Following the announcement, shares for China's largest contract chipmaker, SMIC , surged by 7.6%. The breakthrough is a major symbolic and practical win for Beijing’s push toward complete technological self-sufficiency. While global foundry leader TSMC expects to mass-produce true 1.4nm chips by 2028, Huawei's alternative path means China can dramatically close the performance gap by packaging and structuring chips differently — significantly mitigating the impact of the US clampdown.
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Etiido Uko is a news contributor for Tom's Hardware covering the latest updates in big tech and the PC industry. He is a mechanical engineer and senior technical writer with over nine years of experience in documentation and reporting. He is deeply passionate about all things engineering and technology, and is an expert in gadgets, manufacturing, robotics, automotive, and aerospace. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-23/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Etiido Uko Social Links Navigation News Contributor Etiido Uko is a news contributor for Tom's Hardware covering the latest updates in big tech and the PC industry. He is a mechanical engineer and senior technical writer with over nine years of experience in documentation and reporting. He is deeply passionate about all things engineering and technology, and is an expert in gadgets, manufacturing, robotics, automotive, and aerospace.
DaRAGingLunatic Now for the western trump card, 1.4nm tech along with LogicFolding, bruahhahhaha Reply
alrighty_then How many claims of superior tech that come out of China actually pan out? I think they do more following and copying than leading and don't see how that will change anytime soon…without capturing Taiwan. Reply
zsydeepsky Why label this news with a "2031" mark? Huawei has demonstrated its roadmap, and the first significant upgrade happens THIS YEAR. its new chip that people can actually buy at the end of this year, will achieve 238 Mtr/mm^2 density. in comparison, the TSMC N3P node is 224 Mtr/mm^2, which is the latest advanced node before Apple releases TSMC 2nm A20 chips. So all you need to do is just wait for 6 months, then test the new Huawei device, see if the new SoC is comparable with Qualcomm or MediaTek flagship counterparts, then we can get a clear conclusion of this statement. Reply
bit_user The article said: … without relying on restricted Western manufacturing equipment like extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. But they're still fabbing the chips with the existing ASML DUV scanners they already have, no? So, is this basically akin to building multiple logic layers in the same die? Is that how they're achieving higher logic density? Reply
Zaranthos I'm sure based on China's track record of honesty and integrity we can trust all their claims at face value… Hanxin Microprocessor (2006) – FALSE SMIC 0.18-Micron Node (2009) – FALSE Phytium Civilian Supercomputing (2021) – FALSE Wuhan Hongxin 7nm Fabrication (2021) – FALSE Jinan Quanxin Foundry (2021) – FALSE Innosilicon Fenghua No.1 GPU (2022) – FALSE Tsinghua Unigroup Breakthroughs (2023) – FALSE Power Leader Powerstar CPU (2023) – FALSE Biren Sanctions-Proof GPU (2023) – FALSE SMIC Mass-Scale 5nm Viability (2025) – FALSE Reply
zsydeepsky bit_user said: But they're still fabbing the chips with the existing ASML DUV scanners they already have, no? So, is this basically akin to building multiple logic layers in the same die? Is that how they're achieving higher logic density? you are correct. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJIm5fobkAADbe9?format=jpg&name=largehttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJJ2s1GaoAAa3u6?format=jpg&name=large two dies connected together, and redesigned the entire chip based on "2-layer" consumption. Huawei claimed that they have been able to shorten the distance for data to migrate between transistors through the middle metal layer, thus made it performs better than the 2D chips with higher transistor densities. the roadmap: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJJz5hIWYAIGeF0?format=jpg&name=large the first double layer chip will be on market this year. and by 2031, they will have a 3-layer chip thus the “1.4nm equivalent node" in this news. so they haven't count in potential EUV kick in yet. all these progression will solely be done with DUVs. also, since you can see that Huawei has already mass-producing 155 Mtr/mm^2 chips since last year (Kirin 9030)… Zaranthos said: SMIC Mass-Scale 5nm Viability (2025) – FALSE you just wasn't informed. Reply
nookoool alrighty_then said: How many claims of superior tech that come out of China actually pan out? I think they do more following and copying than leading and don't see how that will change anytime soon…without capturing Taiwan. Huawei ate up the dominating portion of the telecom equipment sector, had the highest sold phones, and posed to dominate gpu before the US "nancy kerrigan" it thru economic and tech sanctions along with bending the fingers or all it's allies. Reply
bit_user zsydeepsky said: two dies connected together, and redesigned the entire chip based on "2-layer" consumption. Huawei claimed that they have been able to shorten the distance for data to migrate between transistors through the middle metal layer, thus made it performs better than the 2D chips with higher transistor densities. Oh, very interesting. I had thought it was still just working within a single die. zsydeepsky said: the first double layer chip will be on market this year. and by 2031, they will have a 3-layer chip I'm not sure how well this technique scales beyond two layers. When you have just two layers, it's sort of like putting slices of pizza together, face to face. That way, all of the toppings are together, in the middle. When you stack a 3rd slice, now there's a layer of bread in between. Maybe you could shave off that bread, and then stack the 3rd slice on there, but that seems very risky. And if you don't remove that bread layer, then the 3rd die is far away and can't be integrated as closely as the other two. Reply
bit_user nookoool said: posed to dominate gpu before the US "nancy kerrigan" it thru economic and tech sanctions Chinese dGPUs were not kneecapped by any such thing. As proof, you can see that they have yet to be remotely competitive with old AMD and Nvidia models that were made on comparable nodes. However, I did find your analogy somewhat amusing. Sadly, Tanya Harding knew nothing of plot, but her skating career was unfortunately cut short due to being tainted by the sheer scandal of it. Reply
nookoool bit_user said: Chinese dGPUs were not kneecapped by any such thing. As proof, you can see that they have yet to be remotely competitive with old AMD and Nvidia models that were made on comparable nodes. However, I did find your analogy somewhat amusing. Sadly, Tanya Harding knew nothing of plot, but her skating career was unfortunately cut short due to being tainted by the sheer scandal of it. Being completely ban from tsmc and euv is not "knee cap" i don't know what is According to Dylan Patel on the Dwarkesh podcast Huawei was the first with a 7 nm AI chip as well. They were the first with a 5 nm mobile chip, but they were the first with a 7 nm AI chip. The Huawei Ascend was two months before the TPU and four months before Nvidia’s A100, I think. That’s just moving to a process node. That doesn’t imply software or hardware design or all these other things. But Huawei is arguably the only company in the world that has all the legs. Huawei has cracked software engineers. Huawei has cracked networking technologies. That’s, in fact, their biggest business historically. They have cracked AI talent. Furthermore, beyond Nvidia, they actually have better AI researchers. Beyond Nvidia, they have their own fabs. And beyond Nvidia, they have their own end market of selling tokens and things like that. Huawei is able to get the top, top talent. Nvidia is as well, but not with as much concentration, and Huawei has a bigger pool in China. It’s very arguable that Huawei, if they had TSMC, would be better than Nvidia. There are areas where China has advantages in areas that Nvidia can’t access as easily. Not just scale, but certain optical technologies China’s actually really good at. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/huawei-claims-sanctions-busting-breakthrough-with-1-4nm-class-chips-by-2031-claims-55-percent-higher-transistor-density-firm-claims-new-logicfolding-chip-architecture-can-bypass-euv-restrictions-introduces-tau-scaling-law-to-replace-moores-law#main
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