China’s chip design software firms back Huawei’s new scaling law. But can they catch US rivals?

China’s chip design software firms back Huawei’s new scaling law. But can they catch US rivals? Domestic chip design software vendors embrace Huawei’s Tau Scaling Law, but analysts caution that breaking US dominance is far from easy Empyrean Technology, a major Chinese electronic design automation (EDA) provider, became the latest supporter of the new chipmaking methodology. The announcement followed a claimed breakthrough by researchers at Peking University, who unveiled a prototype EDA tool using a “true-3D” approach, said to be compatible with Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture. That milestone came just one day after Huawei introduced its Tau Scaling framework late last month. Presented as an alternative to Moore’s Law, the Tau Scaling Law shifts the focus of chip development from shrinking transistors to compressing signal travel time across a system. By stacking flat circuits vertically into 3D structures through “LogicFolding”, the approach aims to match the transistor density and performance of leading-edge chips without relying on advanced Western lithography equipment restricted by US sanctions.