SMIC Removes Wording from the 14nm Node: Are US Sanctions at Work?
Semiconductor Manufacturing Worldwide Corp., China’s largest contract chip maker, quietly eliminated its 14nm fabrication expertise list of services on the website. The corporate additionally did not point out superior FinFET-based applied sciences in its earnings name final week. Reports DigiTimes.
The most recent US authorities export management guidelines prohibit Chinese language semiconductor producers from buying the instruments and applied sciences essential to manufacture 14nm/16nm or smaller non-planar transistor logic chips, 3D NAND chips with 128 or extra energetic layers, and DRAM ICs with half . -18nm or under pitch. With related restrictions from the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan coming into impact in mid-2023, Chinese language corporations corresponding to SMIC and YMTC are introducing 3D NAND with 14nm/12nm and 14nm/12nm and N+1 for SMIC and 128-layer and 232-layer for YMTC.
With out entry to superior tools and spare components from suppliers corresponding to ASML, Utilized Supplies, KLA and Lam Analysis, SMIC could not be capable to manufacture chips for its clients utilizing the newest fabrication applied sciences, so it is sensible to take away the 14nm platform. list of technologies.
Within the meantime, 14nm continues to be talked about on the corporate’s shuttle companies web page, and it’s even said that the corporate commonly produces shuttle wafers utilizing this node.
“At the moment, we commonly present companies for processes from 0.18μm to 14nm,” SMIC mentioned in an announcement. reader
Additionally, one other web page on SMIC’s web site mentions 14nm capability.
The corporate’s description states, “SMIC is a pure semiconductor foundry that permits the wafer manufacturing of 200 mm and 300 mm sheets from 0.35 microns (μm) to 14 nanometers (nm).” foundry solutions reader.
SMIC has been utilizing 14nm-class fabrication expertise at its SN1 facility because the finish of 2019. One of many 14nm SoCs produced by the corporate is Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 710A. Nonetheless, though technically in mass manufacturing, 14nm volumes have been so restricted that the corporate stopped disclosing income attributed to this node. As a substitute, it mixed it with the beneficial properties from the 28nm node with no vital income contribution.
Final 12 months, Chinese language state media reported that SMIC began high-volume manufacturing utilizing the 14nm grade fabrication technique at its Fab SN1 manufacturing facility close to Shanghai, China. This report additionally exhibits that the corporate is shifting ahead with 7nm and 5nm class nodes regardless of not getting leading edge wafer manufacturing facility tools.
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