Huawei inches closer to 2 nm-class node without EUV

A few days ago, Huawei showed off its first-ever 5 nm class smartphone SoC manufactured on SMIC's N+3 node. The Kirin 9030 powered Huawei's newest Mate80 lineup. Now, it looks like Huawei is close to its next breakthrough: 2 nm. Semiconductor researcher Dr Frederick Chen spotted Huawei's patent from 2022, but published it only recently; it is yet to be approved.

It discusses using existing DUV infrastructure to achieve a 21 nm metal pitch, which would make it equivalent to 2 nm offerings from TSMC and others. Under normal circumstances, it would take a DUV laser multiple exposures, but Huawei has figured out how to reduce that to four via SAQP (Self-Aligned Quadruple Patterning).

Understandably, there is some scepticism around the commercial viability of such an endeavour. For starters, its yields would be far too low to be commercially viable. Even if they are, they won't be anywhere close to EUV-based solutions.

An earlier report stated China was working on indigenous EUV tools and a 3 nm node with carbon nanotube-based semiconductors. Not much information has come of it recently. Even if it succeeds, it will not be revealed officially anytime soon due to China's secretive approach to its chipmaking prowess.