Huawei and Smic work side by side and intensity since they get it The US sanctions to China. Together they have managed to manufacture 7 Nm semiconductoras, for example, the soc Kirin 9000s of the Mate 60 Prousing an integrated circuit production technique known as Multiple patterning. This strategy in broad strokes consists in transferring the pattern to the wafer in several passes with the purpose of increasing the resolution of the lithographic process.
His problem is that he usually has an upward impact on the cost of chips and the decline in production capacity, although it works. These two Chinese companies have been forced to use the Multiple patterning in your teams of deep ultraviolet lithography (UVP) because the prohibitions of the United States and the Netherlands prevent the Dutch company Asml from selling their machine their machines in Chinese extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE). The latter allow to produce more advanced semiconductors than UVP equipment.
Huawei and SMIC seem blocked in the 7 nm lithography
A little over a year ago, in February 2024, the newspaper Financial Times said having had access to the statements of two experts who defended that SMIC was finalizing the refinement of their semiconductor manufacturing processes in their UVP machines. Its purpose, according to this source, was to have the necessary technology to manufacture Integrated 5 nm circuits Massively before the year 2024. For SMIC and its clients, among which Huawei is, this would be a very important achievement.
The triple folding of Huawei, one of its most ambitious proposals, reuses a 7 nm soc
However, Huawei’s 5 NM socates have not yet appeared. The chip Kirin 9010 which has happened to the 9000S model is also being manufactured in the 7 NM SMIC node using the technique of Multiple patterning. We can find this soc, for example, in Huawei’s new triple foldingthe mate ultimate design, which We have tried Just two weeks ago at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
It is evident that the last smartphones of this company would have been wonderful to have a 5 -nm Soc. And to his GPU Asce for artificial intelligence (AI) too. But there is even more. According to Digitimes Asiathe CPU for PC Kirin X90 that will produce Huawei with the purpose of consolidating an alternative to Intel and AMD chips will also be manufactured in the 7 Nm node. In these circumstances it is reasonable to conclude that, for the moment, Huawei and SMIC are stuck in this integration technology.
This is a big problem for China because it does not have the necessary technology to produce avant -garde semiconductors comparable to those who manufacture Intel, AMD or Qualcomm, among other western alignment companies. The great hope of the country led by Xi Jinping is having as soon as possible Your own UVE photolithography teamsand it seems that they are close. In fact, as we tell you last week, A filtration has revealed that Huawei is already testing a prototype of one of these machines. If this information is finally confirmed and China has its commercial UVE machines in 2026 will have taken a crucial step in its pulse with the US.
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More information | Digitimes Asia
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