China's chip tech still lags the West – by up to five generations China's chip design and fabrication capabilities lag significantly behind the US and its allies, according to a report from US think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). "Chinese firms are about two years behind the global leaders when it comes to designing logic chips, whereas they're several more …
"Maybe 10 months .." is quite correct.
"A new report states Chinese firms have purchased $26 billion worth of chipmaking tools this year.
Chinese companies have purchased most of the tools from ASML. These firms aim to make more efficient processors using old and unrepaired systems."
BNN Bloomberg
"China files the bulk of chip-related international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and the nation's semiconductor industry secured over 3,400 approved patents in 2020 – up from a mere 122 ten years prior. Many of those, it should be noted, do not represent significant innovations."
Can anybody enlighten me why there's patents when there's no innovation? I thought there used to be a hurdle to take...
But then Western companies were there first, and a "filed" patent is not approved. Still, isn't this meant to invoke some sort of concern about the Chinese ability to develop new stuff (even if it is not innovative)? This then is counteracted by a paragraph further down: "The report noted that Chinese firms do appear to compete more on price than on innovation, which makes sense for a country whose industry R&D ranks quite low among peers."
This post has been deleted by its author
The think tank warned that a "go-it-alone" strategy will be very difficult for China "in such an extremely complex tech ecosystem."
Who is to say any worthy lone Western UKUSA Wall Street wolves and Mike Lynch type renegade rogue bull raiders and 0day traders innovating in extremely complex tech ecosystems are not welcomed by China as the East further explores the vulnerabilities available for exploiting the failed strategies and embargoes of a terrified recalcitrant belligerent peer competitor and Western opposition, thus they be not alone in any such theatres intelligently designed to deliver sublime and surreal and superior market leading advantage with Stealth for JOINT* Future AIdVenturing/for Stealth in JOINT* Future AIdVenturing [should you not currently believe it a present reality and super natural exceptional opportunity valiantly seized/employed and enjoyed]?
Considering the implications resulting from successful incorporations of Stealth in/for JOINT* Future AIdVenturing, a zero Chinese disclosure policy is quite natural and fully to be expected.
JOINT* ...... Joint Operations Internetworking Novel Technologies/NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive Processes in AI Research and Development Fields Biting the hand that feeds IT Creating Advantage through Research and Technology ...... which is not new news to El Regers with such be known since at least Saturday 1st October 2022 07:02 GMT whenever freely shared in the post entitled Absence of Evidence of NEUKlearer Technology is not Evidence of Absence when Proof of Concept. .......... https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2022/09/30/iarpa_radiation_monitoring_research/#c_4540933
"The chip is technically incredible. The performance and power consumption profile in a variety of tests bring it on par with 1 to 2-year-old Qualcomm chips (S888 & S8G1). The RF side of the chip is amazing, using an integrated modem that is on par with Qualcomm’s current best.
The most shocking finding is that when direct comparisons are done on identical IP, the Arm A510 for Huawei’s Kirin 9000S built on SMIC’s N+2 (7nm) and 2022 Qualcomm’s S8G1 built on Samsung’s 4LPX (4nm) process. The performance and power consumption of the Arm A510 cores are effectively on par with each other despite the process technology gap.
Put simply, Kirin 9000S is a better designed chip than the West realizes. It has solid power and performance. Even with the lackluster export controls, this is a leading edge chip that would be near the front of the pack in 2021, yet was done with no access to EUV, no access to cutting edge US IP, and intentionally hampered. We cannot overstate how scary this is."
SemiAnalysis (el. microscope forensic)
* Extra: "Huawei has been planning to shift the licensing part from the device to the component level. Doing so will unchain phone makers from heavy charges in patent licensing. This will further transfer the fee pressure on chipmakers, lowering the prices of devices."
HC
ITIF is right on the money IMHO, right down to the use of the word "canard". Taking the Kirin 9000S as an example, their statement that "Chinese firms are about two years behind [on] logic [and] several more years behind in memory" essentially matches SemiAnalysis' (your post) "on par with 1 to 2-year-old Qualcomm chips".
In my experience, what Chinese industry generally proposes is a compelling price proposition, for products that tick an impressive set of boxes, but with quality and performance that commonly only matches the low price point (you get what you pay for). Had this with a futon that looked great from the outside, but was just impossible to comfortably sit on or sleep into. SOCs and development boards with Chinese SOCs implementing ARM or RISC-V cores are similarly featureful and of low cost, but commonly have much lower performance than those based on NXP or Renesas chips of equal specs (plus a lack of open-sourced software drivers). At present, it's down to design decisions and whether the focus is low price, for a mass market target of folks who look primarily at that, or quality and performance, for more serious customers and system integrators. The Kirin 9000S may be an exception, but still 2 years behind.
