Huawei Technologies and China’s top chipmaker SMIC have built an advanced 7-nanometre processor to power its latest smartphone, according to a teardown report by analysis firm TechInsights.
Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro is powered by a new Kirin 9000s chip that was made in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), TechInsights said in the report shared with Reuters on Monday.
Huawei started selling its Mate 60 Pro phone last week. The specifications provided advertised its ability to make satellite calls, but offered no information on the power of the chipset inside.
The processor is the first to utilise SMIC’s most advanced 7nm technology and suggests the Chinese government is making some headway in attempts to build a domestic chip ecosystem, the research firm said.
Once China has semiconductor manufacturing abilities comparable to Taiwan’s, one of the major deterrents to its invading Taiwan is removed. And outside of Taiwan it seems other countries are largely struggling to modernize and scale up their own semiconductor manufacturing, notably including the USA. China might see it as quite attractive to invade Taiwan and wipe out the West’s technology base, thereby ending up with the world’s most advanced manufacturing in China. Other countries would either have to suffer without computers or buy Chinese chips, and China would have de facto control of computing around the world, at least for a while.
“Once China has semiconductor manufacturing abilities to Taiwan’s” is a long way off, if ever. China has demonstrated a complete lack of aptitude and technical prowess in this field. For the foreseeable future they are going to be stuck importing what they can from Taiwan and unable to change that reality because the island state is protected by the most powerful military in the region.
The thing is they do not, they don’t know how to make the equipment or the materials. It’s like if they bought a disassembled bike from Amazon, and then claim to be a bike manufacturer after putting it together. It would take espionage and decades of development to reach Taiwans level. I said this in another comment, this stuff is not developed overnight, it’s a monumental undertaking. India tried and failed and the US is now spending billions to bring fabs to the US and they will have to do it with the cooperation of Taiwan and it will take years.
You mean one of the major benefits? The biggest reason China wants Taiwan is to be competitive in semi-conductors.
Not sure why you people keep making up these narratives. It’s painfully obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.
There’s no way China gets TSMC facilities intact.
Right. An invasion of Taiwan would mean a war between US and China.
Likely yes, but that’s not what I was hinting at. If it looked like China is going to be successful in taking Taiwan, all the TSMC facilities would get blown up.
Yeap, the important infrastructure is really the people. I imagine if the US saw something a kin to Russia’s mobilization to the border with Ukraine, there’d be a noticeable influx of Taiwanese immigrants coming to America.
Plus, I really can’t foresee an actual invasion across the Formosa that would leave much infrastructure intact. It’s basically an island fortress where your choices of combat terrains are urban or pacific forrest/jungle. Taking the island without leveling it first would be a prolonged blood bath.
There are some holes in your story. Samsung and Intel are still way ahead of the SMIC.
China produced some chips, but they don’t have a good way to scale it up. To produce these chips they used ASML lithography machines which they can’t buy anymore.
This is not going to happen …
Another deterrent is giving up any trading with Western countries and giving the crown of “factory of the world” to India which would do anything to get that.
Nobody with a brain would intentionally choose to only trade with Russia, Iran and North Korea in exchange of a relatively tiny island. (Well, Putin did something like that, but I said “someone with a brain”)
This is exactly why western country wouldnt let China invade Taiwan. The real threat comes when the west can get chips without Taiwan.
Unless Trump is president and they just give him a bribe.
Trump started this recent confrontation with China. It’s one issue which has bipartisan support among both politicians and population. Just surrendering Taiwan would be too stupid even for Trump.