Huawei Reportedly Develops Chip Design Tools for 14 nm and Above

[AleksandarK]

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.



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[Bomby569]

i'm glad, more competition, but i know the anti China movement is coming

 

[john_]

Well, they have to start from somewhere. And if they move from 14nm to 10nm in less than 5 years, they will have beaten Intel!

 

[Prima.Vera]

i'm glad, more competition, but i know the anti China movement is coming

no Anti-China movement here. Only Anti-cheating and Anti-stealing movements

 

[bonehead123]

Well, they have to start from somewhere. And if they move from 14nm to 10nm in less than 5 years, they will have beaten Intel!

Well, that's not really saying much, considering how long intel stayed on 14nm.. ie the (almost) never-ending "+++++++++++++++++++++++++"

 

[Testsubject01]

Not to be a nitpicker here, but shouldn't it read “Huawei Reportedly Develops Chip Design Tools for 14 nm and below” in the context of the article ?

 

[john_]

Not to be a nitpicker here, but shouldn't it read “Huawei Reportedly Develops Chip Design Tools for 14 nm and below” in the context of the article ?

The source says the same and it does makes sense, meaning whatever can build 14nm probably can be used for processes above that, like 16nm and 28nm.
Going below 14nm probably needs more work and development of different, more advanced tools.

 

[zlobby]

no Anti-China movement here. Only Anti-cheating and Anti-stealing movements

Huawei's first 'designs' were blatant Ericsson rip-offs. Literally, there was the Huawei logo slapped on top of E/// gear. Now mofos have R&D towns with nearly 100k personnel each and surpass everyone sans Samsung in mobile tech. It's only political power that can stop them now.

 

[john_]

Huawei's first 'designs' were blatant Ericsson rip-offs. Literally, there was the Huawei logo slapped on top of E/// gear. Now mofos have R&D towns with nearly 100k personnel each and surpass everyone sans Samsung in mobile tech. It's only political power that can stop them now.

Stop them because they are Chinese?

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.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

considering how long it took to develop, maybe they had a headstart from copying off other similar designs.

 

[The_Enigma]

Yep, when sanctions were announced I called it. Hurt China in the short term but it will REALLY hurt the US in the long term. China WAS relying on some American companies for various chip products, now the US forced China to develop their own which just means they become more independent and gain greater technical capability.

 

[ZeppMan217]

There's a readily available lesson here: when the International Space Station (ISS) plans were being made decades ago, the US blocked China's participation; fast forward to 2021, China has its own space station, while the ISS is falling apart with no replacement in sight. Political grandstanding can only accomplish so much.

 

[Easo]

As before - you can't stop development of a nation with 1.4 billion people, you can at most slow it down.
I am affraid certain realities in the world are changing and we will have to live with the new ones.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Stop them because they are Chinese?

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.

If it wouldn't have been for Apple with there first iPhone, all of the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean phone manufacturers would have made probably something completelly different now. Maybe some Nokia and Blackberry clones, or something. Also ALL of them are still using the Google's Android OS, so basically, they had 0 (ZERO) originality and revolutionary ideas. At least the Japanese companies they had their own OS, with was and still is pure slow bloatware garbage, but hey, they didn't copy everything.

 

[zlobby]

If it wouldn't have been for Apple with there first iPhone, all of the Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean phone manufacturers would have made probably something completelly different now. Maybe some Nokia and Blackberry clones, or something. Also ALL of them are still using the Google's Android OS, so basically, they had 0 (ZERO) originality and revolutionary ideas. At least the Japanese companies they had their own OS, with was and still is pure slow bloatware garbage, but hey, they didn't copy everything.

Say what now? What was Apple first with? Touch screen? Flat screen?

 

[Prima.Vera]

Say what now? What was Apple first with? Touch screen? Flat screen?

Yes, Apple came first on the phone consumer market with this, on a market saturated with Blackberry and Nokia stile phones.
They didn't invent the tech, that's true, but they patent it first on a mobile phone.

 

[The_Enigma]

Yes, Apple came first on the phone consumer market with this, on a market saturated with Blackberry and Nokia stile phones.
They didn't invent the tech, that's true, but they patent it first on a mobile phone.

Actually, the LG KE850 was the first "smart" phone with a touchscreen. Apple didn't patent it first or release the first smartphone. The sad part is that they were even called smartphones at that popint in time. The original iPhone couldn't do anything more than the LG KE850 could, and both of those didn't even have as much functionality as the Motorolla RAZR2 which was also released the same year just a couple of months later. But people were tired of the RAZR format and wanted the cool new touchscreen so the more advanced RAZR2 didn't have any sales.

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.