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.
Thank you for your perspective. Why is this a big IF? Wouldn’t China have seen the writing on the wall years ago? 20-30 years ago that their path was going to put them at odds with western countries? I get that developing new chips takes years, maybe decades, but hasn’t China had that time already? Is is possible that intel provided to western countries such as what the US currently knows of China could be behind to what they are building? The US has done great things in secret, developed a lot of technology under their military resources, is it too hard to believe that China, and maybe others have done the same and have been able to keep it a secret as well? After all, many new technologies could be considered national security. Maybe I’m just naive, dumb, or have been watching too many movies but i find it hard to believe that China has become a super power in many aspects, one of them their intelligence capital, yet western countries are still surprised at what they can achieve or produce.
Noone wants to spend tens of billions of dollars if they dont have to. Eventually, in the last 5-10 years, it became an absolute necessity for China, so they had no choice but to do it. In comparison, the West is still manufacturing most of its stuff in China because it is cheaper and it would be pretty expensive(and time consuming) to move all that manufacturing to EU/US. And most of that manufacturing is infinitely simpler than cutting edge microchips.
Hell, nvidia(an american company) is literally trying to “bypass” sanctions and sell their 4090 gpus in China. Once those sanctions were announced, their stock fell. And then nvidia made a “crippled” 4090, that in theory wasnt as capable in terms of AI calculations. But the US is still saying “are you fucking kidding me? no means no”.
In return, China is buying all 4090 graphic cards they can get in their hands, even older generation cards. If you are wondering why a 2000€ card is even more expensive now than it was a year ago. Of course thats how sanctions work in a capitalistic society, you can only increase the cost of doing business, not actually prevent someone from getting stuff.
It’s the same thing with Russia. You can ban Russia from buying stuff but then a random armenian or turkish or cypriot company can buy that stuff and secretly ship them to Russia.
Capitalism has created significant strategic weaknesses for all sides. Thats why the West is losing its mind with batteries and rare earth minerals. It isnt that we cant make batteries or mine rare earth minerals(they arent that rare), it’s that we have relied on China and now we need to start doing the work for ourselves(with increased monetary and potential environmental cost). It will take money and time but eventually we will get there.
This kind of technology is about the capability to mass produce cutting edge chips, in order to use it for AI, phones, missiles, etc. There is little reason to be able to do that and keep it a secret. This is a very iterative heavy technology, you start from something and you keep improving it, it isnt like nukes(you either have it or dont).
In fact, China is already making graphic cards for AI(and technically gaming). And they are absolutely terrible in terms of performance and power efficiency. But at least they are “homemade”(with tons of IP stolen from nvidia, etc). That is very impressive.
Makes sense, my tiny brain couldn’t formulate half of the stuff you included in your reply. I have been reading the news about Nvidia and their cards, and it also makes sense that if the money doesn’t have to be spent because there are easier ways to get the tech, then that should be the first things to try.
This is a good take on the situation.