Jeongdong Choi, Tech Insight Fellow, claimed at SEMI Member Day event
The United States has begun strict export controls to check China’s semiconductor independence, but as Chinese smartphone manufacturers continue to use cutting-edge memory, voices are being heard that there are major loopholes in U.S. regulations.
At the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) ‘Member’s Day’ event held at the Suwon Convention Center in Gyeonggi Province on the 11th, Tech Insight Fellow Jeong-dong Choi made this announcement through a presentation on ‘Memory Semiconductor Technology Status and Trends’.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned the import of related manufacturing equipment into China since October of last year to prevent China from securing cutting-edge semiconductors such as DRAM of 18 nanometers or less, NAND flash of 128 or more layers, and logic semiconductors of 14 nanometers or less.
However, cutting-edge semiconductor products are widely used in smartphone products from Chinese companies. Tech Insight announced that it confirmed this fact after disassembling the products of Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo and tracking the technology through reverse engineering.
‘Honor’, a smartphone brand spun off from Huawei, is equipped with Micron’s low-power DRAM (LPDDR5) in ‘HONOR Magic5 Pro’ released in the first quarter of this year. This product has 14~15nm level. Manufactured using technology.
Additionally, the ‘Huawei Mate 60 Pro’ product that Huawei unveiled last September is also believed to have used SK Hynix’s 176-layer NAND.
In addition, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo are also applying DRAM of 18 nanometers or less and NAND of 128 layers or more to their products.
Fellow Choi said, “Regardless of the U.S. semiconductor regulations, Chinese smartphone manufacturers are building up a huge inventory and using components,” and “the deterrence force (through the U.S. semiconductor regulations) itself is meaningless.”
He estimated that while Chinese foundry company SMIC was found to have implemented 7-nano chips to avoid U.S. regulations, Chinese memory company CXMT also secured the technology to produce 18-nano or lower DRAM.
Fellow Choi said, “As a result of analyzing CXMT 21-nano DRAM, it is actually at the level of 18-nano,” and “After U.S. regulations, CXMT does not use numbers (of line width), but is divided into G1 (21-nano), G3 (19-nano), etc. “It appears that the intention is to sell products under 18 nanometers,” he said.
Source: Donga
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