SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY
Search headlines
Find the stories shaping the conversation.
Results for " pitch " 1,777 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle
Two Yankees Pitching Prospects ‘Turning Heads’ in Minors This Year
The old saying is you can never have enough pitching, which the New York Yankees have apparently taken to heart. The Yankees have a stockpile of potential starting-pitching arms in the minor leagues, including Elmer Rodriguez, and two “head turning” prospects, Ben Hess and Chase Hampton. The Yankees lead the majors in team ERA (3.30) […] The post Two Yankees Pitching Prospects ‘Turning Heads’ in Minors This Year appeared first on HEAVY.
Reasoning For Pitching Prospect's Absence From Rehab Assignment Revealed
Left-handed pitcher Ricky Tiedemann didn't make an appearance in his rehab assignment in Single-A due a separate injury than the one he's recovering from.
Entrepreneurs pitched business ideas to Yahoo Finance
Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi is on the hunt for the next big business breakthrough. Check out the absolute best pitches and standout moments from the innovators making waves at Cannes Lions.
UToledo Business Camp Hosts Pitch Competition
Dr. Terribeth Gordon-Moore, senior associate dean at the Neff College of Business, discusses the RISE Into Business summer enrichment camp that culminated in teams of high school students pitching their T-shirt business ideas to a panel of judges.
Trump Keeps Undercutting Republicans’ Message, Squandering His Own Trifecta
Divisions between the president and his party on Capitol Hill have muddled Republicans’ midterm pitch to voters, and have crippled the G.O.P. at what should be the peak of its power.
Teen Entrepreneurs Develop, Pitch T-Shirt Businesses at Neff College of Business
The RISE Into Business summer enrichment camp brought teams of high school students to campus to explore marketing, finance, accounting and other core business skills.
Susan Collins is testing whether old school politics still work
In the modern era, political activists want their representatives to fall strictly in line. To the base, the independent centrist is no longer a hero; they are a villain to be purged. But Susan Collins has a pitch that she is an independent voice.
How is Derry City's new pitch 'World Cup standard'?
Ahead of Friday's first game back at the Brandywell, BBC Sport learns how a giant sewing machine has helped put Derry City's new hybrid pitch together.
Cubs to acquire pitcher David Peterson from Mets for prospect
Shohei Ohtani calls his own pitches vs. Twins after apparent dispute with catcher Dalton Rushing
The biotech founder asking why good science gets stuck
As an undergraduate, Alinta Furnell led student societies, pitched startup ideas and built biotechnology ventures. Now, the UNSW alumna is investigating one of innovation’s biggest challenges – why so many scientific breakthroughs never make it beyond the lab.
Cognitive Science students pitch AI college counseling, productivity
From AI-powered social media content creation to college access platforms, cognitive science student entrepreneurs pitched their startups to potential investors at the Berkeley Accelerator
Why 2 pitches from Seattle Mariners starters jump out
Logan Gilbert is riding one pitch to success, while Emerson Hancock is struggling with one of his own, Seattle Mariners analyst Ryan Rowland-Smith explains.
Latest injury has 4-time Cy Young winner thinking retirement
Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander was expected to come off the injured list and start the June 21 game against the White Sox. It would have been his first game since March. But after working his way through a hip injury that landed him on the IL, the 43-year-old Verlander suffered a ...
Toronto Blue Jays Starting Pitcher Struggles in Season Debut
Shane Bieber didn't have his best outing in a game against the Houston Astros.
Dodgers Unleashing Shohei Ohtani Despite Recent Injury Concerns
The Dodgers will allow star Shohei Ohtani to hit and pitch on Wednesday vs. the Twins despite a run of complications over the last few weeks.
Giants' Buster Posey has stern one-word response to possible Logan Webb trade
San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey addressed potentially trading star pitcher Logan Webb.
Trump touts U.S. economy and oil prices in a midterm pitch in Pennsylvania
The president told supporters in a key swing district that oil is coming down and prices will follow as cost-of-living issues are top of mind for voters ahead of November.
