Can China innovate itself into a lead in the chip industry as Moore’s Law nears its physical limit?

As Moore’s Law, which refers to a prediction by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double roughly every two years, potentially approaches its physical limit, analysts are divided on whether China can seize an opportunity to develop disruptive semiconductor technology to get ahead.

China’s vice-premier Liu He, trusted aide to President Xi Jinping, recently gathered the country’s top technology officials together to discuss plans for the next five years, and one of the areas looked at was “potential disruptive semiconductor technologies” in a post Moore’s Law world, according to a weekend report by state news agency Xinhua.

The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for a decade, but the naysayers have been proven wrong time and again as chip makers have found different ways to squeeze more performance out of chips, albeit at a slower pace than Gordon Moore’s original prediction in 1965. However, with cutting-edge chip nodes reaching 2-nanometres (nm), many analysts say the door is now open for innovators, such as China, to catch up with existing global chip leaders.

China remains years behind companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s biggest chip foundry, in current chip manufacturing capabilities but there is always a chance for a paradigm shift. This could come via “advanced packaging”, in which separate chips are combined into a powerful new set, or via so-called “third-generation semiconductors” in which new materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) could be used as base materials in chip production.