.
Han Patriot
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70 bil? That's abit far fetched ok. Stop exaggerating like our southern neighbor
j20blackdragon
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Olli Ranta
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That article from simmtester is a copy from article in EEtimes by Junko Yoshida two days earlier. That $70 billion claimed in 2017 never materialized.
https://www.eetimes.com/changxin-emerging-as-chinas-first-only-dram-maker/
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