Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has offered his first public comments on Huawei's newly proposed "Tau (τ) Scaling Law," calling it "a breakthrough for Huawei" while adding that it poses "no threat to TSMC."

Speaking to reporters in Taipei, China's Taiwan region, on May 28, Huang acknowledged that Huawei's approach – using chip stacking to increase transistor counts without shrinking line widths – is "a very good technology." 

But he noted that TSMC has been using these techniques for nearly a decade. "TSMC and Taiwan have had this technology for 10 years," he said.

What Is the Tau (τ) Scaling Law?

On May 25, Huawei Director He Tingbo formally introduced the Tau (τ) Scaling Law – a new semiconductor principle that challenges Moore's Law.

Moore's Law focused on shrinking transistors to pack more power onto each chip. That approach is hitting physical limits. Below 3 nanometers, chips become unstable and require extremely expensive EUV machines – which Huawei cannot buy.

A simple analogy

Moore's Law: Make parking spaces narrower and narrower. Eventually, doors won't open.

TSMC's 3D packaging: Stack two separate parking garages and add an elevator. The garages are independent – just closer.

Huawei's Logic Folding: Design a single building with the kitchen directly above the dining room, cut a hole in the floor. No elevator needed. This changes the design philosophy, not just the construction method.

In chip terms: TSMC connects already-made chips to sit closer. Huawei redesigns a single chip's internal layout so signals travel vertically instead of across a long flat path.

Huawei says its Kirin 2026 chip (in the Mate 90 this autumn) has already achieved a 53.5% transistor density jump – reaching 238 million transistors per square millimeter (238 MTr/mm²), comparable to early 3nm chips.

By 2031, Huawei expects Tau (τ) Scaling Law chips to reach a transistor density equivalent to a 1.4nm process – without using EUV lithography.

The company has already mass-produced 381 Tau (τ) Scaling Law chips across smartphones, AI, automotive and infrastructure over the past six years.

Major hurdles persist: heat dissipation in stacked layers, manufacturing complexity, and a lack of mature 3D design tools. Huawei's own chief architect says a complete toolchain "could take several years."

The Mate 90 smartphone this autumn will be the first real test. If the claims hold up, the debate over Huawei's post-Moore roadmap may look very different by the end of the year.

(Cover via VCG)