Domestic 14nm enters mass production! SMIC has taken a big step towards "Chinese Chip"!

SMIC released its 2019 financial report. In the report, SMIC stated that the first-generation 14nm FinFET technology has entered mass production, contributing about 1% of wafer revenue in Q4 2019, and is expected to increase steadily in 2020. The second-generation FinFET technology platform continues to be introduced by customers.

The financial report shows that SMIC's revenue in 2019 was US$3,115.7 million, an increase of 1.4% compared with US$3,360.0 million in 2018; the gross profit in 2019 was US$642.5 million, an increase of 19.1% compared with the gross profit of US$746.7 million in 2018; the net cash generated from operating activities in 2019 reached a record high of US$1,019.1 million, an increase of 27.5% compared with US$799.4 million in 2018.

It is worth mentioning that revenue from customers in China grew to 59.5% of total revenue in 2019, compared with 57.0% of total revenue excluding technology licensing in 2018.

SMIC said: "The rise of 5G, artificial intelligence and other fields will greatly boost market demand and bring new historical opportunities for the development of the semiconductor industry. The accelerated development of these emerging applications will further boost market demand for the semiconductor industry."

It is understood that SMIC has built a 300mm wafer fab and a controlling 300mm advanced process wafer fab in Beijing, a 300mm wafer fab and a 200mm wafer fab in Shanghai, and a controlling 300mm advanced process wafer fab is under construction; a 200mm wafer fab each in Tianjin and Shenzhen; and a controlling 300mm bump processing joint venture plant in Jiangyin.

In addition, SMIC is accelerating its catch-up in advanced processes after 14nm. In February, Dr. Liang Mengsong, co-CEO of SMIC, also publicly disclosed the N+1 and N+2 generation processes for the first time. He said that compared with 14nm, the N+1 process has improved performance by 20%, reduced power consumption by 57%, reduced logic area by 63%, and reduced SoC area by 55%. After N+1, there will be N+2. The two processes have similar performance in power consumption, and the difference lies in performance and cost. N+2 is obviously oriented towards high performance, and the cost will also increase.

In addition, on March 4, a large-scale lithography machine imported from the Netherlands by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (Shenzhen) successfully passed through two gates of the export processing zone and entered the factory. This machine is mainly used to expand the production line after the company resumes work and production.

When it comes to manufacturing processes, Intel, TSMC, Samsung and other giants have always been in the leading position. In particular, the recently released TSMC 6nm process technology is installed in the first 5G SoC Tiger T7520 under Unisoc. In addition, Apple A14, Huawei Kirin 1020, and AMD Zen 4 all use TSMC's 5nm process. TSMC has started trial production of the 5nm process this month and will put it into mass production in the second quarter.

Samsung officials recently announced that the Hwaseong V1 production line in South Korea is Samsung's first semiconductor production line to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, and that the two production lines have begun mass production of 6nm and 7nm chips and will deliver products in the first quarter. Intel CFO George Davis said at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference that it is expected to produce 7nm products by the end of 2021, and then quickly switch to 5nm and regain its leadership in the process field.

The 14nm FinFET of SMIC this time means further progress for domestically produced chips. Come on, Chinese chips!