Honey, I Shrunk the 'Chips': Huawei's Alleged 5nm Node
Covering Chinese chatters (discourses, narratives, policies and rhetoric) on external events and actors, military and security issues, and India.
Worldview Weekly #1: AI, Chips, and the US-China Saga continues
By Anushka Saxena
In the backdrop of the dynamically evolving US-China relationship, the past week has been rife with announcements of new tech related developments on both sides. To begin with, in an interview with Reuters on December 11, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo made comments pertaining to US-China trade the Chinese did not appreciate. She said, for example, that Nvidia will be cooperating with the US government on blocking sales of high-end, AI specialised semiconductor chips to China so as to prevent the advancement of the latter’s frontier node capabilities. This was preceded by another set of remarks she made at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California on December 2, where she argued that the Commerce Department was underfunded in its fight against China’s semicon growth, arguing that “We cannot let China get these chips. Period,” and that “We’re going to deny them our most cutting-edge technology.” And even though Nvidia is now preparing to sell exclusive chips tailored to the Chinese market since the October 2022 export controls were announced, Raimondo was very clear about the fact that if Nvidia redesigns a chip that enables China to do AI, she’s going to “control it the very next day.”
Of course, Chinese authorities and media were vehemently opposed to Raimondo’s stance. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning, to begin with, commented during one of her regular press briefings, “We firmly oppose the US’s abuse of export controls and malicious attempts to blockade and keep down China.” On a larger scale, reports surrounding the achievement of a 5 nanometer chip node capability by the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) have been making rounds, and are somewhat in the face of the goals US export controls were likely to achieve. A lot of it is talk fuelling both apprehension and applause, but it is likely that the Deep Ultraviolet lithography tools China has already procured in the past despite ASML and US sanctions, can “demonstrate” capability to achieve 5nm production.
Even though 5nm chips have been used in pre-sanction tech produced by Huawei for the past few years, such as the Mate40 Pro and the P50 Pro, reports now suggest that the laptop listing of Qingyun L540 Huawei made in October 2023, which deploys the Kirin 9006C processor with a 5 nm chipset. Later, Huawei also listed the Qingyun L420 laptop which again deploys the 9600C processor.
And because the Kirin 9006C SoC has not been previously deployed in another Huawei gadget, it is likely that the 5nm processor demonstrates in-house capability using DUV tech China already acquired. It also seems so because in 2020, Huawei CEO Yu Chengdong announced that China ran out of pre-stock 5nm chips (Kirin 9000 processor) from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which meant that the production and sale of Mate40 Pro smartphone had to be halted. But just a couple months ago, SMIC used the 1980Di DUV scanner, which is a lithography tool China already acquired amidst Netherlands’ June 2023 export controls, to create a 7nm processor for the Huawei Mate60 Pro smartphone. And so if former TSMC Vice-President Lin Burn-jeng is to be believed, “SMIC should be able to advance to 5-nanometer technology with ASML Holding NV machines that it already operates.”
Ahead of various tech platforms announcing the “secret” 5nm development, a consumer post on the Huawei Community website aptly summed up the discussion surrounding this capability, while also fairly warning, “Keep in mind that this is still an unconfirmed leak so take it with a pinch of salt for now.”
Of course, in addition to the one pinch of salt about the uncertainty of the capability, one must take another pinch for the challenges that Huawei will encounter with the operationalisation of such a capability. To begin with, rapid commercialisation of production of domestic 5nm-enabled tech will require the more sophisticated Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools, and currently, the export to China of all ASML EUV tools that can enable production below 10 nm, is sanctioned. And even though there are EUV tools that China possesses, there are challenges with the achievement of sophistication in EUV production that stretch over many years, which creates hurdles for mass, commercial-level production. If Huawei’s latest laptops indeed possess an in-house 5nm node, multi-patterning using DUVs may have been a preferred option. It cannot be said for sure if with the 7nm, China figured out how to deal with the defects of multi-patterning or has adopted a high-defect approach.
Overall, there is a lot left to speculation with this development, and it cannot also be said if Raimondo’s latest remarks come in response to reports surrounding it. However, if true, China’s 5nm feat will warrant a study of the gaps in export controls and the capabilities of the lithography tools China already possesses.
Guarding the Great Wall: Soft Indicators of Combat Training
By Anushka Saxena
‘Eye on China’ has often focused on looking at how the PLA is experimenting with combat training, combat design and war-fighting targets. This week, we look at another Commentary appearing in the PLA Daily (7 Dec. edition) on ‘Soft Indicators’ of combat training.
Taking the context of “precision warfare,” the piece highlights three key pillars for shaping combat scenarios in modern warfare – Emphasising Foresight (突出前瞻性), Distinguishing Hierarchy (区分层次性), Reflecting Dynamism (体现动态性), and Grasping Diversity (把握多样性).
Of this, ‘distinguishing hierarchy’ is an interesting operational concept for the PLA to engage with. It is based on the PLA’s ‘"Three Levels, Three Stages" Combat Concept Development Framework’, which was written about in elaboration in the April 4, 2022 edition of the PLA Daily.
The ‘three levels’ concept encompasses two strands of its own. One is the division of combat scenarios as strategic, campaign, and tactical. The other is the division of combat development concepts into administrative zones – top-level, operational, and support.
Under the first strand, the strategic level combat scenario usually focuses on whether “strategic guidance” dispensed by the highest decision-making authorities aligns with the international environment, domestic political, economic, and diplomatic factors, and the goal of “winning high-intensity, localised, short-duration” wars. The campaign level concentrates on shaping favourable situations through battle arrangements, the impact of force composition on combat capabilities, the application of new qualitative forces, and the effectiveness of new tactics. The tactical level concerns itself with using equipment to create asymmetrical advantages and tailoring optimal organization for combat effectiveness.
Under the second strand, top-level concepts mainly plan and design the war concepts and overall strategies to safeguard national strategic security and expand interests. Operational concepts outline and design the combat concepts and campaign tactics for specific operational directions and areas. Support concepts detailedly design combat scenes and tactical procedures for conducting combat operations.
The two strands are mutually interwoven at each level. Together, they form the basis for the achievement of the other three pillars of precision warfare training, which is foresight, dynamism, and diversity. Without the creation of strategic guidelines and operational frameworks for a host of combat scenarios, the PLA cannot achieve either.
Once these pillars are intact, the ‘three stages’ framework is to come into play, which interestingly has multiple sub-stages to it:
The first stage focuses on reading “combat issues”, which further includes analysing threats, defining tasks, and capturing the key contradictions/ challenges and the needs of the military for each level of combat scenario.
The second stage focuses on designing combat methods and strategies, which focuses on finding breakthroughs, identifying capability gaps, and proposing solutions for each level.
The third stage is on validation of capability support, which assesses the do-ability of proposed solutions and the standardisation of needs, capability metrics, and implementation methods across all levels.
The standardisation of this conceptual framework of three-levels hierarchical design, like many other elements of the PLA’s strategic training module, is based on the US’s ‘Three Levels of Warfare’ framework, which in turn is drawn from lessons of the Napoleonic wars and the American civil war.
With theaterisation in the PLA, many strategic designs of the US theater commands have now become easy for the PLA to adopt. Although many of such concepts come with Chinese characteristics, this level of adoption on the combat design hierarchy is unique.
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Eye on China is a weekly newsletter curated by the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at The Takshashila Institution, a public policy think-tank based out of Bengaluru, India.
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