Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) expects to post a revenue increase of 17-19% sequentially in the second quarter of 2021, with gross margin ranging from 25% to 27%.

SMIC reported revenue grew about 22% on year and 12.5% sequentially to US$1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021, while gross margin came to 22.7% compared with 18% in the prior quarter and 25.8% a year earlier.

SMIC utilized 98.7% of production capacity in the first quarter.

Now each and everyone must pay to cover huge costs of barely moving forward for semiconductors industry.

And it is only front bumper that touched the wall.

Taiwan-based United Microelectronics (UMC), Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing (PSMC), China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), and Globalfoundries are all expected to hike their foundry quotes again to respond to their continued tight capacities at 8- and 12-inch fabs.

Processes used to make smartphone chips

Shit already hit the fan - you will need to wait for sub 5nm chips at least 3-4 more years

TSMC and Samsung have recently begun adopting ultra-hard ultraviolet lithography with the adoption of 7nm and 5nm technologies, although it was initially thought that this transition would begin with 32nm technology. The laser wavelength used in lithography was 193 nm (DUV) for many years, and in EUV lithography it had to be reduced to 13.5 nm.

The next technological stage should be the transition to EUV lithography with a high refractive index (high-NA EUV). Reducing the laser length from 193 to 13.5 nm as part of the migration from DUV reduced the refractive index from 1.35 to 0.35. The transition to the next stage in the development of EUV lithography should slightly raise this figure to 0.55, which is still very low. This will further reduce the size of the transistors without excessively increasing the number of photomasks.

ASML announced at the January reporting conference that it was delaying the implementation of the new version of EUV for at least three years. Previously, it was believed that the technology will be mastered by 2023, and now the introduction of the EUV version with a high refractive index value is postponed until 2025 or 2026.

Addition on new ASML scanners

The current instrument for deep ultraviolet lithography is ASML NXE: 3400C, and the next generation high-NA EUV lithography scanner will be ASML EXE: 5000. It will be equipped with completely new 0.55 NA optics,

One high-NA EUV scanner will cost about $ 300 million (current generation ASML scanners cost about $ 180 million each). Perhaps it will become the most expensive industrial appliance in the global economy.

Samsung, TSMC and Intel are gradually moving to 7 and 5 nm technology nodes using ASML NXE: 3400C scanners. According to the available information, in the 7 nm process technology, one pass with a 40 nm step is enough, but already in 5-nm chips, the same TSMC uses a 30 nm step, which is close to the physical limit at this aperture.

US news

Of the $190 billion in spending laid out in the bill, more than $50 billion is available to "increase U.S. production and research into semiconductors and telecommunications equipment," with $2 billion focused specifically on chips used by automakers.

Now they are directly using peoples pocket.

Some nice indication of big price hikes:

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said that he expects 10 “good years” of growth in the semiconductor industry during a panel at CNBC’s Evolve conference on Wednesday.

“We believe the market, the world, is in a very expansionary period,” Gelsinger told CNBC’s Jon Fortt. “I predict there’s 10 good years in front of us, because the world is becoming more digital, and everything digital needs semiconductors.”

This is not some accident, as such guys start to talk about "10 good years" you need expect wall being hit at any moment now.

Only in past year this guys already scammed world for more than 100 billions, and I am not counting almost same amount they got free from taxpayers pockets.

TSMC is set to move N4 (namely 4nm process) to risk production in the third quarter of 2021, while its N3 technology development is on track with volume production scheduled for second-half 2022.

Both so highly advertised processes want to keep same FinFET transistors and keep all the heavy logic areas on almost same size.

Also it is not clear how soon or if at all TSMC will propose full performance variants of tech.

TSMC 5nm still exist only as totally limited mobile only thing, where it is only Apple that special integrated chips that can use it.

Sales of smartphones in the China market remained lackluster in May, with related shipments declining 31% from a year earlier to 22.6 million units in the month, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Technology (CAICT).

As we can see shortage of chips is artificially made thing.

The existing shortage of chips in the electronics market will continue to worsen and will peak in the second half of this year, said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. He told about this in an interview with Bloomberg.

“I don't think the chip industry will return to a healthy balance of supply and demand by 2023, I think things will get worse in a wide variety of industries before they get better."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-25/intel-ceo-says-chip-shortage-to-hit-bottom-in-second-half

Nikkei Asian Review cites recent comments from Huawei CEO Catherine Chen. The Chinese giant is determined to continue developing semiconductor components in-house, she said, and the HiSilicon division will not undergo any restructuring or downsizing. In 2020, the number of HiSilicon employees exceeded 7000 people.

This is interesting.

Secret of auto chip shortages revealed

IC foundries including TSMC, United Microelectronics (UMC) and Vanguard International Semiconductor (VIS) have signed supply contracts with their automotive customers for orders set to be fulfilled in 2022 and 2023.

Manufacturers will pay big money in advance. As IC guys need lot of money, tens of billions now.