[throwaway4good]

So far it appears that Huawei is the only Chinese firm producing chips on 7nm; while western commenters have stated that it is a SMIC process - I don't actually think they know for sure as none of these companies have made it official - in other words the process may be proprietary to Huawei.

However 7nm is in volume production at a level so high that can do non-critical projects such as the Mate 60 phone rather than just the stuff where all imports to China are sanctioned (high-end AI chips, chips for spacefaring, and military).

Likely other sanctioned Chinese chip designers will use the process as it appears that Chinese authorities want internal competition rather than just have one single dominant company (Huawei).

[BSDobelix]

>So far it appears that Huawei is the only Chinese firm producing chips on 7nm

True a good video about it from Asianometry

"China's 7nm Semiconductor Breakthrough"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrdcTsScKk

[throwaway4good]

Some of this is simply because until the latest sanctions, other Chinese chip designers could fab at TSMC at 7nm.

Also Huawei has a quite capable AI offerings:

https://e.huawei.com/en/products/computing/ascend

[dragonelite]

But are you really willing to risk it all go into a TSMC based work flow just to end up on the US bad guys list.

[throwaway4good]

I think even Chinese companies believed that Huawei was banned and sanctioned because they did something wrong and not just because they were Chinese and really good at what they do.

Now of course they are all sanctioned and Huawei is sitting pretty with years invested in a sanctions proofed supply line.

[foverzar]

> I think even Chinese companies believed that Huawei was banned and sanctioned because they did something wrong

I'd be surprised to see anyone seriously thinking that way outside of the western bubble.

I personally can't even recall what exactly they were accused of. Probably something typical along the lines of "tech theft" or clandestine? I do remember all this happening during Trump presidency, who was already attacking other Chinese companies (e.g. forcing Tik Tok to sell shares). And that there was some heavy competition for 5G stuff at the time.

My impression (and definitely not mine alone) was that it was all about clearing the market.