Chinese SMIC surpasses 5nm barrier with Huawei chip

Chinese semiconductor factory Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation may have surpassed the 5nm process barrier despite U.S. restrictions - by developing a cutting-edge chip for Huawei. This breakthrough is a significant step forward for both SMIC and Huawei amidst ongoing geopolitical tensions and technological competition. As a result, Huawei was able to significantly boost the performance and efficiency of its devices equipped with this high-end chipset. The general-purpose cores of the Kirin 9006C are listed as having a capacity of up to 3.13 GHz, comparable to the TSMC N5-based Kirin 9000 SoC launched by Huawei in late August 2020. The similarities between the two chips imply that Huawei might have collaborated with SMIC to manufacture the processors. This collaboration could be a strategic move for Huawei to reduce its dependency on foreign chip manufacturers and strengthen its foothold in the domestic market. Huawei and SMIC use these methods to divide complicated patterns into simpler patterns printed in sequence for improved precision.