Taiwan Leads China in Semiconductor Production by Ten Years

Taiwan continues to hold significant advantage over China in semiconductor manufacturing, says Cheng-Wen Wu, chairman of Taiwan's National Science Council. Wu noted that Taiwan's giant TSMC plans to begin mass production of chips using 2nm technology as early as 2025, leaving China at least a decade behind, it estimates.

The comment came in response to recent media reports that analysis of the latest smartphones Huawei showed the use of advanced processors, fueling speculation that China is closing the gap in chip production. A teardown of one of Huawei's smartphones — Pure 70 Ultra — demonstrated a 7-nm processor, presumably manufactured by a Chinese SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation).

However, Wu expressed doubt that China was only three years behind Taiwan in terms of technological advancement, as some analysts had claimed. He said the success TSMC largely due to the use of advanced chip-making machines, such as EUV scanners from a Dutch company ASML, which are necessary for the creation of the most advanced semiconductors.

These machines became the basis for the production of 7nm chips in 2018 and have since been used for even more advanced technologies. Wu believes that despite some successes in China, the gap between the countries remains significant and at least a decade old.