Made In China

[lucklucky]

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According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Xiaomi topped all vendors with 25% market share as European smartphone shipments posted strong growth +14% YoY to 50 million units. 

[lucklucky]

Better quality video

Edited September 7, 2021 by lucklucky

[lucklucky]

https://atomicinsights.com/chinas-high-temperature-reactor-pebble-bed-modular-htr-pm-achieves-its-first-criticality/

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On the morning of September 12, 2021, reactor number 1 of the eagerly awaited HTR-PM project was taken critical for the first time. Initial criticality for any new reactor is a big deal for the people involved in the project; this one is a big deal for the future of nuclear energy. It might also become a big deal for humanity’s ability to effectively reduce CO2 emissions enough to slow climate change.

HTR-PM is a demonstration reactor that uses two identical gas-cooled high temperature modular reactors to produce the heat for a modern, subcritical, 200 MWe steam turbine. The steam system operates at the same temperature and pressure as many recently constructed coal heated steam plants that China has been mass producing for more than a decade as it rapidly industrialized and became one of the world’s leaders in manufacturing, metals production and chemicals.

 

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China has been purposefully working on high temperature gas reactor technology development for the past 30 years. They have absorbed lessons from HTR experience in Japan, the United States, the UK, and South Africa while also building their own domestic intellectual property and manufacturing capability. According to the China Huangeng Group Co. LTD (CHGC) press release, the project’s direction includes a strong emphasis on building indigenous capacity to build HTR without outside assistance.

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As the world’s first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, the demonstration project used more than 2,000 sets of equipment for the first time, and more than 600 sets of innovative equipment, including the world’s first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor spiral-coil once-through steam generator. The first high-power, high-temperature thermal magnetic bearing structure main helium fan, the world’s largest and heaviest reactor pressure vessel, etc., are of great significance to promote my country to seize the world’s leading advantage in the fourth-generation advanced nuclear energy technology.

China Huangeng Group Co. LTD press release dated 09/12/21 (https://www.chng.com.cn/detail_jtyw/-/article/ccgb60va5Gwc/v/962479.html) Note: Original in Chinese simplified, translated by Google Translate

 

Aside: The above includes a statement that helps explain why HTRs have not been universally popular and why they still face headwinds, even from nuclear energy advocates. Each reactor module produces about 250 MWth, which compares to about 3300 MWth in a 1000 MWe PWR or BWR. Even with higher temperatures and higher efficiency, each core can produce 1/10th of the electricity of light water reactors, but the first HTR pressure vessel is described as “the world’s largest and heaviest pressure vessel.” Pressurized gas has a far lower capacity to move heat than pressurized water.

But there are more factors to be considered in atomic fission power plant economics than the size and weight of the pressure vessel. End Aside.

 

[sunday]

This could be a big advancement, especially if they have managed to reduce the time constants of the thermal part, as then there will be civilian reactors able to respond quickly to load variations.

HTRs also could produce high quality, dry steam, very easy on turbomachinery. Looks like they already have leveraged that advantage, too.

Edited to add: the article linked is pretty good, and the comments section is really informative with a high signal/noise ratio. Especially interesting are the safety considerations and how they vary with reactor's size.

Edited September 29, 2021 by sunday

[lucklucky]

I have to say that i am pretty clueless about nuclear energy. But i notice when something new appear.

A bit more data.

https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinas-HTR-PM-reactor-achieves-first-criticality

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China Huaneng noted the localisation rate of HTR-PM equipment reached a level of 93.4%. It noted that as the world's first pebble-bed modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, the demonstration project used more than 2000 sets of equipment for the first time, and more than 600 sets of innovative equipment, including the world's first high-temperature gas-cooled reactor spiral coil once-through steam generator. It also features the first high-power, high-temperature thermal electromagnetic bearing structure for the main helium fan, as well as the world's largest and heaviest reactor pressure vessel.

Cold functional tests - which aim to verify the reactor's primary loop system and equipment as well as the strength and tightness of its auxiliary pipelines under pressure higher than the design pressure - were completed at the HTR-PM's two reactors on 19 October and 3 November last year, respectively. Hot functional tests, which simulate the temperatures and pressures which the reactor systems will be subjected to during normal operation, started in January.

China's nuclear regulator, the National Nuclear Safety Administration, issued an operating licence for the HTR-PM on 20 August. The loading of the first spherical fuel elements into the first reactor started the following day.

The HTR-PM has the advantages of inherent safety, a high equipment localisation rate, modular design and adaptation to small and medium-sized power grids. It also has broad range of potential commercial applications, including power generation, cogeneration of heat and power, and high-temperature process heat application

 

 

 

 

[sunday]

In the comments they said the difficult thing to manufacture in a pebble-bed reactor are the pebbles. In this case, China bought the technology, and the manufacturing plant for the pebbles from Germany, as the Germans had a functional PBR until the late 1980s.

