China’s Rise in Chip Technology: Breaking Free from Western Control | China Chips

China’s Rise in Chip Technology: Breaking Free from Western Control | China Chips #chinachips #chinanews Step into the fascinating world of chip technology, where innovation and competition are driving remarkable advancements. It all began with the US sanctions against ZTE, a pivotal moment that highlighted China’s urgent need to fill the gap in operating system and semiconductor chip technology back in 2019. Fast forward four years, and China has made significant strides in breaking free from European and American control across various chip fields. China’s prowess in chip instruction set architecture is worth celebrating. With options like Loongson and RISC-V architectures, China’s chip performance is now on par with mainstream chips from industry giants Intel and AMD. Moreover, the chip ecosystem, based on the RISC-V architecture, is rapidly maturing. The surface-level difficulty of chip design may seem unprecedented, but it is the intricate dance between software and hardware that truly shapes chip development. While software only needs product design, the coordination between software and hardware, the “mother of chips,“ is crucial, especially in the realm of industrial software. EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software, which might appear deceptively simple, is actually complex. Chip design encompasses five modules: analog design, digital design, wafer manufacturing, packaging, and system integration. Each module relies on different EDA software. Currently, there are only three giants, Synopsis, Cadence, and Siemens, capable of developing and commercializing the complete EDA software process. However, the US sanctions against Huawei disrupted the supply chain, causing their chip design to stagnate. To overcome this setback, Huawei has successfully developed EDA software for 14-nanometer processes and above, a testament to their rigorous approach. Nonetheless, as chip technology advances towards the two-nanometer era, the gap between 14 nanometers and two nanometers remains significant, and Huawei’s EDA software alone is not sufficient. China’s chip industry development still faces a shortfall in EDA software.