With its 7 nm engraving, the Chinese smelter SMIC foiled many predictions that saw the impossible or at least the unviable minimum. For example, the company’s foundries released the HiSilicon Kirin 9000S SoCs in 7 nm in 2023 and then Kirin 9010 in 2024, which equip Huawei smartphones, which are certainly sold at high prices but are very successful and show that this is not only possible but also viable, in part it must also be said thanks to the Chinese government’s help that does not skil the money in subsidies.
It is recalled that to etch in 7 nm, Chinese farmers have no choice but to use the DUV (Deep Ultra Violet) technology to engrave its chips, not having access to the USV (Extreme Ultra Violet) lithography of the firm ASML. The result is etching both longer and with a much higher initial failure rate in DUV. As you will have understood, much more expensive production, more than four times more expensive puts some analysts, even if things then improve a little over time, as the rate of chess falls. We can better understand why Huawei smartphones with HiSilicon chips are so expensive despite performances that are not revolutionary.
The rumor of the day comes from the Business Korea website, which reports that the 5 nm will now be ready at SMIC. Yes, yes, 5 nm. So obviously ‘loan’ does not mean ‘viable’ and whatever the information happens is to be taken with tweezers, but the founder would work hard, no doubt again being subsidies to help him, to make it commercially exploitable as quickly as possible according to the noises of corridors, whereas the DUV would obviously still be required.
This would make sense at any rate while other rumors in recent weeks are talking about the future Huawei Mate 70 smartphone series, expected by the end of 2024 and which would bring a nice performance gain compared to the current Huawei Mate 60 and Huawei Pura 70 in Kirin 9010 or 9000S. Is the switch to 5 nm one of the reasons?
