The US has once again knocked down the banned hammer by preventing the sale of EDA tools to China. This is considered an integral component of semiconductor design. Without this tool, companies like Xiaomi would be limited to TSMC's 3NM process and would barely want to realize an in-house 2NM SoC. As it is likely that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is aware that additional export control rules will be implemented in the region in the future, it has announced a chip design system called Qimeng, which uses artificial intelligence to promote semiconductor development and minimizes human involvement.
Scientists have already used Qimeng to design two processors, but provide processing capabilities for solutions that existed many generations ago
The term Qimeng means “enlightenment,” and according to the South China Morning Post, CAS's processor lab and the Intelligent Software Research Center division have reportedly introduced an autonomous, integrated design system. Using a large-scale language model, the solution designed by Qimeng may match the performance and efficiency of those developed by human experts. For example, self-driving cars can take weeks for a team of qualified individuals to create, but automated systems can only take a few days.
Qimeng has three interconnected layers, with a large processor chip model specific to the base sports domain, with the middle section houses hardware and software design agents, and the top showing off a variety of processor chip design applications. Using these layers, Chinese scientists have successfully designed two processors. The first one, the Qimeng-CPU-V1, promotes the capabilities of Intel's 486 chips over 36 years old, while the second Qimeng-CPU-V2 is comparable to the ARM's cortical A53 design.
The details, published in last week's research paper and open sourced on GitHub, address the challenges of the semiconductor design stage, including the lack of advanced manufacturing technology, limited resources, and the diverse ecosystems that prevent scientists from making the most of Qimeng. While we can achieve the goal of improving efficiency, reducing costs and shortening development cycles, the lack of cutting-edge machines means that China is limited to previous generation lithography.
Huawei partner Sicarrier has previously reportedly announced numerous machines at the Semi-Con which could take on the huge Dutch ASML, and when the company's name was last mentioned from our side, it was seeking $2.8 billion in funding to accelerate its ambitious goal of narrowing down the technology gap. Huawei was also able to develop a 14nm EDA tool to produce a massive amount of 7nm Kirin 9020, but injecting a large sum into research into it is also a must-have for the competitive field to maintain competition with the US.
News Source: Qimeng
