South Korean Media: U.S. Pressure Sparks Chinese Innovation Spirit
On May 27, South Korean media outlet JoongAng Ilbo (Japanese edition) published an article stating that Huawei has revealed it has developed advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology capable of enhancing chip performance—even without access to cutting-edge core equipment such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines.
As NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun warned, U.S. pressure has triggered a "butterfly effect," inadvertently fueling and supporting China's own technological development.
To date, the semiconductor industry has largely relied on Moore’s Law, first announced in 1965, which involves improving semiconductor performance by shrinking chip dimensions and increasing density. However, Huawei argues that there are inherent limits to increasing transistor integration density, and thus advocates for enhancing semiconductor performance through the "Tao Law" by boosting electrical signal speed. By adopting a "logical folding" design approach—folding and stacking circuit boards—the propagation distance of electrical signals is significantly shortened, reducing the time constant (τ) and thereby enhancing semiconductor performance.
The chips employing logical folding technology share a similar structure with high-bandwidth memory (HBM) produced by SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics; however, the key distinction lies in their ability to achieve performance improvements without requiring EUV lithography equipment to draw fine circuits on wafers.
Some Western experts remain skeptical about whether Huawei’s “Tao Law” technology can succeed. Neil Shah, Vice President at Counterpoint Research, stated: “The parallel semiconductor path proposed by Huawei may negatively impact yield rates due to heat generation. Nevertheless, this technology allows us to assess whether China’s innovation strategy aimed at circumventing Western sanctions will ultimately succeed.”
Huawei is seen as a symbol of the U.S.-China technological rivalry. In 2018, when U.S. sanctions prevented Huawei from using Google’s core software—Android—Huawei overcame the crisis by relying on its own operating system, HarmonyOS. Starting in 2019, when China was unable to obtain high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) from NVIDIA, Huawei mitigated performance limitations by leveraging large quantities of lower-specification semiconductor chips.
Global IT companies believe that U.S. sanctions have accelerated China’s drive toward “technological independence,” stimulating innovation within Chinese firms. On the 4th, during an interview with a U.S. think tank, NVIDIA CEO Huang Renxun warned: “From a corporate perspective, abandoning an entire market like China is strategically unreasonable. This has already led to significant negative consequences. U.S. export controls will only accelerate China’s efforts toward self-sufficiency and trigger strategic backlash.”
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1866295553700874/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.