SMIC 7nm IC

SMIC has been shipping a 7nm chip for a year, says TechInsights which has reverse engineered the device and says “initial images suggest it is a close copy of TSMC 7nm process technology.”

Although it is a couple of nodes behind Samsung and TSMC, it is seen as an impressive achievement by SMIC because it is confined to using DUV lithography tools.

Although Samsung and TSMC made 7nm ICs using DUV in 2018-9, it involved using quadruple patterning.

TechInsights does not see the SMIC 7nm process as a true 7nm process but says it shows they’re getting there.

“This low-volume production product may be the steppingstone for a true 7nm process that incorporates scaled logic and memory bitcells,” says TechInsights, “since bitcoin miners have limited RAM requirements, they likely do not feature the typical bitcell memory that the true 7nm technology definition requires (both scaled logic and bitcell adoption). This chipset likely demonstrates the logic part but not the bitcell aspect.”

SMIC said it had taped out a 7nm Innosilicon IC in 2020.

The chip TechInsights looked at was made for a Bitcoin mining company called Minerva.