SMIC To Sell Huawei Costly, Inefficient 5Nm Chips

The production of 5nm chips with a DUV lithography requires four-time patterning technique, which includes multiple exposures and etching processes, he said . The multiple patterning is time-consuming and can result in a low yield if exposures are not done accurately, he said.

His view was that the US should focus on maintaining its chip design leadership, instead of trying to limit China's progress. He pointed out that Beijing had adopted a“whole-nation” strategy to boost its chip industry.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in the ceremony of the National Engineer Awards on January 19 that local engineers and technicians should help the country achieve great self-reliance and strength in science and technology by making breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields and developing high-quality projects.

Last August, Huawei surprisingly launched the Kirin 9000s chip in its Mate60 Pro phone. Technology experts later found that the 7nm chip was made by the SMIC with its N+2 process via DUV lithography.

In December 2023, Huawei unveiled the Qingyun L540 laptop that uses a Kirin chip called 9006C. Commentators had once speculated that Huawei achieved new technological breakthroughs.

TechInsights, a Canadian technology solution provider, said in early January that the 9006C chips came from the inventory delivered before TSMC was banned by the US from making chips for Huawei in mid-September 2020.

An unnamed industry source told The Elec, a South Korean news website, last December that SMIC is preparing its 5nm process through DUV. He said that the parts supply for the DUV cannot keep up with demand in China, and that the photomask usage is expected to further increase.

A photomask in a lithography machine is an opaque plate with transparent areas that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern to achieve exposure.

A technology writer at Wccftech, a Vancouver-based news website, said the expected yield of SMIC's 5nm process using the current DUV hardware will be about 30-40%.

SMIC has never disclosed the yield of its 7nm or smaller chips. Citing some analysts, Reuters estimated tha SMIC's 7nm process has a yield rate below 50%.

In early 2017, TSMC began to produce 7nm memory chips using a process called N7FF+ with extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Prior to this, the Taiwanese chip maker used DUV lithography to make 7nm with a yield of 76%.

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Media reports said TSMC has already boosted the yield of its 7nm and 5nm chips to 93.5% and 80% , respectively, in 2019. Now TSMC is making 3nm chips with a yield of 55% , competing against Samsung's 60-70%.

NXT:2000i

Some analysts said SMIC used ASML's NXT:2000i to produce the Kirin 9000S.

Citing an unnamed expert in the chip-making industry, Caijing reporte last November that there were fewer than five ASML systems in China as advanced as NXT:2000i.

ASML said last June that it would have to apply for export licenses from the Dutch government for all shipments of its most advanced immersion DUV lithography systems, the NXT:2000i and subsequent immersion systems.

On January 1 this year, it said the Dutch government has partially revoked its license for the shipment of NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i lithography systems to China from the beginning of this year.

But it did not say whether its export license for the shipment of NXT:2000i has also been revoked.

In fact, SMIC can also use the NXT:1980Di, an older generation of immersion DUV lithography, to make 5nm or 7nm chips but the yield will be even lower.

Read: High-end DUV ban: China's damage coming into focus

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at
@jeffpao3

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