Now China SMIC and Intel Are Both at 7 Nanometer Chips

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China leading chip company SMIC and Intel are both making 7-nanometer chips. China was always behind TSMC, Samsung and the leading semiconductor chip companies. Intel was the long chip technology leader for decades with the smallest dimensions in the most advanced chips but Intel fell behind badly in the last five to ten years. Semiconductors are critical technologies for the world economy. Chips are replacing oil as the critical foundational technology of the world’s technology stack.

In WW2, higher level octane airpplane fuel enabled the US and Allies to make airplanes that were 20% faster than German planes. Today, how good your chips are determines how good your laptops, smartphones, supercomputers and computers are. They also impact how good your cars and other products are.

China SMIC advanced its semiconductor production technology by two generations, defying US sanctions intended to halt the rise of China’s largest chipmaker.

The Shanghai-based manufacturer is shipping Bitcoin-mining semiconductors built using 7-nanometer technology.

Samsung has started producing 3nm chips in June 20022. TSMC’s 3nm process will go into mass production until the second half of 2022.

Intel 4, formally known as Intel’s 7nm process, is on track to get ready for volume production in the second half of 2022.

Commercial times took a first look at the test chip for the Intel Meteor Lake CPU which comes with a quad-tile design.

Intel Meteor Lake 14th Gen Core CPUs Allegedly Utilize TSMC’s 3nm & 5nm Process Tech In Addition To The Intel 4 Node.

TSMC is producing at 3 nanometers and will soon have 2 nanometer chips. Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC has revealed details of its much anticipated 2nm production process node – set to arrive in 2025 – which will use a nanosheet transistor architecture, as well as enhancements to its 3nm technology. TSMC’s 2nm dies will be delivered to designers in volume in 2026. TSMC N2 node will enable devices with a 10 percent to 15 percent speed improvement at the same power, or a 25 percent to 30 percent power reduction at the same speed.

TSMC has a new ultra-low power option. TSMC improve N12e technology it introduced in 2020. Known as N6e, this will be based on TSMC’s 7nm process node and expected to have three times the logic density of N12e, but targets the same mix of logic, RF, analog, embedded memory, and power management chip applications.

Global chipmakers will increase spending on equipment by 20 percent to an all-time high of $109 billion in 2022.

SOURCES- Intel, TSMC, Samsung, SMIC, TechInsights, TheRegister, David Goldman
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

21 thoughts on “Now China SMIC and Intel Are Both at 7 Nanometer Chips”

  1. Tech companies have bought those machines with SMIC 7nm chips, tested them, tie them apart and found them to be as good as TSMC or Samsung 7nm chips. There are other specific articles from tech magazines not political commentaries like this.

  3. USA has gone all out hostility to everyone Europe… Do it orrrr… Russia shut up bear… Mexico.. You are slaves…. China…rising economy gota crush it.. Here is my take… China holds 30-50% of the rare rss TSMC needs to make the products… Hit em with 50% less supply at 3 times the price.. And watch USA ans TSMC bend the knee and beg like the proud Germany now begs for gas…. Here is the deference in USA VS Russia and China both of the 2nd ones are watching their country and try to grow.. Export products and raws… USA exports only its debt and war it’s wheat and iron production are 50 % less than last year.. USA is falling like Rome did and its trying to drag everyone down coz that’s how warmongers are.. USA had 10+ wars in 7 or 8 countries over period of 60 years all to steal petrol if we put together the 1945 Germany and USA side by side USA will have killed more, would have started more wars, would had more time in war than the German SS.. So tell me why is USA better than the Natzi?

    • Now one more time in English you brainwashed mental midget. Know the facts first! The U.S. isn’t in any way against China, they are best buddies since either will die without the other, they are the two most intertwined economies in the world that EVER existed. Russia is falling victim to China wanting to be the unrivaled player in Asia. Don’t just read the headline news.

  4. In WWII neither the US nor our Allies had jet aircraft thus did not use jet fuel; only Germany had jet aircraft in WWII and they were considerably faster than Allied aircraft. Regardless, the octane of gasoline used by piston driven propeller aircraft was and is significantly higher than jet fuel, which is essentially kerosene or any other non-explosive fuel.

    • Gloster Meteor was commenced operations on 27 July 1944. So Britain did have jet aircraft in WW2.

      Good point about the octane rating of jet fuel though.

  5. What lito does SMIC use?
    So many articles about the same thing and not a word about this essential detail.
    If it is ASM, then how did these machines get into SMIC?

      • Commercially traded neon is not extracted from geological deposits,
        and net exporters of neon are not endowed with fixed abundance within their political boundaries—it is a byproduct of the fractional distillation of common atmosphere for concentrated oxygen, which largely takes place in countries with legacy steelmaking infrastructure. The advanced economies serviced by ASML are more than capable of refining enough neon to support every EUV lithography device in existence.

  6. What litography does SMIC use?
    So many articles about the same thing and not a word about this essential detail.
    If it is ASM, then how did these machines get into SMIC?

  7. What litography does SMIC use?
    So many articles about the same thing and not a word about this essential detail.

  8. Given that the names of the technology nodes are marketing, why doesn’t Brian use a more neutral measure such as transistors per mm2? That would tell us if the SMIC 7 nm is really equivalent to Intel 7 nm…

  9. 70% of the world’s Neon supply comes from 2 plants in Ukraine. 1 was destroyed 3 months ago. The other has been without power for 4 months.

    Without Neon you have no lasers. Without lasers you have no chips.

    • Neon is recyclable. This has been done during previous neon shortages. The natural resource required for neon is air; but it is not worth producing alone. Anywhere a large amount of liquid oxygen is made is a good candidate. The scaling up of neon production outside Ukraine needs only electric power and investment.

      • So we can expect SpaceX to start producing Neon as a byproduct of their LOX production.

        I mean have you seen the size of the LOX tanks on BFR/Starship? No way they won’t make their own LOX in house.

    • Commercially traded neon is not extracted from geological deposits,
      and net exporters of neon are not endowed with non-renewable abundance within their political boundaries—it is a byproduct of the fractional distillation of common atmosphere for concentrated oxygen, which largely takes place in countries with legacy steelmaking infrastructure. It can be done by anyone, anywhere, in more than sufficient amounts to support every EUV lithography device ASML could ever crank out.

    • Commercially traded neon is not extracted from geological deposits,
      and net exporters of neon are not endowed with fixed abundance within their political boundaries—it is a byproduct of the fractional distillation of common atmosphere for concentrated oxygen, which largely takes place in countries with legacy steelmaking infrastructure. The advanced economies serviced by ASML are more than capable of refining enough neon to support every EUV lithography device in existence.

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