Huawei makes landmark in design tools for 14nm chips and above By CIOTechOutlook Team

Huawei makes landmark in design tools for 14nm chips and above

CIOTechOutlook Team | Friday, 24 March 2023, 04:01 IST

In a recent speech by a top Huawei official, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has made advancements in electronic design automation (EDA) tools for chips produced at and above 14-nanometer technology.

In a speech on February 28, Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun stated that testing on the tools would be finished this year. 78 tools pertaining to chip hardware and software have been created by Huawei.

Smartphones started using 14nm chips in the middle of 2010, which are two to three generations behind cutting-edge technology.

Since 2019, successive rounds of U.S. export regulations have targeted Huawei, a major provider of equipment used in 5G telecommunications networks, limiting its access to semiconductors and chip-design tools from American businesses.

Before semiconductors are mass produced in fabs, chip design companies utilise EDA software to create the blueprints for the chips.

Three foreign companies—Cadence Design Systems Inc., Synopsys Inc., which has its headquarters in the United States, and Mentor Graphics, which is owned by Germany's Siemens AG—rule the EDA software market.

There are a few indigenous EDA software manufacturers in China, but analysts do not think they are globally competitive.

2020 saw the imposition of Washington's penalties against Huawei on all three foreign EDA firms.

The company's chip design section was unable to create low-node CPUs for its smartphones once the restrictions took effect because they were denied access to software and upgrades as well as to cutting-edge manufacturing equipment at chip production fabs.

Sales of smartphones for the corporation fell as a result.