Huawei allegedly struggles with poor AI chip production at SMIC

A new report says that Huawei is struggling with poor Ascend 910B AI chip production. A major cause seems lack of yield rate at its SMIC foundry. Despite mass productivity for more than half a year, only 20% of the chips have appeared to work accurately.

Chosun.biz – a Korean business daily channel highlighted that a low yield rate at SMIC has badly affected Huawei AI chip production. The report adds that four out of five processors have seemed to be defective at the SMIC foundry in recent times.

Huawei and SMIC are using stocked chipmaking equipment to build AI chipsets. It seems most machines are outdated and started failing. Since Huawei has been blacklisted by the U.S. years ago, it cannot access foreign chipmaking tools anymore.

SMIC had predicted 500,000 Ascend 910B chip units production this year. But the constant collapse of equipment has prevented the firm from achieving its goal.

The chipmaker is developing new 7nm process chips with modified DUV (Deep UltraViolet) machines. The equipment belongs to the time before the U.S. sanctions.

Samsung, TSMC, and rivals, on the other hand, are taking the help of EUV (Extreme UltraViolet) equipment for chip manufacturing. Unlike DUV which takes 34 steps in processing, EUV takes fewer steps (say 9 steps) to complete the processor fabrication.

EUV is beneficial as it reduces production costs, defect rates, as well as frequent chances of failure. Despite several merits, Huawei and its chipmakers cannot switch to this equipment due to tough U.S. trade export controls.

The report further reveals that SMIC doesn’t have enough engineers for the management and maintenance of chip machinery. Following the U.S. sanctions, foreign goods suppliers pulled their hands from offering services to SMIC or other Chinese companies.

Some previous rumors claimed that Huawei is silently working on more powerful AI chips (Ascend 910C). These chips were said to come into the real world around September, based on a 5nm process. But the series of problems cast doubt on the alleged achievements.

Huawei AI chips are in high demand in the Chinese market. Many native companies have turned themselves to Ascend chipsets rather than choosing Nvidia A100 processors. Tests have shown that the former chip is more efficient than the U.S.-made processor.

However, the question is how Huawei will meet its partners and other companies’ requirements with the ongoing AI chip production challenges. We will keep you posted with the latest revelations on this matter.

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