As foreign computer chip companies are approaching physical limits in their pursuit of more powerful processors, Huawei Technologies Co's emphasis on improving transmission speeds between system components could offer an alternative path, experts said.
The comments came as industry watchers are beginning to recognize a systematic, replicable ecosystem taking shape across China's tech landscape, spanning semiconductor design, memory chip fabrication, artificial intelligence frameworks and system integration.
Liao Heng, chief semiconductor scientist of Huawei, said in a recent four-hour interview that the decades-long practice of continuously shrinking transistors and packing more into integrated circuits is running out of runway, as transistors are now becoming almost as small as atoms, close to the physical extreme of contemporary manufacturing capabilities.
While Western companies have multiyear roadmaps enabled by ASML's advanced lithography machines, Huawei — barred from accessing such equipment due to US government sanctions — has had to pursue a more creative approach, Liao said.
That approach is Huawei's "Tau Scaling Law", proposed in May, which shifts focus from shrinking chip dimensions to improving transmission speeds between system components.