Shades of the fate of the Transrapid, only used in Shangai. I wonder if that magnetic levitation technology has some dual-use implications, for electromagnetic catapults in aircraft carriers, for instance.

[RETAC21]

1 hour ago, sunday said:

In the comments they said the difficult thing to manufacture in a pebble-bed reactor are the pebbles. In this case, China bought the technology, and the manufacturing plant for the pebbles from Germany, as the Germans had a functional PBR until the late 1980s.

Shades of the fate of the Transrapid, only used in Shangai. I wonder if that magnetic levitation technology has some dual-use implications, for electromagnetic catapults in aircraft carriers, for instance.

Interesting concept, but what happens is the pebbles overheat or there's a gas leak? there may not be a meltdown but you still get fallout. Remember: big reactors, big problems, small reactors, small problems.

At least the Chinese are investing on them

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/nuclear-safety-pebble-bed-reactors/

[lucklucky]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Innosilicon-Fenghua-1-China-s-first-server-grade-GPU-to-feature-GDDR6X-VRAM-and-DirectX-support.580000.0.html

[lucklucky]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Report-Intel-acknowledges-that-Chinese-emerging-CPU-makers-could-threaten-its-position-in-3-5-years.608551.0.html

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The new report includes key citations from a Guancha.cn interview with Intel Corp’s SVP Rui Chang, who stated that “so far there has not been any local companies that are able to deal a substantial threat to Intel. But in 3-5 years, it will become clear that local companies will emerge as strong rivals." DigiTimes notes that, as of right now, China contributes more than 25% of Intel’s revenues. Wang is expecting some healthy competition in the coming years, but Intel will “exert its power to compete fairly” and remain in control.

DigiTimes reminds us that similar degrees of confidence were shown by the Chinese branch of IBM in the late 2000’s when local cloud computing and big data services started to rise to the challenge. Things did not go well for IBM, as Inspur, which has been receiving generous investments and subsidies from the Chinese government since 2009, announced in 2014 that it will take over IBM's business in China, replacing IBM servers used by local banks.

While the Chinese transistor fabrication sector is still playing catch-up to Intel’s and TSMC’s advanced technologies, there are quite a few capable CPU makers heavily subsidized by the local authorities. DigiTimes is grouping these into three distinct camps:

Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor and Hygon - two companies that are licensing X86 core tech especially from AMD

Huawei's HiSilicon Kunpeng CPU and Phytium Technology in Tianjin - license the ARM instruction set architecture, but design in-house CPU cores

Loongson and Sunway Microelectronic - develop proprietary instruction set architectures along with IP cores

Of all three camps, it looks like the last could evolve into a real threat for Intel, but this cannot happen without advanced transistor fabrication methods.

 

 

[lucklucky]

https://www.wionews.com/technology/china-defeats-spacex-to-successfully-launch-worlds-first-methane-powered-rocket-614515

[lucklucky]

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According to BYD's chairman Wang Chuanfu during a pep speech last week, "it's an emotional need for the 1.4 billion Chinese people to see a Chinese brand becoming global." His video presentation ended with the rallying cry to "demolish the old legends and achieve new world-class brands, Chinese Autos."

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Tesla-price-cut-comes-as-BYD-calls-for-global-EV-domination.741192.0.html

[Tim the Tank Nut]

China does have global recognition as a brand.  The issue is that it is synonymous with "crap".

[lucklucky]

No it is not. Some stuff are good, many stuff are good enough and many stuff are crap. You need to learn to choose.

[TrustMe]

20 hours ago, Tim the Tank Nut said:

China does have global recognition as a brand.  The issue is that it is synonymous with "crap".

They had 5G cell phone technology before the US built there own. So on some things they are ahead of the US.

[Ssnake]

Much easier to adopt new tech if it doesn't have to compete against old infrastructure, but rather creates a new market/competes against non-consumption.

[lucklucky]

Here is the speech

 

 

[futon]

TOKYO -- Huawei Technologies is increasingly sourcing components for its smartphones in China, with a teardown of the recently released Mate 60 Pro showing Chinese parts constituting 47% on a value basis -- up 18 percentage points from a model analyzed three years ago.

Nikkei, together with research firm Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, disassembled Huawei's high-end smartphone to analyze component costs. The Mate 60 Pro was released in August for the Chinese market. The manufacturer of each component was identified, with the share of overall cost calculated by country.

The teardown shows that China has made rapid technological advances, including semiconductors using 7-nanometer production technology, since the U.S. intensified export restrictions on cutting-edge equipment and software in 2019.

Fomalhaut estimated the total cost of Mate 60 Pro parts at $422. In terms of share by country, China led at 47%. The Chinese smartphone maker's percentage of domestically made components climbed by 18 points from the similarly priced Mate 40 Pro launched in fall 2020, when the impact of U.S. sanctions was still limited.

The increased share of Chinese components resulted largely from Huawei switching suppliers for the organic light-emitting diode display -- the phone's costliest component -- from South Korea's LG Display to BOE Technology Group.

