Huawei develops EDA tools for chip above 14nm

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Huawei develops EDA tools for chip above 14nm

This undated photo shows a booth of Huawei Technologies Co at an expo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province of China. PHOTO CHINA DAILY Huawei Technologies Co has developed electronic design automation or EDA tools for chips above 14 nanometers by partnering with domestic companies, a major breakthrough for China's semiconductor industry, despite US government restrictions, according to PHOTO CHINA DAILY.

EDA is the cradle of integrated circuits and is of great importance to the entire process of designing chips, which is a software widely used in the sector.

Xu Zhijun, rotating chairman of Huawei, said the company completed the localization of EDA tools for chips above 14 nm by teaming up with domestic partners and will complete comprehensive verification this year.

China has long relied on US companies such as Cadence and Synopsys for EDA tools. Experts said that the tools for 14 nm chips are considered midrange products but it still marks a breakthrough.

The shares of Chinese companies involved in electronic design automation went up on Friday. The Shenzhen-listed Empyrean Technology Co, for instance, rose by more than 2 percent.

People familiar with the matter told China Daily that a string of Chinese insurance companies have tailor-made insurance services to promote the use of domestically developed chip products such as EDA tools.

Such insurance services, which have been used to support homegrown auto chip companies in the past two years, can help Chinese semiconductor enterprises lower research and development costs and accelerate their efforts to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies, they said.

The progress in EDA tools is part of a larger push by Huawei to develop domestic development tools for hardware, software and chips, despite the US government's lingering restrictions.

The company has replaced 78 software tools affected by Washington's ban on domestically developed tools, which can ensure the continuity of its research and development efforts amid US restrictions, according to Xu.

Xu said the company still faces formidable challenges even though it has achieved many breakthroughs in product development tools over the past three years.

He added that Huawei will redouble its efforts to attract more global talent in order to achieve a strategic breakthrough in the area.

The US government's export controls over advanced chip technologies to China are motivating Chinese companies to double down on the allocation of resources to achieve breakthroughs, according to Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance.

Sales revenues in the Chinese chip design sector increased by 534.57 billion yuan, up by 16.5 percent year-on-year, highlighting sectoral resilience amid US export restrictions, according to preliminary data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, or CSIA.

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Wei Jianguo, the former vice-minister of commerce and vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said that the chip industry is highly focused on capital, talent and technology. These three factors are all necessary to ensure healthy development.