After Huawei announced the Tau (τ) Law, the Chinese-American chip genius decisively returned home, delivering a stunning blow to TSMC!

On May 25, 2026, at an international conference on circuits and systems held in Shanghai, He Tingbo, Director of Huawei and President of the Semiconductor Business Department, officially unveiled the "Tau (τ) Law."

Just two days later, a similarly significant announcement came from Japan — Chinese scientist Dabo, who had deeply participated in the R&D of TSMC’s 3-nanometer mass production line, has resigned from his permanent research position at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), bringing an entire team back to China full-time.

According to a report by South China Morning Post on May 27, Dabo stated in an interview that he returned to help raise China’s semiconductor equipment, materials, and core components to internationally advanced levels, adding, “If I can dedicate my life to this cause, it will be worthwhile.” Born in Longnan County, Gansu Province, and having entered the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as the top scorer in the national college entrance exam 18 years ago, this 85-born scholar has now embarked on his journey back home.

Huawei’s “Tau Law” does not follow TSMC’s path. While TSMC excels at pushing each component to its absolute limit, Huawei now advocates bypassing component limitations through system-level architectural innovation. In other words, Huawei is no longer racing on TSMC’s most familiar track but has built an entirely new one. Huawei has completed the first step—presenting the theoretical framework—but still lacks the second: people capable of turning theory into reality. And Dabo’s return precisely fills that gap.

Dabo pursued his undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral studies consecutively at USTC over nine years. In 2013, he moved to Japan and joined the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS). NIMS is Japan’s premier national materials research institution. At NIMS, Dabo rapidly advanced from postdoctoral researcher to permanent researcher within just one year—far outpacing the typical three-to-five-year tenure track—becoming the youngest tenured researcher in the organization. He also led a joint R&D project between Lam Research (USA) and NIMS, focusing on TSMC’s 3-nanometer mass production line, with emphasis on critical materials and core components for electron-beam and etching equipment.

His team at NIMS consisted largely of USTC alumni, with whom he had worked closely for years, forming a highly cohesive unit. He did not return alone—he brought an entire established technical core team back with him. Over ten years in Japan, Dabo didn’t just build a loose research group; he constructed a fully integrated, end-to-end team spanning material development to equipment validation.

Huawei has defined the direction of the race, but it was those who have actually worked on production lines who truly laid the road. Dabo is exactly such a figure. He is not a theorist confined to paper—he was deeply involved in the development of TSMC’s 3-nanometer mass production line in Japan. He possesses firsthand experience with the material bottlenecks, component weaknesses, and engineering challenges of cutting-edge processes—knowledge that remains extremely scarce domestically.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1866398820042944/

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.