Chips & semiconductors · Trend watch (posts originally published July 20–21)
From the Aug 5, 2026 daily brief
The same commentator argues the real story in Chinese advanced process is diffusion — not just SMIC, China's largest foundry, but multiple fabs reaching N+3, SMIC's third-generation 7nm-class process (Teortaxes, July 20). The claim has one genuine crossing point with the evidence: SemiAnalysis's physical teardown in June measured SMIC N+3's transistor density actually catching up to TSMC's previous-generation N6 (SemiAnalysis, June 2026). But that same teardown argues the opposite direction: the density was won without the newest lithography (EUV), by multi-patterning older DUV machines; once normalized, the density still clearly trails Intel's latest process; and the phone chip built on it performs at roughly the level of a three-year-old Android flagship, with a wider power-consumption gap. The honest joint read: a single-point density catch-up to one prior generation, with the power and yield bill unresolved — and "multiple fabs will replicate it" has zero evidence so far: no fab names, no timelines, no sourcing. When the next Chinese chip headline lands, sort it first — single-point breakthrough, or replicable capacity? The two mean completely different things for supply.
Just an email address, unsubscribe anytime. This is the only thing we ask of you.
The most structurally valuable post in this Teortaxes batch. On the software side, Chinese…
Starting from a proof of concept he himself calls toy-grade, Teortaxes offers a structural…
In late April, Gooaye aired a piece of information that cut against the host's own holding…
Microsoft unveiled its next-generation in-house AI chip, Maia 200, this January; the same …