Huawei is making good progress on its 5nm chips

Following the US sanctions against Huawei, many were surprised (and some dismissive) when Huawei unveiled a phone with a chipset built on the 7nm process. Now it looks like the naysayers could be proven wrong again because according to the latest reports, Huawei’s progress on its 5nm chips seems to be going well.

This is according to a post on X by user @jasonwill101. They claim that Huawei’s chip manufacturing partner, SMIC, has completed the taping out stage for the 5nm chips. This means that SMIC is now ready to move from designing the chips to actually manufacturing it for real.

Right now, the chipsets used by the majority of flagship phones in the market are built on the 3nm process. This means that Huawei and SMIC have quite a long way to go in terms of catching up, but the fact that they still managed to design 5nm chips are impressive.

This is because the sanctions placed on Huawei prevents US companies from working with the Chinese company. In turn, pressure from the US government on its allies has also resulted in non-US companies turning their back on Huawei. This includes Dutch company ASML who are essentially the only company in the world that makes EUV machines that are critical in the development of chipsets.

A recent patent has suggested that Huawei could have found a way around using EUV machines, but we’re not sure how that will turn out. While Huawei phones are no longer sold in the US, it will still be interesting to see their development.