A claim has emerged that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China's largest foundry, succeeded in implementing a chip with tighter wiring pitch than Intel's latest chip, based on a teardown and analysis of the Kirin 9030 chip installed in Huawei's latest smartphone, the Mate 80 Pro Max. However, analysts said that despite the measured figures, there remains a 4- to 5-year gap in real-world performance and production expense compared with Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), and Samsung Electronics.
On the 17th, U.S. semiconductor analysis firm SemiAnalysis reported that after directly tearing down and analyzing the Kirin 9030 chip in Huawei's latest smartphone, the Mate 80 Pro Max, SMIC's "N+3" process metal wiring pitch measured 32.5 nanometers (nm). That figure is about 10% tighter than Intel's 18A process (36 nm) applied to its latest Panther Lake PC CPU. Once this figure became public, claims that "China has overtaken Intel" appeared online.
◇ Only the wiring pitch is tighter… density, the key metric, is about half
Experts say it is unreasonable to judge process sophistication based on wiring pitch alone. A more trusted metric in comparing semiconductor processes is the number of transistors that can be packed into a 1-square-millimeter (㎟) area—a fraction of a fingernail's cross section. Transistors are the basic units of semiconductors that switch electrical signals on and off to perform computations; the more that fit into the same area, the higher the chip's performance and power efficiency.
By this measure, SMIC N+3's density is estimated at about 125 million per square millimeter, similar to TSMC's 6-nanometer (N6) process. Although it is called "N+3" and SMIC presents it as 5-nanometer class, its actual density is closer to 6 nanometers. Rajesh Krishnamurthy, an analyst at market research firm TechInsights, said, "N+3 is an extension of the previous 7-nanometer process and significantly lags TSMC's and Samsung's 5-nanometer processes."
The gap widens further against the global cutting edge. TSMC's enhanced 3-nanometer (N3P) reaches 224 million per square millimeter, Samsung Electronics' 3-nanometer (SF3) 190 million, and Intel 18A 238 million. TSMC's 2-nanometer (N2), which began volume production this year, reaches 313 million, making its density 2.5 times that of SMIC N+3.
The biggest reason for this difference is production equipment. TSMC, Samsung, and Intel use EUV (extreme ultraviolet) tools that etch circuits precisely onto wafers. SMIC, unable to procure this equipment due to U.S. export controls, must achieve similar effects with legacy DUV (deep ultraviolet) tools. Because it must rely on "multi-patterning," repeating the same circuit 5 to 6 times, process time grows longer and the production expense per wafer rises sharply.
◇ Chip performance is also 4–5 years behind Apple and MediaTek
Produced on SMIC's latest process, the Kirin 9030 achieved meaningful advances, including increasing CPU core count to 12–14 over its predecessor and improving GPU (graphics processing unit) performance by up to 79%. It is also the first smartphone chip to include hardware-accelerated ray tracing (a technology that realistically renders images by calculating reflections and refractions of light). However, these figures are based on Huawei's own disclosure and require independent verification.
The gap with the global leaders remains large. According to SemiAnalysis, the Kirin 9030's highest-performance CPU core shows 57% lower absolute performance than the core in Apple's M1 chip released in 2020. Its GPU performance lags 2.4 to 3.2 times behind the latest flagship chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek. SemiAnalysis assessed the Kirin 9030's overall performance level as comparable to flagship chips released in 2021–2022.
A semiconductor industry official said, "There is still a gap in manufacturing process and chip performance, but SMIC is pushing the capabilities of legacy equipment to the limit despite U.S. government equipment sanctions," adding, "While some claims are overstated, we should be wary of how quickly China's foundry technology competitiveness is rising."