China cracks advanced microchip technology in blow to Western sanctions
China has cracked a microchip design method previously only mastered by the West, in a challenge that could undermine sanctions.
Patent filings reveal that Huawei has made advances in a crucial method of chip manufacture, raising the prospect that the company could eventually start making some of the smallest and most powerful microchips by itself.
Such a development would allow Beijing to skirt Western sanctions. Washington, Brussels and London are currently all blocking access to advanced Western-made computer chips in China over fears the Communist nation could develop new military capabilities beyond the power of Western armies to resist.
Huawei is one of the largest private companies in China. Its patent filing for the microchip technology, made in November but only revealed to the world this month, describes a way of using ultraviolet light to etch a computer chip’s inner workings into a piece of silicon.
Using so-called extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology, transistors can be created that are just nanometres in size. The most powerful computer chips contain millions of transistors and advances in miniaturisation allow for the creation of hugely powerful chips.
In a couple of years, China will dominate the semiconductor industry.
