Tuesday, March 28th 2023
Huawei Reportedly Develops Chip Design Tools for 14 nm and Above
Amid the US sanctions, Chinese technology giant Huawei has reportedly developed tools to create processors with 14 nm and above lithography. According to Chinese media Yicai, Huawei and its semiconductor partners have teamed up to create replacement tools in place of US chip toolmakers like Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor/Siemens. These three companies control all of the world's Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools used for every step of chip design, from architecture to placement and routing to the final physical layout. Many steps need to be taken before making a tapeout of a physical chip, and Huawei's newly developed EDA tools will help the Chinese industry with US sanctions which crippled Huawei for a long time.
Having no access to US-made chipmaking tools, Huawei has invested substantial time into making these EDA tools. However, with competing EDA makers supporting lithography way below 14 nm, Huawei's job still needs to be completed. Chinese semiconductor factories are currently capable of 7 nm chip production, and Huawei itself is working on making a sub-7 nm EUV scanner to aid manufacturing goals and compete with the latest from TSMC and other. If Huawei can create EUV scanners that can achieve transistor sizes smaller than 7 nm, we expect to see their EDA tools keep pace as well. It is only a matter of time before they announce adaptation for smaller nodes.
Source:
via CNBC
Having no access to US-made chipmaking tools, Huawei has invested substantial time into making these EDA tools. However, with competing EDA makers supporting lithography way below 14 nm, Huawei's job still needs to be completed. Chinese semiconductor factories are currently capable of 7 nm chip production, and Huawei itself is working on making a sub-7 nm EUV scanner to aid manufacturing goals and compete with the latest from TSMC and other. If Huawei can create EUV scanners that can achieve transistor sizes smaller than 7 nm, we expect to see their EDA tools keep pace as well. It is only a matter of time before they announce adaptation for smaller nodes.
16 Comments on Huawei Reportedly Develops Chip Design Tools for 14 nm and Above
Going below 14nm probably needs more work and development of different, more advanced tools.
Everyone is copying everything today, because there are so many out there thinking stuff first and everyone else is just following trying to build their own version, or something better. Nvidia based it's GSync on the idea of VESA's Adaptive Sync, if I remember correctly and AMD followed with FreeSync that wouldn't have been existed without GSync. Maybe these examples are not the best, but I just try to explain how I see it. If Chinese surpass the west in 50 years, guess who would be stealing/borrowing ideas from whom and who would be forbidding sales of high tech equipment to whom.
I am affraid certain realities in the world are changing and we will have to live with the new ones.
They didn't invent the tech, that's true, but they patent it first on a mobile phone.
I actually owned both a KE850 and a RAZR2 V9X. The 850 was fun and I liked its cool tech (at the time. lol) But when people started getting their hands on the iPhone 2-3 months later and trying to show me how cool it was, me going "ya, mine can do that too", then having anyone who was trying to show their new iPhone off declare "well that's stupid, it's just a ripoff of my new phone" I ended up replacing it partly so I didn't have to deal with so many Apple idiots anymore, and partly cause I wanted a 3G phone (which the iPhone and KE850 were not). Everyone who saw the new RAZR2 I had was blown away by my fancy graphics and turn-by-turn GPS navigation in my RAZR2 and they were jealous their iPhone couldn't do that. Then of course the web browser when I wanted to look something up also actually worked, unlike most of the sites with the original iPhone.