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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) is the largest semiconductor foundry company in mainland China. It is a partially state-owned publicly-listed Chinese company, and supplies Qualcomm, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, among other notable businesses.
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American attempts to decouple from chips trade by boosting domestic manufacturing threatens innovation and carries a high price for consumers.
- Huawei’s resurgence in the high-end smartphone market after four years of US sanctions is being widely watched by both rivals and US politicians
- Analysis of the processor used by the Pura 70 Pro suggests that Huawei may have only made incremental improvements in its ability to produce an advanced chip
Further restrictions on access to Intel and Qualcomm chips would pose challenges to Huawei’s PC business, which has been gaining ground in the China market.
Huawei announced on Thursday its highly anticipated new smartphone series, the Pura 70, its biggest flagship handset launch since the Mate 60 Pro, which drew scrutiny for its home-made advanced chip.
Sitonholy, which has been added to the US Entity List, is one of a few ‘elite-level’ Nvidia data centre product solutions providers in China.
A senior US official reiterated that SMIC’s 7-nm semiconductor process is ‘low-yield’, but said he cannot comment on potential investigations.
At a major industry event in Shanghai, China’s top semiconductor executives failed to address the elephant in the room: growing US export restrictions on advanced chip technology.
Most of the Chinese entities that Washington could blacklist were previously identified as chip-making facilities acquired or being built by Huawei.
Zhou Meisheng, formerly the executive vice-president of R&D at SMIC, is heading to CXMT according to report, in a move that could boost memory chip maker’s research efforts.
Huawei and SMIC relied on US technology to produce the 7-nm chip for the Mate 60 Pro smartphone, sources told Bloomberg.
Huawei Technologies’ new Ascend 910B chip, already available on the mainland, is said to be on par in terms of computing power with Nvidia’s sought-after A100 graphics processing unit.
A federal investigation into chip equipment supplier Applied Materials involving China shipments has widened to other US agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In race for cutting-edge technology, the realisation is rising that older-generation chips are still vital to military use as well as cars and consumer electronics.
Chip designer Ningbo Semiconductor International, an affiliate of SMIC, said it will not enter into any settlement with its founder Huang He.
SMIC and Huawei, two key players in Beijing’s efforts to defeat US sanctions on advanced chips, are among the country’s top recipients of local government funding this year.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said: ‘The chips that GlobalFoundries will make … are essential chips to our national security.’
House panel rues ‘decades of investment’ after investigation of GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Walden International.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, China’s top contract chip maker, reported lower revenue and net income for 2023 amid weaker global demand, stiff competition and high inventories.
China’s total output of integrated circuits in 2023 increased 6.9 per cent from a year earlier despite sluggish demand at one of its largest wafer foundries in the second half, according to data published on Wednesday.
Dutch chip-making equipment manufacturer ASML was forced to curb more of its exports to China after the Dutch government partially revoked some of its 2023 export licences ahead of the new year.
China imported 16 lithography systems from the Netherlands last month for US$762.7 million, a massive year-on-year spike in spending on the critical tools.
A leading Chinese semiconductor company has made the country’s first new-generation mobile memory chips, achieving key progress in catching up with foreign rivals.
American semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials is under criminal investigation for potentially evading export restrictions on China’s top chip foundry SMIC, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The current production capacity for Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro 5G smartphone cannot meet demand, resulting in wait time for orders of up to three months.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp revised its annual budget to US$7.5 billion, an 18 per cent jump over 2022.
China’s largest chip maker helped Huawei build the advanced processor for the new Mate 60 Pro-series 5G smartphones.
The new US export controls that target less-advanced lithography systems have exposed China’s deficiency in chip-making equipment, despite progress towards Beijing’s overall goal of semiconductor self-sufficiency.
Burn J. Lin, a well-regarded former vice-president at TSMC, said SMIC should be able to advance to making 5-nm chips with existing equipment.
SMIC used ASML’s less-advanced DUV machines together with tools from other companies to make the chip used on Huawei's new 5G smartphones, according to people familiar with the matter.
Updated US export controls are expected to further restrict China’s chip ambitions as Dutch firm ASML says it is seeking more clarification from Washington.