BOE is making inroads into the smartphone display market dominated by LG and Samsung Electronics with a reputation for quality, but it lags in terms of mass production capacity.

"The question is the extent to which [BOE] will be able to supply Huawei when its shipment volume recovers," Fomalhaut CEO Minatake Kashio said.

Touch panel components for the Mate 40 Pro were supplied by U.S. developer Synaptics, but Huawei turned to Chinese parts for the Mate 60 Pro. The value of Chinese-made components for the Mate 60 Pro totaled $198, up roughly 90% compared with the Mate 40 Pro.

Upon release, market observers speculated that the Mate 60 Pro was compatible with the 5G high-speed communication standard and that the Chinese-made semiconductor used 7-nm technology. With these semiconductors previously made only by major chipmakers in Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S., it was thought Chinese companies would have difficulty developing them.

The 5-nm semiconductor used in the Mate 40 Pro were designed by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Technologies, but production was outsourced to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Based on the teardown, Fomalhaut concluded that the Mate 60 Pro uses a 7-nm chip designed by HiSilicon and manufactured by China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

SMIC is believed to have used older equipment not covered by U.S. export regulations for semiconductor lithography, a key step of the manufacturing process. By overlapping the light multiple times while slightly shifting the position of the substrate, circuits equivalent to 7-nm products can be formed on a silicon wafer even with older equipment, Kashio said.

Apple iPhones were first equipped with 7-nm chips in 2018.

"It was said that China's own technology would be seven years behind, but it's a surprise that they caught up in five years," Kashio said.

The share of Japanese components in the Mate 60 Pro came to 1%, shrinking from 19% in the Mate 40 Pro. Huawei changed the supplier of the camera image sensor from Sony Group to Samsung. The share of South Korean parts increased 5 points to 36%.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Huawei-Mate-60-Pro-teardown-reveals-47-Chinese-parts-in-phone

Edited November 12 by futon

[sunday]

2 hours ago, futon said:

TOKYO -- Huawei Technologies is increasingly sourcing components for its smartphones in China, with a teardown of the recently released Mate 60 Pro showing Chinese parts constituting 47% on a value basis -- up 18 percentage points from a model analyzed three years ago.

Nikkei, together with research firm Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, disassembled Huawei's high-end smartphone to analyze component costs. The Mate 60 Pro was released in August for the Chinese market. The manufacturer of each component was identified, with the share of overall cost calculated by country.

The teardown shows that China has made rapid technological advances, including semiconductors using 7-nanometer production technology, since the U.S. intensified export restrictions on cutting-edge equipment and software in 2019.

Fomalhaut estimated the total cost of Mate 60 Pro parts at $422. In terms of share by country, China led at 47%. The Chinese smartphone maker's percentage of domestically made components climbed by 18 points from the similarly priced Mate 40 Pro launched in fall 2020, when the impact of U.S. sanctions was still limited.

The increased share of Chinese components resulted largely from Huawei switching suppliers for the organic light-emitting diode display -- the phone's costliest component -- from South Korea's LG Display to BOE Technology Group.

BOE is making inroads into the smartphone display market dominated by LG and Samsung Electronics with a reputation for quality, but it lags in terms of mass production capacity.

"The question is the extent to which [BOE] will be able to supply Huawei when its shipment volume recovers," Fomalhaut CEO Minatake Kashio said.

Touch panel components for the Mate 40 Pro were supplied by U.S. developer Synaptics, but Huawei turned to Chinese parts for the Mate 60 Pro. The value of Chinese-made components for the Mate 60 Pro totaled $198, up roughly 90% compared with the Mate 40 Pro.

Upon release, market observers speculated that the Mate 60 Pro was compatible with the 5G high-speed communication standard and that the Chinese-made semiconductor used 7-nm technology. With these semiconductors previously made only by major chipmakers in Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S., it was thought Chinese companies would have difficulty developing them.

The 5-nm semiconductor used in the Mate 40 Pro were designed by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Technologies, but production was outsourced to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Based on the teardown, Fomalhaut concluded that the Mate 60 Pro uses a 7-nm chip designed by HiSilicon and manufactured by China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

SMIC is believed to have used older equipment not covered by U.S. export regulations for semiconductor lithography, a key step of the manufacturing process. By overlapping the light multiple times while slightly shifting the position of the substrate, circuits equivalent to 7-nm products can be formed on a silicon wafer even with older equipment, Kashio said.

Apple iPhones were first equipped with 7-nm chips in 2018.

"It was said that China's own technology would be seven years behind, but it's a surprise that they caught up in five years," Kashio said.

The share of Japanese components in the Mate 60 Pro came to 1%, shrinking from 19% in the Mate 40 Pro. Huawei changed the supplier of the camera image sensor from Sony Group to Samsung. The share of South Korean parts increased 5 points to 36%.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Huawei-Mate-60-Pro-teardown-reveals-47-Chinese-parts-in-phone

This is a video by an excellent youtuber on the matter, and the situation is potentially more severe:

 

Edited November 13 by sunday