New report says Huawei is not as close to challenging U.S. chip designers as it claimed
EUV lithography is needed to produce chips using a 5nm process node and lower. Originally, it was thought that Huawei and SMIC were able to build 5nm chips by using older Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines that are not covered by sanctions. By using multiple impressions with a DUV machine, SMIC tries to print features at a size smaller than they would come out at with a single DUV impression. The problem is that this technique is incredibly difficult to pull off resulting in low yields which hike the price of the components produced this way.
If the Kirin X90 is made using a 7nm node and not a 5nm node as first believed, Huawei and SMIC would be two generations behind the U.S. right now. Next year, when we see Apple’s iPhone 18 line powered by 2nm APs designed by Apple, that would extend the advantage over Huawei by another generation. The only thing that will help Huawei is an EUV alternative and while there are always rumors that Huawei is working on such a thing, for now, the company has a large gap that it can’t seem to close.
