SHANGHAI—Huawei Technologies said it has developed a workaround that will allow it to make chips on par with flagship products made by Intel and other top global companies by 2031, the Chinese company’s latest effort to overcome U.S. semiconductor technology barriers.
Description
Huawei said its approach would allow it to make more advanced chips without the unique machines used by its rivals – equipment to which the US has blocked it from accessing.
The Shenzhen, China-based company hopes to design high-end chips by 2031 that match transistor density produced with the 1.4-nanometer process. The 1.4-nanometer level is considered the next frontier for cutting-edge chips, which Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics are aiming to mass-produce in the next few years using specialized machines built by the Netherlands’ ASML.
If Huawei is able to produce these high-end chips on a large scale, it would overturn the prevailing belief in the industry that advanced manufacturing technologies and machinery are necessary to make top chips – removing a hurdle for China in its technological rivalry with the US. This could make Huawei’s chips cheaper to produce than rivals.
“Our solution is feasible and economical,” He Tingbo, president of Huawei’s chip branch, said at an event in Shanghai on Monday.
Huawei said its approach focuses on improving computing efficiency, such as stacking multiple layers of circuits within a single chip and reducing the time it takes to transfer data between them.
“Whether Huawei will get any specific advantage here remains to be seen, but it is at least an alternative path Huawei managed to make a breakthrough in while facing supply chain challenges,” said Lian Jae Su, Singapore-based analyst at research firm Omdia.
Context
The US has blacklisted Huawei since 2019 and restricted China’s access to advanced semiconductor technologies from 2022. This has forced Huawei to develop its own alternatives. Huawei has since become a central player in Beijing’s national effort for technological self-reliance, helping to build China’s domestic semiconductor supply chain.
Huawei and Nvidia are often pitted against each other as proxies in the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington. The Chinese company is increasingly leaning on alternative designs, advanced packaging technologies and its own networking technology to boost the computing performance of its hardware to catch up with its American counterparts.
Huawei said it has improved its semiconductor technology over the past six years and has mass-produced the 381 chip model in its approach. According to the company, the latest version of its Kirin smartphone chips, scheduled to launch this fall, will be Huawei’s first to be built with “logicfolding” architecture, which is designed to boost chip performance. Huawei said it is also using this workaround to develop chips for artificial intelligence. It did not provide an independent assessment of its chip performance.
Challenges
While traditional chip manufacturing relies on squeezing more circuits onto a silicon wafer to enable faster computing, some analysts say traditional manufacturing techniques are reaching a physical limit in which components will no longer be able to get smaller.
In response, researchers are stacking circuits, but this nascent approach faces major hurdles such as overheating and requiring engineers to write more sophisticated code to coordinate the different layers of the circuit.
People familiar with the progress said that just last year, Huawei has achieved more stable results with new technology. He said the company still needs to work with data centers and equipment vendors to prove its feasibility in large-scale applications, which could take time.
Write to Hannah Miao at hannah.miao@wsj.com and Rafael Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com.