China’s largest chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. has improved its chip technology. SMIC’s will soon be rolling out 7-nanometer semi-chips which are way ahead of their established chips which are 14nm.
Within the space of chip technology, narrower transistor widths help produce faster and more efficient chips.
The Chip Wars
It’s obvious that there is a microchip war or for a brevity, a nanochip war going on where the main players are China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, the United States, and a few others who have the resources and financial capital to build advance chips which can make that country competitive.
In late 2020, the United States banned sensitive equipment from being sold to China that could enable them to build advanced chips. Despite the sanctions, China has been able to go below 10nm which the United States was preventing.
In a world that is becoming more multipolar, situations like these are getting more competitive, especially from a military standpoint. Given that China and Russia are serious allies if China is able to produce these chips, it means they could be able to send such devices to Russia which is currently under serious sanctions from the west.
If China is able to do this without little help from the west in terms of resources, that means China is well poised in overtaking major players in chip technology.
Future Viability
Even though such a technology has been developed, it’s still not a guarantee that will be robust enough for real-world processes. A problem such as a yield commonly occurs when developing chips which is basically how many successful chips can be developed at a time due to the fragility involved in developing chips.
Overall, this seems an important step for Chinese chip manufacturing, and even though SMIC has been sanctioned mainly by the United States, they have still been able to develop advanced chips that could soon compete with the likes of what Taiwan and Samsung produce.
