“How do you actually classify equipment and say, this can process 14-nanometer and smaller - because there is a lot of equipment that can also process 28 nanometers,” Gartner analyst Gaurav Gupta said. Intel’s 22-nanometer manufacturing process used FinFET transistors, for example, while TSMC and Samsung didn’t adopt FinFET designs until they produced chips with a 14-nanometer process or 16-nanometer process. Prior reports have pointed to the Biden administration’s plans to choke off China’s access to tech used to make chips with a 14-nanometer or below manufacturing process, which has led to industry insiders questioning how effective that approach might be.Īccording to chip industry experts, using the nanometer naming conventions as the basis to block tech exports has a key problem: At one point the names referred to the size of a specific feature on a chip, but today they are just marketing terminology. Yet in some corners of the industry, the administration targeting of FinFET transistors hasn’t been clear. You control too much, and what you end up doing is kneecapping your own industry, because you deny them the revenue they need to invest in next-generation production.”īy using a specific, fundamental building block of chip design as the basis for the overall policy, the White House hopes to both tighten existing controls and avoid the pitfalls around trying to block a generation of manufacturing technology. “You control too little, and then bad guys can get stuff you don't want them to have. “Officials walk a very fine line between too much control and too little control,” William Reinsch, senior adviser and Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Protocol. China’s largest chipmaker, SMIC, disclosed in 2019 it recently began high-volume production of FinFET-based chips.
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The plans include blocking domestic exports of tools that are capable of printing chips with FinFET transistors, while also preventing the tool makers - such as Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA - from servicing or supporting equipment they have already sold to various Chinese companies, according to the sources.īig chip manufacturers achieved high-volume production of the transistor technology targeted by the Biden administration roughly eight years ago, but it is still widely used today to manufacture advanced chips designed for servers and iPhones alike. To achieve its objectives, the administration has elected to work to block China’s access to transistors that use a specific design called FinFET.
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exports of technology that China needs to make advanced chips, with the goals of both hurting China’s current manufacturing ability and also blocking its future access to next-generation capabilities.Īccording to two people familiar with the administration’s plans, President Joe Biden’s approach is based around choking off access to the tools, software and support mechanisms necessary to manufacture a specific type of technology that is one of the fundamental building blocks of modern microchips: the transistor. The Biden administration has for several months been working to tighten its grip on U.S.
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