The Tamesis
Chinese semiconductor giant Huawei said on Monday it had developed a new method of making high-end chips that could help it bypass technological constraints imposed by U.S. sanctions on its most advanced chip-making equipment.
He Tingbo, head of Huawei’s semiconductor division, said that by 2031, the company will be able to produce chips equivalent to next-generation 1.4 nanometer (1.4nm) chips.
Industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. expects to do the same by 2028.
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Cutting-edge chips capable of training and driving artificial intelligence systems are a critical and highly sensitive element of the technological competition between China and the United States.
Huawei has been at the center of this competition in recent years after Washington warned that its equipment could be used for espionage by the Chinese government, a charge the company denies.
Sanctions since 2019 have cut off Huawei’s access to components and technology made by the United States and some of its allies, including photolithography machines used to make the world’s most advanced chips.
Huawei’s announcement suggests it may be sidestepping the need for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, which are considered critical for mass manufacturing of chips of 5 nanometers or below.
“In the past six years, people have often asked me…how do you survive and get back to the top?” he said in a speech at the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in Shanghai.
She said the new technology emerged from a shift that changed the historical concept of chip manufacturing.
Overcome computing challenges
Chips’ computing power has increased dramatically over the decades as manufacturers have added ever-microscopic electronic components to them.
“Moore’s Law” is a principle proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that states that the number of transistors (devices that regulate electrical current) on a chip will double every two years.
Higher transistor density results in smaller chips, or the same size but faster processing power.
He proposed on Monday “Tau scaling law,” or “Herr’s law,” according to which designers optimize not for space but for the time it takes for the various components that make up a chip to communicate.
This overcomes a key challenge of Moore’s Law, which Intel summarizes as: “You can make things smaller and smaller… until you can’t.”
U.S. sanctions mean “these challenges come earlier and are more severe” for Huawei, He said.
“Our solution is feasible and affordable. The performance of the new chip is completely competitive with other paths,” she said.
Huawei said that the next generation of Kirin chips will be launched in the autumn and will be the first to fully adopt the “Logic Folding” architecture based on the new principle.
“Leadership Ambition”
“There was a period in the last six years where I felt very depressed, like there was really no way out,” he told reporters after his speech at ISCAS.
But she said she was inspired by an “engineering masterpiece”, the Dujiangyan irrigation system in southwestern China, which was originally built around 256 BC.
She said she realized she was facing problems that others would face in 10 years.
“I can confidently say that our mobile computing and artificial intelligence computing solutions will be competitive in the next 10 years,” he told reporters.
But she acknowledges that there are still barriers to scaling up, not least the need for new design tools and the challenge of overheating.
George Chen, partner and chairman of Asia Group’s digital business, said the Tau scaling rule “underscores the company’s ambition to lead rather than follow in the global chip race.”
“Even if there are no new products launched today, Huawei’s intentions are clear – its trajectory is likely to exacerbate U.S. concerns.”
- Vishakha Saxena Additional Editor AFP
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