It's unfortunate that price is such an overwhelming factor in contemporary decision-making. At times, it may be best not to purchase anything at all, than to settle on a low-cost near-"imitation" of what one wants, that will just promptly end-up in a landfill!
SemiAnalysis expertise do not include a little secret "Magic Bullet" in 9000S, a HyperTreading option of overall boost of ~25% (a +50% cpu boost with use of only +20% more power).
That Magic Bullet brings 9000S on par with SD8gen2 in certain circumstances. But, that option needs to be included in the OS engine and in app, to show full use.
It was included, for expl. in the game Honor of Kings, and result is on par with SD8gen2.
* Release date of 9000S is aug. 2023.
No1 in jan. 2023 SD8gen2
https://www.antutu.com/en/doc/129051.htm
No1 in jan. 2022 SD8gen1
https://www.antutu.com/en/doc/126775.htm
** All of that, with a DUV 7nm, is insane bravura of engineering, SoC performance on par with EUV 4nm, are really scary & as SemiAnalysis said, shows an excellent yield rate.
Intel's 14th generation was October 2023 (fabricated using Intel's Intel 7 process) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_Lake
Intel's 9th generation was October 2018 (Intel's second 14 nm process node refinement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Lake
So China is 5-6 years behind the current western chips ?
>Can someone enlighten me how comes US military are using this inferior Communist technology ?
Because "those chips" are 40 year old designs of simple stuff.
Why does your military use a power transistor design from the 80s, fabbed on 'cutting edge' 90s technology? Cos that's all it needs.
Why are your bayonets made from steel using 18th century blast furnace technology, rather than 3D printed from single crystal Titanium nano-tubes ? Same reason.
Because the number of customers are so low, the profit margins are so low that the capitalists do not bother. And buying them from a communist country for a super low price, means that to verify the parts are to specification, it is as simple as randomly selecting some in every batch and destructively examining them under a microscope.
>profit margins are so low
Surely not? You get your lobbyist to get your senator to insist on USA made parts (cye Patriotic music), then you sell the DoD 555 timers for $1000 each.
You are out a few $$$ to lobbyist, but that's tax deductible, and a few rounds of golf to the senator - but after that the profit margins are pretty good.
Keeping China "five generations behind" is the goal of the sanctions regime so you'd expect something like a think tank to reflect this, its the safe option. Its also pretty meaningless.
There are two fundamental conceptual flaws here. One is the notion that "more is necessarily better". This assumes that everything's going to always need more computing power, more memory, more storage and more network bandwidth. This is obvious from a marketing perspective -- without "more" businesses would collapse. From an engineering perspective "more" might be desirable but it also implies a single minded focus on brute force which becomes reflected as "more facilities and equipment" and "more power to run the stuff", the latter being inimical to our goals to reduce our resource usage. (What's the point of living like a hermit in a darkened cave just so that the AWSes of this world can slurp up all the power?) The other is the notion of "US and its allies". This implies a colonialist like hold over countries in Asia -- they'll implement our policies regardless of what's best for them.
That reflection of US government policy, martin usher, is what is most surely killing Uncle Sam quicker than any markets or any bankers can save it ... with each passing new day revealing new wounds for frenemies to exploit and lay waste to their impossible dreams with.
It reflects an inevitable end to an awful awesome bankrupting tale of failed phantom enterprise aided and abetted by the fuels and fake jewels of arrogant hubris and ignorant greed. ..... an elite exclusive executive gluttony.
Or does your vantage point show and dictate a different picture and story to tell explaining the way things be everywhere today?
All the Comintern useful ones, the outright commies will paint this as unfair.
Actually, it is about avoiding a Great War.
Technology fuels the fire of war. Lets denude the fire of fuel.
Yes, there are some educated, skilled, decisive people working on matters of peace and security. Not all are rotten businessmen or corrupt Typhoon pilots.
Yes, there are some educated, skilled, decisive people working on matters of peace and security. Not all are rotten businessmen or corrupt Typhoon pilots. .... Anonymous Coward
That indeed may certainly be so, AC, but one would never know it to be so if one were to have to rely on mainstream media mogul channels sharing their views, which does have one questioning the intrinsic worth of the usually inflammatory tales that those legacy outlets actually tell and exactly who and what they be servering and in cahoots with.
Fortunately though, in these postmodern times and virgin spaces of unprecedentedly rapid progress, there is a growing almighty radical resistance to all such systems based on the promotion of wars as a viable project to protect and server the wealthy of nations, with the latest existential threat worry and the current Establishment FUD du jour to be pimped and pumped and dumped, and which one may have to accept it is impossible to either deny or resist or force to desist, is AI in its myriad Learned Large Language Learning Machines is now taking over the lead in leading fields via unconventional and non-traditional means and virtual memes spearheading Novel and Noble AIDVentures in Advanced IntelAIgent Development[s] .
Que sera, sera. I Kid U Not.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