Freshcorn, Grahovac Named Academic All-Americans by College Sports Communicators - Texas A&M Athletics
COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M relief pitcher Clayton Freshcorn and first baseman Gavin Grahovac were selected as Academic All-Americans by College Sports Commu...
Relive every World Cup match with BBC Sport's 3D Experience
Ever wanted to see a World Cup match from every angle? How about a full-pitch tactical view? You can now watch every match back in full with BBC Sport's 3D Experience.
Machado homers, King dominates as Padres shutout Braves
The Sporting Tribune's Fernando Ramirez writes that pitcher Michael King has a bounce back outing while Manny Machado homers to beat a talented Atlanta Braves team.
Oklahoma soars past North Carolina in Game 3 to win MCWS
Oklahoma capitalized on North Carolina's uncharacteristic pitching struggles and got another clutch performance from LJ Mercurius out of the bullpen on its way to victory in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Men's College World Series finals Monday night.
NY-7 candidates make final pitch to voters before Election Day
The race has narrowed in recent days.
GameThread: Detroit Tigers vs. New York Yankees, 6:10 p.m.
Detroit Tigers (33-44) vs. New York Yankees (46-30) Time/Place: 6:10 p.m., Comerica ParkSB Nation Site: Pinstripe AlleyMedia: Detroit SportsNet, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio NetworkPitching Matchup: LHP Framber Valdez (3-5, 4.09 ERA) vs. RHP Gerrit Cole (2-1, 2.57 ERA) Lineups YANKEES TIGERS Amed Rosario – 3B Kevin McGonigle – 3B Ben Rice – DH Dillon Dingler – C Paul Goldschmidt – 1B Kerry Carpenter […]
Dodgers Promote 21-Year-Old Pitching Prospect to Double-A
The Los Angeles Dodgers are calling No. 8 prospect Christian Zazueta up to Double-A, per ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel. Zazueta is just 21 years old, and has shot up the Dodgers’ system since his arrival ahead of the 2024 season. The…
Pirates Pitching Coach Confident Team Will Improve On The Mound
Bill Murphy believes Pittsburgh has been throwing the ball well.
Fantasy Baseball 2-Start Pitcher Rankings: At least 5 hurlers warrant strong consideration as streamers this week
God of War Laufey Part of PS5 Dev's Plans from the Start, Pitched in 2018
Faye and Phranque were in poster form
Reprimanded after century in vain: Why Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi was punished by ICC after the third ODI vs India
Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi received an official reprimand and a demerit point from the ICC for damaging the pitch during the third ODI against India. Despite this, Shahidi scored a maiden century, but India secured a dominant nine-wicket victory, completing a 3-0 series sweep. Shahidi acknowledged his team's shortcomings against a strong Indian side.
Beyond the World Cup... 5️⃣ stories shaping Sunday
Spanish football is experiencing a day of high emotion, with the offices and the pitch sharing the spotlight.While the Costa del Sol celebrates a historic return to the top flight after an agonizing j...
Kansas City Royals Urged to Trade 2 Pitchers Before Deadline
The Royals could make some moves soon.
Dodgers on Deck: Sunday, June 21 vs. Orioles
The Dodgers on Sunday close out their homestand and play their final home game of the month of June in hosting the Baltimore Orioles at Dodger Stadium. Emmet Sheehan starts for Los Angeles, with right-hander Brandon Young starting for Baltimore. Sheehan at age 26 is actually the young one in this pitching matchup, 15 months […]
Billionaire Warren Buffett Disciple Warns: Don’t Quit Your Job To Start A New Business, Do This Instead
Billionaire investor Mohnish Pabrai has built a reputation for borrowing the best ideas from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, then applying them with ruthless simplicity. On a recent appearance on Big Deal with Codie Sanchez, he turned that same lens on a piece of conventional wisdom that gets repeated in nearly every startup pitch deck ... Billionaire Warren Buffett Disciple Warns: Don’t Quit Your Job To Start A New Business, Do This Instead
Kustom Entertainment's Stan Ross on 30 years of Country Stampede
Country Stampede at Azura. // photo courtesy Kustom Entertainment Country Stampede takes place at Azura Amphitheater from Thursday, June 25, through Saturday, June 27, and features Rascal Flatts, Zach Top, Treaty Oak Revival, Wyatt Flores, Scotty McCreery, and Tracy Lawrence, among others. Details on the festival here. In its 30-year history, Kansas’ country music festival, Country Stampede, has steadily moved...
