China’s chip industry could miss out critical next-gen tech if US implements design software export ban

China’s drive for semiconductor self-sufficiency faces even greater hurdles if the US bans advanced electronic design automation software, as reported this week

The software in question involves implementing gate-all-around designs, considered critical to making smaller chips with better heat management

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A report that the US could ban exports to China of software for gate-all-around chip designs has raised the prospect that China could be locked out of a critical piece of next-generation semiconductor technology. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 9:30pm, 5 Aug 2022

China’s push towards semiconductor self-sufficiency could face another big setback if the US expands export controls to design software for a piece of technology considered key to the next generation of chip development, according to analysts.

The US is ready to block the export to China of electronic design automation (EDA) software needed for an emerging technology called gate-all-around (GAA), according to a report from the US technology news website Protocol. If confirmed, it would be a major escalation of US technology restrictions on China that have so far focused on chip manufacturing equipment.

GAA is considered important to the development of artificial intelligence chips by allowing for greater scaling. The GAA design surrounds a transistor on all sides with extra material to regulate electricity flow, offering better performance.

The technology requires specialised EDA software, an area in which China lags behind its global peers. Engineers require such software to design integrated circuits (IC), and the market is dominated by Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics, all based in the US.

“China has big gaps in EDA software [compared with] global peers,” said an Nvidia design professional, who declined to be named because he is not authorised to speak to news media. “Synopsys and Cadence have spent at least 30 years building up their expertise in this area. The odds are slim [that China will] catch up in the short term.”

A reliance on imported EDA software is one of China’s biggest vulnerabilities in the semiconductor value chain, along with the lack of domestic lithography machines, according to a recent paper co-authored by three researchers from Xidian University, a public research institution in Xian, in northwestern Shaanxi province.

GAA transistor architecture is widely seen as the next generation technology for chips. Samsung Electronics announced in June that it started initial production of its 3-nanometre process node using GAA transistor architecture. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chip maker, also has GAA on its technology road map for processes below 5nm.