China boosts in silicon...

[smatovic]

update:

How China is Building an Open National Chip Plan Around RISC-V
https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/07/19/how- ... nd-risc-v/

CAS is working with top Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, and ZTE, to co-develop XiangShan-v3, which will match the performance of ARM’s Neoverse-N2 server CPU design, which ARM announced in 2021.

CAS XiangShan RISC-V:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2021/07/05 ... ortex-a76/

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Srdja

[smatovic]

Oh boy, a tech thriller...

Some US Lawmakers Want to Restrict American Companies From Working on RISC-V Chip Technology

An anonymous reader shared this report from Reuters: In a new front in the U.S.-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China — a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders... RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence... The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current U.S. lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by U.S. companies on RISC-V... Executives from China's Huawei Technologies have embraced RISC-V as a pillar of that nation's progress in developing its own chips. But the United States and its allies also have jumped on the technology, with chip giant Qualcomm working with a group of European automotive firms on RISC-V chips and Alphabet's Google saying it will make Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system, work on RISC-V chips... Jack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a Santa Clara, California-based startup using RISC-V, said potential U.S. government restrictions on American companies regarding RISC-V would be a "tremendous tragedy." "It would be like banning us from working on the internet," Kang said. "It would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation and companies and jobs that are being created." One U.S. Representative said the Chinese Communist Party was "abusing RISC-V to get around U.S. dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. "U.S. persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade U.S. export control laws."

https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/10/0 ... technology

...what's next? The Splinter-Linux?

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Srdja

[Dann Corbit]

dog is barking up the wrong tree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7IA7-TNNt0

[smatovic]

To be competitive with TSMC and Samsung China needs XUV lithography machines, the only company currently producing these is the Dutch ASML. They are not allowed to ship these machines to China because they contain a lot of American tech. It will take a lot longer than 3 years before China catches up.

According to:

Huawei's Profit Doubles With Made-in-China Chip Breakthrough
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/ ... eakthrough

But less advanced DUV models can be retooled with deposition and etching gear to produce 7-nanometer and possibly even more advanced chips, according to industry analysts.

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Srdja

[smatovic]

....on Chinese GPUs:

Moore Threads
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_Threads

Biren Technology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biren_Technology

Zhaoxin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhaoxin#Discrete_GPU

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Srdja

[smatovic]

Oh, SMIC (Shangai) over 7nm DUV to now 5nm with DUV?

Huawei now lists a chip made on a 5nm-class process node — an eight-core Arm-based HiSilicon Kirin 9000C processor with Arm Mali-G78 graphics for laptops — on its website.

SMIC is preparing a 5nm process through DUV, and photomask usage is expected to increase further

China poised to break 5nm barrier — Huawei lists 5nm processor presumably built with SMIC tech, defying U.S. sanctions
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-indus ... -sanctions

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Srdja

[towforce]

China poised to break 5nm barrier — Huawei lists 5nm processor presumably built with SMIC tech, defying U.S. sanctions
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-indus ... -sanctions

That article is over 6 months old: I had a feeling I'd heard this news before!

Anyway, here's a summary of my understanding of that article - please correct me if I've got anything wrong:

- There is evidence that Chinese semiconductor foundry SMIC may have developed a 5nm manufacturing process, based on a new Huawei laptop listed with a 5nm Kirin 9006C processor. This would be a major breakthrough for SMIC.

- Previously, SMIC had achieved mass production of Huawei's 7nm Kirin 9000S chip. But 5nm was thought impossible for SMIC due to U.S. sanctions restricting access to advanced manufacturing equipment.

- The Kirin 9006C chip's specifications like core count and clock speeds are similar to the 5nm Kirin 9000 chip made by TSMC before Huawei was blacklisted. This raises questions if Huawei is using old TSMC stock or if SMIC made the 9006C.

- Industry experts believe SMIC is close to a 5nm process using deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography and multi-patterning techniques, despite lacking cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools.

- However, neither Huawei nor SMIC is likely to officially confirm SMIC's 5nm capabilities openly, given tensions with the U.S. government and desire to avoid further export controls.

In summary, while not definitively proven, there are increasing signs that SMIC may have overcome U.S. sanctions to develop 5nm chipmaking against expectations.