TST Images: Dodgers defeat Orioles, 6-5, in Los Angeles
Jessica Cryderman - The Sporting TribuneLos Angeles Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts' (50) son warming up for first pitch before an MLB baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles on June 19th, 2026 in Los Angeles, CA.
Cam Schlittler becomes youngest Yankees pitcher with 13 strikeouts and no walks in 5-0 win over Reds
Diamondbacks' Michael Soroka exits Twins game
Michael Soroka threw a warm-up pitch and called for the dugout during thr Diamondbacks' game on Friday against the Twins.
Diamondbacks Place Starting Pitcher on IL with Elbow Injury
The Diamondback's rotation is taking another hit, as Ryne Nelson becomes the latest starter to land on the injured list.
UCLA adds former five-star pitching recruit Cambria Salmon
Former Texas Longhorn Cambria Salmon committed to UCLA on Wednesday, becoming the second pitcher to commit to the Bruins.
Justice Department opens civil rights probe after Giants’ Pride protest
The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into MLB, claiming discrimination against Giants pitchers after the team’s Pride Night.
PIRATES TRADE: Joey Bart to Braves for Hunter Stratton
The Pirates have swung a trade with the Braves, acquiring relief pitcher Hunter Stratton in exchange for catcher Joey Bart. […] The post PIRATES TRADE: Joey Bart to Braves for Hunter Stratton appeared first on Pittsburgh Baseball Now.
Rays' Drew Rasmussen Accomplishes Impressive Feat Over Three-Game Span
What was Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher Drew Rasmussen able to accomplish of late?
Andrew Painter Left Phillies No Choice But To Demote Him
The Philadelphia Phillies decided to option right-handed pitcher Andrew Painter to Triple-A after another horrible start. Painter was the Phillies' top prospect last season and he was expected to make an impact this season for the big league team. However, the 23-year-old has struggled mightily as ...
$4M sale closes for KC Wheel site once pitched as larger entertainment district
KC Wheel site changes hands in $4M sale.
I read JD Vance’s new book. It reveals more than he realizes.
The vice president pitches himself as a humble Catholic convert in a new memoir — but somehow skips the humility part when it comes to politics.
Looking for answers
Phillies starting pitcher Andrew Painter is heading back to triple A.
The Sperm-Maxxing Bros Are Actually Onto Something
Wellness influencers have stumbled onto a huge issue when it comes male fertility, though not every solution they're pitching is good advice.
Mize returns but Tigers can’t solve Astros’ pitching
The Tigers dropped a second close game in a row and lost the series.
MLB starting pitcher power rankings entering week 13
MLB has completed the first 12 weeks of the 2026 season. Specific players have continued producing great numbers, while a handful are missing time due to injury. Now is the time when player production starts garnering attention for All-Star rosters.…
Blue Jays back Cease with 3 homers in 6-1 victory over Red Sox at Fenway
Davis Schneider and Andrés Giménez hit back-to-back home runs, Dylan Cease pitched five shutout innings and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox 6-1.
Yankees news: Injury updates and painful prospect news
Bad injury news on Grisham, Stanton, and Lombard; Caballero and the pitch clock remain a story; Yanks release Brown
Villa's lethal weapon takes on the World Cup
The moment Youri Tielemans's opener burst the net in Aston Villa's Europa League triumph against Freiburg, each of Unai Emery's substitutes took a turn to embrace the man responsible for orchestrating another set-piece goal. Goalkeeper Emi Martinez chose not to celebrate with his outfield team-mates, instead racing over to the dugout to also show his appreciation to Scottish coach Austin MacPhee. Villa fans were heard chanting the name of the 46-year-old as their heroes on the pitch closed in on a 3-0 victory in Istanbul.
Dodgers Confirm Shohei Ohtani Will Start Pitching Despite Knee Injury
Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani has been dealing with a knee injury before he was scheduled to start on Wednesday.
