China poised to break 5nm barrier — Huawei lists 5nm processor presumably built with SMIC tech, defying U.S. sanctions | Huawei and SMIC quietly rolled out a new Kirin 9000C processor.::Chinese foundry SMIC may have broken the 5nm process barrier, as evidenced by a new Huawei laptop listed with an advanced chip with 5nm manufacturing tech — a feat previously thought impossible due to U.S sanctions.
I think i understand some of the words on that article, but here’s my question, why does the US think that another country cannot recreate these products? Or is it that they don’t want to accept the fact that it can be done without their knowledge/expertise/input? Again, this is coming from someone who doesn’t know anything about the chip making process but is interested in the idea that other countries do have the resources, intelligence, and most of all the money to create such chips? Is the chip making process such a difficult thing that the US expects no other country to do it? (serious question)
This kind of super high tech manufacturing is something that only a couple companies in the world can do, it is literally the most technologically complex thing humans have created. And they can only do it by using machines and technology from all over the, “western”, world. For example the taiwanese TSCM might use extremely specialized machines from the Netherlands or lenses from Switzerland, etc.
If China wants to replicate that, they would need to create everything from scratch, since they wont have access to the knowledge, technology, machines and manufacturing techniques the other(taiwanese, american and korean) companies have access to.
This is a matter of time and money. Obviously at some point China would succeed as long as there is political will and funding. But there is a difference between China succeeding within the next 3 years or within the next 15 years.
If these claims are true(and it is a big IF), China is way ahead than expected.
No other country in the world can do it alone. The US isnt producing high end chips. But thats because it didnt need to, since their allies are doing it. But because the situation in Taiwan is becoming hotter, both the US and the EU are inviting companies(tsmc and Intel) to create factories in their lands.
TSMC is kinda reluctant in creating a cutting edge fab outside of Taiwan, since having all cutting edge fabs there, provides Taiwan with a security advantage(increasing the chance the EU and US will come to Taiwan’s assistance in case China invades). However it seems they are willing to make “last gen”(still very high end in comparison to what China has) fabs outside of Taiwan.
This is a good take on the situation.