China makes exascale out of 14nm chips

https://www.nextplatform.com/2022/03/11/pondering-the-cpu-in…

The SW26010 was rated at 3.06 teraflops peak and ran at 1.45 GHz. If you did a die shrink on this chip from 28 nanometers and then increased the cores by 50 percent and then doubled up the vector width to 512-bits, while keeping the clock speed the same, then you would create a device that delivered 9.2 teraflops. But this SW26010-Pro chip delivers 14.03 teraflops, and so the clock speed much have increased by 52.7 percent to 2.22 GHz to reach that performance level.

Add it all up, and the 105 cabinet system tested on the BaGuaLu training model, with its 107,250 SW26010-Pro processors, had a peak theoretical performance of 1.51 exaflops. We like base 2 numbers and think that the OceanLight system probably scales to 160 cabinets, which would be 163,840 nodes and just under 2.3 exaflops of peak FP64 and FP32 performance. If it is only 120 cabinets (also a base 2 number), OceanLight will come in at 1.72 exaflops peak. But these rack scales are, once again, just hunches.

If the 160 cabinet scale is the maximum for OceanLight, then China could best the performance of the 1.5 exaflops “Frontier” supercomputer being tuned up at Oak Ridge National Laboratories today and also extend beyond the peak theoretical performance of the 2 exaflops “Aurora” supercomputer coming to Argonne National Laboratory later this year – and maybe even further than the “El Capitan” supercomputer going into Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2023 and expected to be around 2.2 exaflops to 2.3 exaflops according to the scuttlebutt.

We would love to see the thermals and costs of OceanLight. The SW26010-Pro chip could burn very hot, to be sure, and run up the electric bill for power and cooling, but if SMIC can get good yield on 14 nanometer processes, the chip could be a lot less expensive to make than, say, a massive GPU accelerator from Nvidia, AMD, or Intel. (It’s hard to say.) Regardless, having indigenous parts matters more than power efficiency for China right now, and into its future, and we said as much last summer when contemplating China’s long road to IT independence. Imagine what China can do with a shrink to 7 nanometer processes when SMIC delivers them – apparently not even using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light – many years hence. . . .

The bottom line is that NRCPC, working with SMIC, has had an exascale machine in the field for a year already. (There are two, in fact.) Can the United States say that right now? No it can’t. The United States is counting on its exascale machines to be more energy efficient – Frontier and El Capitan for sure, we shall see with Aurora – but we have no idea how computationally efficient any of these future machines really are.

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Imagine what China can do with a shrink to 7 nanometer processes when SMIC delivers them – apparently not even using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light – many years hence. . . .

Hmm. Perhaps this is a good speculative investment opportunity? Is there any way for a US person to invest in SMIC? From https://www.smics.com/en/site/company_info

Headquarters
Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Stock Listings
SEHK: 00981;SSE STAR MARKET: 688981

Global Operations
Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Japan, US and Europe

Manufacturing Facilities
SMIC has a 200mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) and an effectively controlled 300mm fab for advanced nodes in Shanghai; a 300mm fab and a majority-owned 300mm fab in Beijing; a 200mm fab in Tianjin and a majority-owned 200mm fab in Shenzhen.

Total Employees
17,354 as of December 31, 2020

Company Profile
Established in 2000, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”) and its subsidiaries constituting one of the leading foundries in the world, is the most advanced and the largest foundry with the broadest technology coverage and the most comprehensive semiconductor manufacturing services in Chinese Mainland. SMIC Group provides integrated circuit (“IC”) foundry and technology services on process nodes from 0.35 micron to 14 nanometer, with capabilities including logic, mixed signal/RF, CMOS, high voltage, SoC, flash, EEPROM, CIS, power management IC, MEMS and others.

And from the “about us” page:

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC,00981.HK/688981.SH) is one of the leading foundries in the world and is the front runner in manufacturing capability, manufacturing scale, and comprehensive service in the Chinese Mainland. SMIC Group provides semiconductor foundry and technology services to global customers on 0.35 micron to 14 nanometer process node technologies. Headquartered in Shanghai, China, SMIC Group has an international manufacturing and service base, with three 8-inch wafer fabrication facilities (fabs) and three 12-inch fabs in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Shenzhen, and three 12-inch fabs under construction in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. SMIC Group also has marketing and customer service offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Taiwan, China, and a representative office in Hong Kong, China.

Hmm. Perhaps this is a good speculative investment opportunity?

Is it simpler to advance nodes at the national fab or to just take Taiwan?

In all seriousness, not a bad way to think. I am always, always, always uneasy about investing in countries with authoritarian regimes, though. Political wind shifts and everything falls apart.

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In all seriousness, not a bad way to think. I am always, always, always uneasy about investing in countries with authoritarian regimes, though. Political wind shifts and everything falls apart.

Yes, that’s certainly a risk, but it’s debatable how large a risk it would be. It might even be less of a risk now that Russia has invaded Ukraine. And the reward could also be great. A “purely speculative play” to be sure, but still tempting IMO. But still only for a small position, of course.

The modern EUV steppers from ASML are not allowed to ship into China. I am not sure if there is a date when this embargo is lifted. Both Intel and TSMC made it to N7 without EUV (clearly a struggle for Intel), and Samsung required EUV to get N7 to work. This puts a limit on how far SMIC/china can go with semi technology for now. That said, there is clearly a very large market for the older technologies.
Alan

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Antonio,

I am always, always, always uneasy about investing in countries with authoritarian regimes, though. Political wind shifts and everything falls apart.

Yes, as a lot of folks who had investments in Russia discovered recently. And by the time that the average investor learns that the proverbial manure is about to hit the fan, those positions typically have already crashed.

In Beating the Street, Peter Lynch talks of selling retail stocks when he noticed that his wife and daughters stopped bringing home bags from the respective stores, and thus getting out of those positions before the drop in sales would show up in the next quarterly report, causing the price to plummet.

Norm.

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