China’s SMIC and Huawei building advance 5nm chips despite US
China is making significant progress in developing advanced semiconductors even as the United States tightens export controls to contain its […] The post China’s SMIC and Huawei building advance 5nm chips despite US appeared first on ReadWrite.
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China is making significant progress in developing advanced semiconductors even as the United States tightens export controls to contain its technological ambitions.
The country’s leading chipmaker SMIC has new production lines in Shanghai to manufacture next-generation 5-nanometer (5nm) mobile processors, reports the Financial Times. The chips are designed by technology giant Huawei as part of its homegrown Kirin line of smartphone processors.
The importance of China’s 5nm chips
The 5nm node represents a significant milestone and lags just one generation behind the cutting-edge 3nm chips from global industry leaders. The process shrinks the smallest features on computer chips to just 5 nanometers wide. It’s exceptionally difficult to do. The technology required to undertake the task successfully is expensive and bleeding edge.
Establishing volume production at this advanced node signals Beijing’s strategic goals of greater self-sufficiency in semiconductors is close to being realized.
The 5nm semiconductor chips are used for high-end smartphone processors and modems as well as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing chips, enabling more powerful and energy-efficient processors for data centers, cloud infrastructure, and specialized AI hardware. They are vital to China’s AI ambitions.
The collaboration between SMIC and Huawei demonstrates that China’s domestic semiconductor ecosystem retains the ability to innovate at leading-edge process nodes despite U.S. efforts to stymie development through export controls.
Insiders told the Financial Times that if the new 5nm line can successfully manufacture processors for smartphones, SMIC will also produce Huawei’s highest-performance artificial intelligence chip, the Ascend 920. This would help narrow the gap with advanced AI accelerators such as Nvidia’s dominant data center GPUs.
“SMIC is facing a more significant roadblock for production expansion after the US and its alliance tightened export restrictions on advanced chipmaking gear,” said the FT’s source. “Still, the fate of China’s chip industry and its technological development in the coming years will depend on these production lines by SMIC.”
Featured image: Pexels/Ágoston Fung:
Sam Shedden
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Sam Shedden is an experienced journalist and editor with over a decade of experience in online news. A seasoned technology writer and content strategist, he has contributed to many UK regional and national publications including The Scotsman, inews.co.uk, nationalworld.com, Edinburgh Evening News, The Daily Record and more. Sam has written and edited content for audiences whose interests include media, technology, AI, start-ups and innovation. He's also produced and set-up email newsletters in numerous specialist topics in previous roles and his work on newsletters saw him nominated as Newsletter Hero Of The Year at the UK's Publisher Newsletter Awards 2023. He has worked in roles focused on growing reader revenue and loyalty at one of the UK's leading news publishers, National World plc growing quality, profitable news sites. He has given industry talks and presentations sharing his experience growing digital audiences to international audiences. Now a Managing Editor at Readwrite.com, Sam is involved in all aspects of the site's news operation including commissioning, fact-checking, editing and content planning.
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