White House seeks to restrict China’s access to GAA chip technology and the high bandwidth memory that's critical for AI accelerators

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The U.S. government is said to be considering further restrictions on China’s access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology. Now, people familiar with the matter say the Biden administration wants to further restrict the gate-all-around (GAA) transistor technology used to manufacture leading-edge chips. The administration is also considering limits on high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is critical for AI accelerators.

GAA nanosheet transistors improve density while delivering power and performance benefits, but they are only used on the most cutting-edge process nodes. Currently, only Samsung has this tech in production with its 3nm node. Intel will adopt GAA in its future 20A node, and TSMC will follow with its A16 process. 

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Jeff Butts
Contributing Writer

Jeff Butts has been covering tech news for more than a decade, and his IT experience predates the internet. Yes, he remembers when 9600 baud was “fast.” He especially enjoys covering DIY and Maker topics, along with anything on the bleeding edge of technology.

  • DalaiLamar
    Thanks
    Reply
  • NinoPino
    Somebody can explain what type of restrictions can prevent China from using GAA technology. I think GAA is possible also with actual machinery owned by Chinese companies, so what can be done ?
    Reply
  • sosofm
    US government is so dumb , with all these restrictions all US companies are loosing billions ( in almost all domaines) and forces China to produce theire own products ! Who is loosing ? US companies billions and US government from taxes !
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    Can you explain to me how you think “GAA can be produced with single patterning” at SMIC when their traditional finfet 7nm already requires multi-patterning using immersion DUV lithography?
    Reply