Huawei appears to be exploring a major shift in chipmaking with a newly revealed patent that shows how it could move toward producing 2 nm class chips without access to extreme ultraviolet equipment. The company continues to rely on deep ultraviolet lithography systems, which it can still use despite export restrictions that limit advanced tools.
The patent was filed in 2022 and has now surfaced publicly. It was identified by a semiconductor researcher who highlighted its potential impact. The document describes a pathway to achieving a metal pitch of twenty one nanometres through an advanced multi patterning process. Reaching such dimensions would place Huawei’s future technology in the same class as 2 nm processes under development by other major chipmakers that depend heavily on EUV technology.
The core of Huawei’s proposal is an improved Self Aligned Quadruple Patterning method. The company claims it can reduce the number of DUV exposures to four. This represents a notable improvement over existing multi patterning techniques, which often require many more steps and add significant complexity.
By pushing DUV tools to their maximum capability, Huawei aims to progress from its recently introduced chip built on a three nanometre class process to a future 2 nm generation without relying on restricted EUV systems.
Industry experts are cautious about the practical side of this advancement. Even if the approach works technically, producing chips through such dense multi patterning could be difficult to scale. Processes at this level are known to be expensive, prone to defects and challenging in terms of yield. Many global chip manufacturers have already moved to EUV because it reduces these risks and supports mass production at advanced nodes.
If Huawei and its manufacturing partner eventually succeed in using this technique at high volume, it would represent a significant move toward technology independence. For now, the patent signals the company’s determination to advance chipmaking using available tools and its willingness to push established lithography methods as far as possible.
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