The World Opinion

Tag: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp

  • China’s greatest chipmaker SMIC posts document earnings regardless of U.S. sanctions

    A symbol atop the Semiconductor Production World Corp. (SMIC) headquarters in Shanghai, China, on Tuesday, March 23, 2021.

    Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs

    China’s greatest chipmaker Semiconductor Production World Company reported document earnings and a surge in benefit ultimate 12 months amid a world chip scarcity however robust call for.

    SMIC recorded 2021 earnings of $5.44 billion up 39% year-on-year, the quickest enlargement fee since 2010. Benefit got here in at $1.7 billion marking a 138% year-on-year upward push.

    That document efficiency got here regardless of SMIC being placed on a U.S. business blacklist referred to as the Entity Listing in 2020.

    “The worldwide scarcity of chips and the robust call for for native and indigenous production introduced the Corporate an extraordinary alternative, whilst the limitations of the ‘Entity Listing’ set many stumbling blocks to the Corporate’s building,” SMIC stated in a commentary.

    SMIC is China’s greatest foundry which is an organization that producers chips that different corporations design. It is a competitor to the likes of Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung however SMIC’s era is a number of generations in the back of.

    As geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S. have ratcheted up in the previous couple of years so has their fight to dominate key applied sciences. Semiconductors is a kind of spaces. China is considerably in the back of the U.S. within the chip business however SMIC is noticed as key to its ambitions to spice up self-sufficiency within the sector and wean itself off international era.

    SMIC may be proceeding to take a position closely and the corporate stated that it plans to spend $5 billion in capital because it tries to get 3 new vegetation off the bottom in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern Chinese language town of Shenzhen.

    The corporate stated that it’ll upload extra manufacturing capability in 2022, than it did in 2021.

  • China remains to be ‘3 or 4 generations’ clear of creating newest semiconductor tech, IDC says

    Whilst China spends billions to increase its home semiconductor sector, it’s nonetheless a while clear of attaining the functions had to produce leading edge chips, an analyst stated on Wednesday.

    Semiconductors are utilized in the entirety, from smartphones and computer systems to vehicles in addition to house home equipment.

    “I nonetheless imagine that [China is] most likely 3 or 4 generations in the back of what is regarded as forefront,” Mario Morales, team vp for enabling applied sciences and semiconductors on the World Information Company, advised CNBC’s “Squawk Field Asia.”

    “So, if you happen to take a look at forefront, we are speaking about 16-nanometer or 14-nanometer and under. Nearly all of that comes, essentially, from Taiwan and Korea, and to a definite stage within the U.S., with Intel,” Morales added.

    Chips are made the usage of a procedure known as lithography the place extremely advanced and costly machines shine very slender beams of sunshine onto silicon wafers which have been handled with “photoresist” chemical compounds to create intricate patterns.

    Staff paintings at the manufacturing line of silicon wafer at a manufacturing unit of GalaxyCore Inc. on Might 25, 2021 in Jiashan County, Jiaxing Town, Zhejiang Province of China.

    Guo Junfeng | Visible China Team | Getty Pictures

    China’s want for self-sufficiency

    For a number of years now, China has mentioned doing extra — like spending further cash on analysis and building — to reach self-reliance in science and frontier applied sciences, together with semiconductors and synthetic intelligence.

    Beijing stepped up its efforts as the US centered Chinese language tech corporations like Huawei and SMIC with sanctions amid escalating tensions between the 2 superpowers.

    China’s tech giants Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Meituan have all began making an investment into chip building.

    IDC’s Morales defined that regardless of heavy investments from China, the rustic nonetheless wishes to realize get entry to to each device in addition to apparatus had to produce the high-end chips.

    Analysts up to now stated that Chinese language semiconductor corporations that concentrate on legacy, long-tail applied sciences are anticipated to do smartly. Those corporations necessarily produce quite a few much less complicated chips for spaces like energy control, microcontrollers, sensors and different consumer-related segments to satisfy the rising native call for. Those chips are nonetheless thought to be essential to the full provide chain.

    “That is the place you will see one of the Chinese language ecosystem thrive and develop and start to take marketplace percentage,” IDC’s Morales advised CNBC. “However it will take China a while, it would take them greater than a decade earlier than they may be able to in reality get extra aggressive, no less than on the very forefront.”

    He pointed to SMIC, which is China’s greatest and maximum necessary chipmaker.

    “They have got functions to enhance 28-nanometer and they have began some sampling of 14-nanometer,” Morales stated. “However, the truth is that they want consumers to actually scale that capacity, and a large number of the Chinese language ecosystem is not the usage of that generation.”

    “So they want U.S. companions and consumers or Ecu consumers, and even Taiwanese consumers, in an effort to ramp that generation successfully, in order that they may be able to deliver down the price construction that they want,” he added.

    — CNBC’s Sam Shead contributed to this record.

  • Chipmakers are set to be ‘winners’ because the metaverse takes to the air

    Baidu’s metaverse thought on XiRang begins with a “Writer Town” with a tall skyscraper at its heart, consistent with this visualization shared with journalists on Dec. 21, 2021.

    Baidu

    The metaverse, which calls for an enormous quantity of computing energy, is ready to learn world chipmakers— however different tech-related industries may additionally achieve from it, analysts say.

    Extensively observed as the following technology of the web, the metaverse refers widely to a digital international the place people have interaction via third-dimensional avatars that may be managed by the use of digital truth headsets like Oculus.

    Throughout the metaverse, customers can have interaction in digital actions corresponding to gaming, digital concert events or are living sports activities.

    The metaverse drew a lot consideration closing 12 months, when social networking large Fb introduced it was once converting its identify to Meta in October.

    Large tech companies will get advantages because the applied sciences associated with that digital international emerge, analysts stated.

    “The metaverse winners are truly the generation firms,” DBS Financial institution’s Leader Funding Officer Hou Wey Fook advised CNBC’s “Squawk Field Asia” on Monday. Semiconductor companies can be a transparent beneficiary because the metaverse will want a large number of computing energy, he stated.

    Alternatively, the advantages to chipmakers will probably be “asymmetric,” Morningstar stated in a record closing week.

    “Since most of the duties that happen in a ‘metaverse’ contain real-time processing of immense quantity of information, this may increasingly require the chips concerned to make use of complicated procedure nodes which are best to be had at TSMC, Samsung and Intel,” it stated.

    Learn extra about cryptocurrencies from CNBC Professional

    Different primary spaces set to make stronger the metaverse infrastructure that traders may imagine can be companies which are supplying the “key development blocks,” corresponding to cloud computing, synthetic intelligence and video video games graphics, stated personal banking company Lombard Odier in a December record.

    In such cashless, digital environments, blockchain generation and cryptocurrencies may additionally play a key function. Blockchain supporting non-fungible tokens, or NFTs — virtual tokens that constitute evidence of possession of belongings corresponding to artwork, collectibles or memes — may create an “attention-grabbing” ecosystem for virtual content material introduction and monetization, the financial institution stated.

    “Those may confer the suitable to make use of works of art or personal creatures created within the metaverse, opening the door to a brand new digital financial system. On this realm, human creativity has just about no limits,” the company stated.

    Fb mother or father Meta, in addition to Apple, Microsoft and Google are gearing as much as free up new {hardware} merchandise and instrument services and products for the metaverse.

    In Asia, China is ready to head large at the metaverse as smartly. Its largest town, Shanghai, incorporated the metaverse in its five-year building plan. The plan known as for “encouraging the applying of the metaverse in spaces corresponding to public services and products, industry places of work, social leisure, business production, manufacturing protection and digital video games.”

    — CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this record.