The U.S. sanctions have blocked Huawei’s access to the latest lithography and advanced machinery required to build the next-generation chips, but that hasn’t stopped the Chinese tech giant from building chips without relying on overseas companies. That ban has pushed Huawei well behind its competitors, but it now appears to have made good progress as the company is confident enough to have a manufacturing process equivalent to TSMC’s upcoming 1.4nm cutting-edge process by 2031.
At the IEEE ISCAS 2026 conference in Shanghai, He Tingbo, President of Huawei’s Semiconductor Business Unit, made some key revelations regarding its chip advancements. He unveiled a new “LogicFolding Design” technology, aimed at significantly increasing the transistor density and energy efficiency. Huawei also confirmed that its next-generation Kirin mobile processors will be the first commercial chips to feature LogicFolding architecture.
Huawei’s biggest announcement at the event was that it will develop a lithography equivalent to TSMC’s advanced 1.4nm process by 2031, without sharing any details on how it will achieve this extremely difficult feat.
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Since ASML’s doors are shut for Huawei due to U.S. restrictions, the company may use EUV equipment developed by China’s SiCarrier. It’s one of the country’s leading firms working to become a direct alternative to ASML’s EUV equipment.
Wccftech predicts that Huawei may have invested a ton of money in SiCarrier to help it build advanced EUV machinery. In the first half of 2025, the company was reportedly seeking $2.8 billion in funding. It’s still not confirmed if Huawei was part of that funding round, but the possibility was high.
While it appears Huawei is confident it will reach its target by 2031, execution is the hardest part in the semiconductor space. However, it will be exciting to see how Huawei advances its chip manufacturing process.
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