Huawei’s Ascend AI chip yield rises to 40%: report

According to sources cited by The Financial TimesHuawei has increased the yield rate of the latest Ascend AI chips over the last year from 20% to almost 40%. The Chinese tech giant has made a profit on its production line for the first time. The sources said that Huawei aims to raise the yield to 60% to align with the industry standard.

What’s important: Huawei has improved the yield rate of its Ascend AI chip, which is a major step towards China’s goal of tech self-sufficiency. This development, which comes amid US export controls and US sanctions, strengthens China’s efforts in reducing its reliance on US chipmaker NVIDIA.

Details Huawei has teamed up with state-owned chip maker Semiconductor International Corp (SMIC), under US sanctions, to produce its Ascend chip. According to the Financial Times, Austin Lyons, a consultant at Creative Strategies and a semiconductor analyst, said that Huawei’s chip would be commercially viable with a 40% yield. This is similar to TSMC’s 60% yield of NVIDIA’s H100 AI processor.

Huawei Ascend AI chip is manufactured by SMIC, using the N+2 Process. This process does not require extreme UV (EUV) technology to produce advanced processors. A result of US-led export controls on EUV equipment, mainland China cannot currently purchase EUV equipment from Dutch giant ASML. The Financial Times, citing reliable sources, reported that Huawei plans to manufacture 100,000 Ascend-910C processors and 300,00 Ascend-910B processors in 2019. Huawei produced 200,000 Ascend-910B processors last year; the production of Ascend-910C has not yet begun.

Context According to a Financial Times report, NVIDIA is still leading Huawei in mainland China in AI chip sales. SemiAnalysis, a consultancy, estimated that NVIDIA made $12 billion by selling one million H20 chips in China last year.

• NVIDIA is only able to sell its H20 AI chip in China because of US export controls which restrict the sale advanced chips with high performance capabilities, such as H100. The H20 AI chip, designed specifically for the Chinese market is a modified version H100 that offers less than 15 percent of the AI computing power offered by the H100. Jessie Wu, a Shanghai-based tech reporter, is