US’ China policy is at a crossroads

Anyone who assumed that blocking the export of EUV scanners, and later advanced DUV immersion tools as well, would stop the Chinese from manufacturing 7nm chips should have known better. TSMC started shipping N7 chips in 2018, patterned exclusively using DUV immersion equipment (the EUV-enabled N7+ node was introduced a year later). Five years ago, Chinese foundry SMIC still had unrestricted access to the West’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment. It was therefore only a matter of time for the Chinese to create their own 7nm node.

Surprise at the performance of the so-called Kirin 9000S chipset, recently discovered in a Huawei smartphone, is more appropriate. The chip based on Arm IP is reportedly on par with 1-to-2-year-old Qualcomm products, even though the US has access to more advanced process technology. Shrinking only benefits the digital parts of a chip, however, and a SoC such as the Kirin 9000S has lots of analog/RF functionality on board as well.