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SMIC's 7nm process beats Intel 18A pitch but lags density, teardown shows

SemiAnalysis has opened a new chip teardown lab and released its first analysis of Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 9030 processor. The teardown reveals that SMIC's 7nm process technology achieves a tighter local metal pitch than Intel's 18A, but at a significant cost to transistor density. Specifically, the Kirin 9030's N+3 process has a 32.5nm local pitch, surpassing Intel's 18A in this metric, yet it trails Intel's 18A by 38% in transistor density. AI

IMPACT This analysis highlights advancements in semiconductor manufacturing processes, impacting the potential for future AI hardware development.

RANK_REASON Chip teardown analysis comparing process technologies.

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AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 2 sources. How we write summaries →

SMIC's 7nm process beats Intel 18A pitch but lags density, teardown shows

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COVERAGE [2]

  1. Tom's Hardware TIER_1 English(EN) · Luke James ·

    Chinese fab SMIC's 7nm metal pitch beats Intel 18A but lags 38% on density, teardown finds — Huawei's sanctions-beating HiSilicon Kirin 9030 is the first subject of SemiAnalysis's new teardown lab

    SemiAnalysis has published the first teardown from its new in-house lab, focusing on the minimum local metal pitch on SMIC’s third-gen 7nm at 32.5nm.

  2. Mastodon — mastodon.social TIER_1 English(EN) · [email protected] ·

    Chinese fab SMIC's 7nm metal pitch beats Intel 18A but lags 38% on density, teardown finds — Huawei's sanctions-beating HiSilicon Kirin 9030 is the first subjec

    Chinese fab SMIC's 7nm metal pitch beats Intel 18A but lags 38% on density, teardown finds — Huawei's sanctions-beating HiSilicon Kirin 9030 is the first subject of SemiAnalysi… SemiAnalysis has published the first teardown from its new in-house lab, focusing on the minimum local…