https://www.economist.com/business/2...hip-technology
Another industry expensively domesticated for security purposes
The Economist has always had a thing against authoritarian govts, but aside from that, I thought the issue was that China had no choice but to develop their own chips. The US sanctions were meant to keep China in the 14nm manufacturing range, but they're now pushing 7nm and even recently rumours of a 5nm being developed with SMIC and Huawei. 5nm is still a generation behind the 'west' and Taiwan, but they've made surprising progress.
There are some that say that the sanctions have permanently disabled China's ability to catch up though, so I'm not sure what the real picture is.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-in...is-year-report
Truth is somewhere in between. Currently not economic, but things don’t remain static. Did see another report suggesting that some of the chips were actually not from SMIC, but can’t recall/find it now, so don’t quote me on that.But these chips will come at a cost. Three individuals connected to Chinese fabless chip designers reported that SMIC's pricing for its 5nm and 7nm products is 40% to 50% higher than what TSMC charges for similar technology nodes. Furthermore, SMIC's 7nm yield is claimed to be less 'than one-third of TSMC's.' This certainly raises questions about the economic viability and efficiency of China's advanced semiconductor production efforts.