Huawei reportedly testing new Brute-Force system to build advanced chips

Huawei has teamed up with a secretive Chinese chipmaker and issued a patent regarding a new Brute-Force system to produce more advanced chips. The company is putting in efforts to boost its chip production in the region despite U.S. restrictions.

So far, the Chinese tech giant used foreign equipment to build its chipset products. One of them is the ASML extreme ultraviolet lithography tech equipment. However, the U.S. trading rules put a barricade to export the respective technology in China.

To get rid of such tensions, Huawei joined hands with a new chipmaker and applied for an effective patent. Accordingly, the firm is working on a mechanism based on the SAQP (self-aligned quadruple patterning) to lessen its dependency on lithography.

How it works?

Looking into the Huawei patent, the application says that the Brute-Force system helps in forming more advanced chips. Here, the term Quadruple refers to a technique for engraving lines on silicon wafers multiple times to raise the transistor density as well as increase overall performance.

“Adoption of this patent will increase the design freedom of circuit patterns.” – said the China Intellectual Property Administration.

Huawei Brute-Force system (Source: Bloomberg)

Notably, the respective method seems a reliable solution for China to develop 5nm chips. Although the research firm – TechInsights says that the region still needs some latest technologies to lead in the long-run processor race.

“It can mitigate them, but not completely overcome the technical issues of not having EUV” – TechInsights.

In 2023, a chipmaking firm – SiCarrier opted for the same technology to obtain certain technical thresholds on 5nm chips. At that time, the patent said to prevent the use of EUV machines as well as reduce the production cost to a greater extent.

As of now, some more Chinese companies are trying to use the same technique for producing premium-level semiconductors. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is ensuring to keep Huawei and its partners away from this surface. Read More…

(Source)