The part about 14nm is good, and that was what was indicated a few months ago, that production for SMIC would begin this year.That registration letter from Liang Mong Song outlined the plans and gave an indication of where SMIC was at. Later, it was reported everything was a misunderstanding and it is a big happy family after all.
Now they are saying 7nm trail production/tests for next month?
Three things come to mind, random points.
• Intel gave up fabrication at 10nm or thereabouts, which is almost the same as 7nm under a microscope apparently. IIRC that means Intel fab still at 14nm in America. If SMIC gets to 7nm production soon, as the report indicated, that should mean a Chinese fab is more advanced than any American fab. A bit ironic given the perceptions and events of the past few years.
• All of Huawei cell phones have 7nm as the best chip, but they have some at 5nm from the stockpile from TSMC before. Do not believe there is much of a difference here in performance. The Huawei base station for 5G has a 7nm chip too, which apparently that stock pile can last for years. If they have enough chips in a stock pile for tens of millions of cell phones, then Huawei have a stock pile of 7nm chips for the base stations for sure, because no one needs tens of millions of base stations. Nonetheless, with this news of 7nm imminent, there is no impediments to Huawei business going forward, as supply and capacity is available inside China.
• There is still a ban worldwide of commercial transactions with Huawei that involve any American IP inputs. Thereby, by American law, SMIC could be sanctioned if they work with Huawei using American inputs, the United States Commerce Department IIRC would ask for sanctions in the United States, to fine SMIC or seize their assets.
The cheating parts is the most interesting. Suppose in a SMIC fab in China, they got this production line that has some American parts. But right beside that production line, in the same factory or fab, they have a Chinese made 100% domestic production line.
That SMIC fab makes some advanced chips and they sold them to Huawei. Was any American law broken? Unless the chip police was inside the factory, no laws were broken, because the factory used the American production line to make those chips for Huawei and not the Chinese production.
No! Wait, I mean the opposite. SMIC used the Chinese production line to make advanced chips for Huawei, and not the American production in the same, yes, that is what I mean.
Then we have the black market. SMIC can get a phone call from the PLA headquarters ... asking tong zhi men, we need some 7hm advanced chips ... say ... did someone at Huawei used to be PLA ...
There was an article somewhere by an American, that claimed China won, it beat America in this round of the struggle. Regardless of whether anyone won or not, saying that this round of the struggle seemed accurate. This round of the tech war was centered around 5G and semiconductors. This round is not over yet, but there seems to be limited options for the Americans, which kind of means it is over. At the end of this round of the tech war, America will have their 5G and their semiconductor supply chain, and China will have their 5G and their semiconductor supply chain. What the next few rounds of the tech war will entail, who knows.
