SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
September 2020
McIlvaine Company
________________________________________________________________________________________
Huawei New Fab Facilities
The plans aim to boost technological independence and secure supply chains for
smartphones and computers produced by the world's largest IT equipment providers
amid the bitter US-China trade war, but has not been confirmed the Chinese firm,
reports have said.
Huawei Technologies may soon launch plans to manufacture domestic chipsets,
according to a tip-off from a Weibo post as reported by Huawei Central.
Huawei was set to work with several firms and material manufacturers in the
chipmaking industry to launch its own processor fab as well as integrated
circuit chips and manufacturing plants without requiring US technologies,
according to the post.
The rumors come after Huawei consumer business group chief Richard Yu has said
that his firm would cease production of Kirin chipsets in September after the
Trump administration blocked the firm from access to components with US
technologies.
Huawei's chipmaking wing HiSilicon can design chipsets but business restrictions
with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) from the measures
restrict the Chinese company from printing them on wafers with US technology.
The source added that Huawei will begin making 45-nanometre chipset by the end
of the year, with further 28-nanometre chips set for release in the future.
Despite this, TSMC and South Korean tech giant Samsung produce smaller 3nm and
7nm chipsets, forcing Huawei and HiSilicon to invest heavily in research and
development to reach its goals, the report added.
The post comes a day after the Nikkei Asian Review reported that Beijing was
seeking to hire over 100 engineers and staff from TSMC in a major move to boost
mainland semiconductor technologies.
Several Chinese firms are set to join efforts in developing 12nm and 14nm
chipsets, sources told the Nikkei.
The Shanghai-based Science and Technology Innovation (STAR) board saw record
investment in July after mainland chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing
International Corporation (SMIC) listed its initial public offering worth 95
yuan per share on the tech trading platform in one of the largest offerings in
recent decades.
US president Donald Trump extended measures on Chinese firms a further year in
May, prompting TSMC to halt shipments of its chips to Huawei after the ban was
to enter force in September.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chief Ajit Pai also designated Huawei
and ZTE as national security threats with close links to the Chinese Communist
Party and military, without going into further detail.
The US government has routinely accused Huawei, ZTE, TikTok owner ByteDance and
WeChat's Tencent Holdings and numerous other Chinese tech firms of spying for
Beijing, without submitting evidence.
Huawei and Bytedance as well as Beijing have regularly and sharply denied the
claims.
Bosch Launches 5G Tests At Reutlingen Wafer Fab
International research project explores use of 5G in manufacturing.
As an Industry 4.0 pioneer, Bosch believes 5G will be a key building block of
digitalization and connectivity in manufacturing and logistics. The company is
now starting compatibility tests and channel measurements for setting up a 5G
network in its wafer fab in Reutlingen.
“We at Bosch started researching and developing 5G early on, and we are
convinced that this new mobile communications standard will give Industry 4.0 a
boost,” said Dr. Michael Bolle, Bosch CDO/CTO.
For this reason, the company is taking an active role in the international
5G-SMART research project, which aims to test, demonstrate, and evaluate the new
communications standard in real-life manufacturing environments. The 5G-SMART
partners will be testing 5G manufacturing applications at the Bosch wafer fab in
Reutlingen, as well as at the Ericsson location in Kista, Sweden, and on the
Fraunhofer IPT’s 5G Industry Campus Europe in Aachen.
Industrial manufacturing is undergoing a digital transformation: manual
processes are in decline, technical assistance systems are making inroads,
sensors transmit a wide range of data and the degree of connectivity between
people, machines, and systems is rising. In all this, 5G is the key. “Fast,
reliable, and secure data transmission is the basis for Industry 4.0. Combining
it with 5G will allow us to further ramp up and improve factory production,”
Bolle explains. At its wafer fab in Reutlingen, Bosch is currently launching
compatibility tests in partnership with Ericsson that are designed to explore
the extent to which 5G impacts manufacturing.
“Semiconductor production is extremely complex and sensitive. These microscopic
wafers undergo more than 1,000 tests before ending up in a wide array of
products, ranging from airbags to smartphones to e-bikes. In a factory
environment, electromagnetic waves can be a source of interference, so we’re
testing the impact 5G has on production,” said Andreas Müller, who works for
Bosch as a researcher and is the chairman of the international 5G Alliance for
Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA). Channel measurements are also on
the agenda. As a means of delivering insights into how to ensure optimum network
coverage as well as where and how densely transmitting antennas need to be
placed throughout the plant, for example. Bosch plans to use those findings as
it sets up a 5G test network in its wafer fab in Reutlingen by fall, where it
will roll out the first 5G applications. During this process, engineers will
observe how machines and systems can work with 5G and investigate how much
better and more efficient this connection is compared to Wi-Fi or cabling.
Fields of application include autonomous transport systems that can be guided
via a local cloud, remote access to machinery, and communication between
industrial systems.
Results from the Reutlingen research project also can be put to good use in
future 5G network planning, for example in the company’s new wafer fab in
Dresden. “In Dresden, we are building Bosch’s first 5G-capable semiconductor
plant worldwide. The facility will be ready for 5G from day one,” Bolle says.
Bosch is investing around a billion euros in the new wafer fab – the largest
single investment in the company’s history. Semiconductor production is
scheduled to begin there by the end of 2021.
McIlvaine Company
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax:
847-784-0061
E-mail:
editor@mcilvainecompany.com
Web site:
www.mcilvainecompany.com