Huawei said yesterday that it would make industry-leading semiconductors using a new technology in five years.
Speaking at a semiconductor symposium in Shanghai, the company said its high-end chips would have a transistor density equivalent to 1.4-nanometre processes by 2031.
“We believe that openness and collaboration are key to driving ongoing progress in the semiconductor industry,” Huawei’s He Tingbo said during her speech yesterday. “No single company can independently find all the answers along the path of semiconductor evolution.”
As part of these plans, Huawei has unveiled a new principle for improving chips, suggesting the industry can no longer rely on Moore’s Law – a pattern of shrinking transistors that has driven computing breakthroughs.
Referred to as the Tau Scaling Law (τ Scaling Law), Huawei’s process focuses on reducing the time it takes for signals and data to move through chips and computing systems. The law proposes replacing geometric scaling with time (τ) scaling as a new guiding principle for the evolution of both semiconductors and electronic systems, Huawei said.
Based on this principle, the company added that technologies like LogicFolding can be used to compress signal propagation delay and steadily improve transistor density. Huawei said the goal here is to drive the ongoing evolution of semiconductors and electronic systems, in addition to driving up performance, energy, efficiency and transistor density at each level.
“With the τ Scaling Law, we look forward to working closely with scientists, engineers and industry partners around the world to drive the sustainable development of the semiconductor and electronics industries,” He Tingbo added.
Over the past six years, Huawei has designed and mass-produced 381 chips based on the τ Scaling Law, it said, serving numerous industries and markets. Kirin chips, which are expected to launch in Autumn 2026, will be the first to adopt the LogicFolding architecture and expect a more enhanced performance as a result.
In recent years, Moore’s Law has faced physical limits and diminishing economic returns, according to Huawei. Having guided the semiconductor industry for more than five decades, the company said the industry must now tackle the challenge of overcoming the physical constraints of traditional processes and find a “new, sustainable evolution path that can match surging computing demands”.
Huawei said this is where the τ Scaling Law comes into play.
“What Huawei is proposing is a shift from traditional node-driven scaling to system-level efficiency scaling,” said He Hui, director of semiconductor research at Omdia, as reported by Reuters. “Rather than depending solely on smaller transistors, the company is focusing on shortening interconnect, lowering latency and improving data movement inside the chip, which is a credible way to extract more performance when leading-edge lithography is constrained.”
Huawei’s news comes as China continues looking to combat US-imposed sanctions that make it difficult for the country to make chips. The company’s chips have become significant for China’s future economic development and geopolitical leverage, particularly in the wake of DeepSeek’s latest model (V4) being launched last month.
Having been placed on a US trade blacklist in 2019, Huawei hasn’t been able to rely on its global contracts but instead has been focused on its semiconductor business.
Despite the so-called ‘chip war’, China remains a global market leader.
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