Chinese semiconductor thread II

jx191

Junior Member
Registered Member
In this case they seem to have just done it without a major leap in the process node size. What they’re announcing here isn’t 3D “stacking” in the sense of sandwiching two chips together vertically, but an actual full 3D native design layout organized around time efficiency of logical operations as the optimization principle. With this approach they were able to get major per area transistor density gains as well as clock speed gains while also scoring significant energy efficiency gains. What this also means is that when they get to EUV they won’t need to match node shrinks to match performance with the frontier. At equivalent node sizes we could be talking 2x transistor density/performance or even 3-4x if they get more ambitious with the number of transistor layers they “fold” in. That said it may also be the case that doing aggressive node shrinks for this “LogicFold” approach may be more challenging and have slower cadence since I can see some of the fabrication details being harder to do.
So that big jump from 2030 to 2031 isn't necessarily due to EUV? The increases in density seem to plateau a little after around 2028 but then suddenly increase again so I'm wondering what could cause such a big increase from out of nowhere.
 

sunnymaxi

Colonel
Registered Member
So that big jump from 2030 to 2031 isn't necessarily due to EUV? The increases in density seem to plateau a little after around 2028 but then suddenly increase again so I'm wondering what could cause such a big increase from out of nowhere.
a huge density & clock speed jump happens between 2030 & 2031 likely to related with EUV and you can't suddenly introduced EUV it means they will have working EUV machine before 2030.
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what i have noticed Huawei pushing hybrid bonding to the extreme. this is mind boggling. i just simplified it for the general audience.

Huawei wrote their own scaling law. they just presented the Tau (τ) Scaling Law at IEEE ISCAS, a framework that replaces geometric transistor scaling with time-based optimization across devices, circuits, chips, and systems.

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To address the high thermal density issues brought by advanced processes + 3D stacking, a type of ultra-thin, quiet, and more efficient chip-level active cooling technology has been developed, which is part of a system-level solution.

After Huawei's Hi-ONE (near-package optics) and 3D Folding, the thermal density of chip packaging will rise significantly, and traditional cooling methods are no longer sufficient. Therefore, this chip-level active cooling solution is being developed in parallel, and the supporting technologies are quite interesting.

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One more interesting thing Huawei announced ''2026 will be a big density jump in transistors''

Edit - honestly there is so much to discuss. hopefully one by one i could post or maybe @tphuang sir. but an exciting time ahead.
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
So that big jump from 2030 to 2031 isn't necessarily due to EUV? The increases in density seem to plateau a little after around 2028 but then suddenly increase again so I'm wondering what could cause such a big increase from out of nowhere.
Could be EUV. Could be adding another layer of “folding”. Could be both. If they feel comfortable with the folding approach taking over as the primary performance driver they may simply stop chasing an aggressive node shrink schedule and EUV adoption may start more with improving the nodes Huawei has already reached rather than pushing their shrinking cadence. But of course one can only speculate for now.
 

jx191

Junior Member
Registered Member
Could be EUV. Could be adding another layer of “folding”. Could be both. If they feel comfortable with the folding approach taking over as the primary performance driver they may simply stop chasing an aggressive node shrink schedule and EUV adoption may start more with improving the nodes Huawei has already reached rather than pushing their shrinking cadence. But of course one can only speculate for now.
I wonder how this plays out with Huawei's Ascend roadmap from last year.

We saw a big jump in performance after around 2028, similar to what we've seen for the Kirin map.

Either way I think we can expect a pretty major breakthroughs in the years to come, from EUV or folding.
 

huemens

Junior Member
Registered Member
Why are they saying their 2025 Chip Transistor density is 155 MTr/mm2? As far as I remember, Kirin 9030Pro has a transistor density of around 125MTr/mm2. 155 MTr/mm2 places it well beyond TSMC N5 which I don't think is true based on performance of the chip. Note Huawei Chips are more optimized for performance in Core level compared to Snapdragon
It could refer to a chip that's never been seen in the open market. For example the ARM v9 SoCs with onboard HBM, that's being used in the Lingsheng exascale supercomputer, that we discussed few weeks ago, is believed to be a new Huawei Kunpeng chip. In December 2024 Huawei submitted a patch to the Linux kernel for a new Kungpeng chip with onboard HBM.
 

Tomboy

Captain
Registered Member
Why are they saying their 2025 Chip Transistor density is 155 MTr/mm2? As far as I remember, Kirin 9030Pro has a transistor density of around 125MTr/mm2. 155 MTr/mm2 places it well beyond TSMC N5 which I don't think is true based on performance of the chip. Note Huawei Chips are more optimized for performance in Core level compared to Snapdragon
They are using theoretical density from the fab, actual performance will vary because you can't make every single part at exactly the highest density possible. 9050 data is probably also theoretical, actual average density will likely be quite a bit lower.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Huawei likes to show off but only when they can put their money where their mouth is. I suspect Hank is trying to do some confidence management against Huawei fans since there are a lot of folks in Chinese industry who don’t like Huawei’s aggressive tactics and eventually policymakers will have to curtail some of Huawei’s broader ambitions.
 
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