Huawei and SMIC made a breakthrough in manufacturing nanometer processors late last year. This happened with the help of Western technology, including tech from ASML.
The breakthrough in Chinese chip technology may have resulted from Western chip technology, sources told Bloomberg. The technology in question was then and still is under U.S. government sanctions.
Use of EUV
In November of last year, Chinese tech giant Huawei registered patents that described a method of using ultraviolet light to control the internal operation of a computer chip in a piece of silicon.
Finally, using this technology, SMIC could develop and produce a 7-nanometer processor for Huawei as early as September 2023. They immediately used this processor in the new Huawei Mate 60 Pro smartphone.
The EUV development process used for production was previously only possible in the West and with ASML’s advanced EUV lithography machines. In addition, technology from the US-based Applied Materials and Lam Research, has also been used.
The required ASML equipment was supposedly already delivered to the Chinese tech giants before the US sanctions took effect.
In an earlier response to the Chinese chip breakthrough, both the U.S. Department of Commerce – which denied that a breakthrough had occurred – and ASML CEO Peter Wennink stated that the Chinese chip breakthrough has no (strategic) implications for the time being.
Wennink indicated in earlier comments to Bloomberg that without the advanced EUV machines covered by the sanctions, Chinese chip manufacturing companies cannot scale up production of 7-nanometer processors to “commercially viable levels.
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