Huawei unveils new chip design strategy amid intensifying global semiconductor competition

Huawei Technologies on Monday unveiled a new chip development approach that it said would help China advance its semiconductor industry despite ongoing United States export restrictions.

Huawei has revealed that it plans to use a new engineering method called “Logic Folding” in its Kirin smartphone chips later this year. The company said the approach could eventually allow its chips to achieve performance comparable to some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors by 2031.

The announcement, made at a semiconductor conference in Shanghai, comes at a time when China seeks to reduce reliance on foreign chip technology while competing with US and Taiwanese firms at the forefront of semiconductor development.

Huawei said its technology delivers capabilities equivalent to “1.4-nanometre class” chips, which are expected to represent the leading edge of semiconductor manufacturing by the end of the decade.

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TSMC, the global leader in advanced chip production, is currently manufacturing 2-nanometre chips and plans to begin mass production of 1.4-nanometre chips in 2028. Huawei further mentioned that it has designed and mass-produced 381 chips using its “Tau Scaling Law” framework over the past six years, for applications including smartphones and artificial intelligence computing.

Tau Scaling Law

Huawei also unveiled a new principle for improving chip performance, noting that the industry can no longer rely solely on shrinking transistors for computing breakthroughs—a trend traditionally guided by Moore’s Law. The company said transistors have already become so small that their dimensions are now measured in only a few atoms.

This shift is increasingly important for China, as the semiconductor industry moves toward post-Moore’s Law solutions, including advanced packaging and chiplets. These alternative approaches are becoming central to efforts aimed at building more efficient chip-making systems and equipment for leading-edge processes.

Such developments have made alternative routes to higher performance central to Beijing’s goal of building a world-leading and self-sufficient semiconductor industry.