2023 in review: China's chip industry made new breakthroughs

2023 has been a landmark year for semiconductor chip technology in China, as the country made some important breakthroughs on its way towards becoming an independent innovation powerhouse.

Here are some of the achievements that may have long-term implications.

Huawei Mate 60

The phone itself is not as impressive as the underlying technologies that enabled the phone to bring the Shenzhen-based phone maker back to the main stage of the world's largest and most competitive market.

The Mate 60 can make satellite calls without an external antenna, exhibiting an advanced design of radio communication technology. Phones from other brands can only, by the end of the year 2023, send satellite text messages at their best.

China Telecom and satellite makers collaborated with Huawei in the implementation of this lifesaving functionality. Behind Huawei, there are many supply chains working to make miracles happen.

Another miracle is the 5G-level speed of the Mate 60's cellular network, enabled by the modem part of the company's Kirin 9000s system-on-a-chip (SoC).

It's still a mystery as to who made the Kirin 9000s. But it's safe to guess that the manufacturer is based in the Chinese mainland – almost no one is strong enough to challenge the U.S. export controls. If a domestic chip maker built the Kirin 9000s, it is safe to say that China has obtained the technology to make advanced semiconductor chips without violating those unfair U.S. rules, which demonstrates China's power in the chip industry.

Local memory chip brands

In addition to the SoC that does the computing, China also made breakthroughs in memory chips that store data in smartphones, laptops and datacenters.

Wuhan-based Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. (YMTC) upgraded their "Xtacking" technology to version three, which can produce the world-leading 232-layer 3D NAND chips. The company announced and shipped such technology ahead of other industry giants like South Korea's Samsung and U.S. chip maker Micron.

This new technology is one of the reasons behind the sharp price drop of solid-state drives (SSD) – a type of super-fast data storage for consumers – in the first half of the year.

An average four-terabit SSD drive was sold for only 999 yuan ($140) in June, compared to around 3,499 yuan ($490) back in mid-2022.

With an adequate supply of domestic memory chips, China conducted inspections on imported chips made by Micron in March and found serious network security risks.

In May, the government banned the brand from entering critical infrastructure.

Other chip breakthroughs

Apart from chips based on Western design standards, China also created its own architecture for computer processors – the Loongarch from Loongson Technology. We have thoroughly reviewed the Loongson 3A6000's performance in daily tasks and found that it can work as a reliable entry-level CPU.

In 2023, China also developed the world's first super all-analog photoelectronic chip, made a breakthrough in memristor computing-in-memory chips and developed its first reconfigurable 5G RF transceiver chip.

All in all, China's chip industry took a big step forward in 2023 and is poised to gain more independence from Western technologies in the future.