Metro Atlanta Chamber host Spanish officials for international business summit
While Spain’s national team finished with a zero-to-zero draw in its first match of the World Cup, economic leaders are looking to score off the pitch.
Phillies' J.T. Realmuto voices displeasure with Marlins coaching methods
Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto voiced his displeasure with the Miami Marlins use of calling pitches from the dugout, saying, "I'm not a fan."
MLB issues warning to Giants pitchers for writing Bible verses on Pride caps
Major League Baseball issued a warning to three Giants pitchers who wrote Bible verses on the team's "Pride Night" caps, citing policy violations.
USC Baseball Loses Another Player to Transfer Portal
USC already lost star hitter Augie Lopez after he entered transfer portal, and now they're set to lose a pitcher as well. The post USC Baseball Loses Another Player to Transfer Portal appeared first on LA Sports Report.
Report: USC RHP Gavin Lauridsen enters the NCAA transfer portal
USC right-handed pitcher Gavin Lauridsen has entered the NCAA transfer portal after spending one year with the Trojans.
Next team to break MLB’s championship drought, Misiorowski & Yamamoto pitch gems and the Tartan Army invades Fenway Park
Dodgers continue run against overperforming teams
Coming off a couple of good games, Mookie Betts wants to build momentum facing a pitcher he’s struggled heavily against
Blue Jays trade recently cut pitcher to Kansas City Royals
The Toronto Blue Jays and Royals have made a trade in MLB.
Unexpected Brewers success against star pitchers, like Blake Perkins
Blake Perkins has amazing numbers against Phillies star Christopher Sánchez in a small sample, and these other surprising Brewers also dominated aces.
Dodgers’ Bench Coach Speaks on Recent Big Inning Problem
Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann pointed out the problems he's seen within the Dodgers' pitching recently.
South Side Pitch Business Competition Open for Applications
CHICAGO—The application period is now open for the 13th Annual South Side Pitch, the annual business pitch competition where entrepreneurs and small businesses compete for […]
Fantasy Baseball 2-Start Pitcher Rankings: Cardinals, A's, Mets make rotation shuffles to open up more streaming options
The State of Politics: The Elevator Speech for Democratic Governor Candidates
Boiling down their pitch to voters, why do they deserve your vote?
5 MLB pitchers underperforming based on their advanced metrics
Welcome back to another rundown of the league’s unluckiest arms in the 2026 MLB Season. From ERAs sitting near 9.00 to SIERAs hovering around 3.00 and expected wOBAs buried well beneath the real thing, we dig into five pitchers whose…
Wyatt Langford homers on 1st pitch and Rangers beat Red Sox 6-4
Wyatt Langford hit Connelly Early's first pitch over the Green Monster completely out of Fenway Park, and Kyle Higashioka launched a three-run homer to help the Texas Rangers avert a three-game sweep with a 6-4 victory over the Boston Red Sox.
Yankees Jose Caballero's pitch clock "routine'' reaches a new level
Caballero claims that umpires are unfairly threatening to call automatic strikes against him despite acting within MLB's pitch-clock rules.
Mets Announce Starting Pitching Plan
After a stint in the minor leagues, the Mets are tapping Tobias Myers as their starter for Monday's game against the Reds.
Is SMIC N+3’s Metal Pitch Smaller than Intel 18A’s?
Almost four years ago, we published that SMIC had started shipping 7 nm (N+1) chips. Now, SMIC is shipping its third-generation 7 nm (N+3) process in Huawei’s Kirin 9030, with a minimum metal pitch of 32.5 nm, about 10% tighter than the 36 nm minimum metal pitch shipping in Intel’s latest Panther Lake CPUs on 18A. The headline is true, but incomplete cherry picked metric. N+3 reaches the density of TSMC N6 through aggressive DUV multi-patterning and design-technology co-optimization (DTCO), but it pays for that in complexity, efficiency and process control. We found this and more in our reverse engineering and teardown where we cover SMIC’s N3 process technology, Huawei’s packaging, memory, architecture, and more. SemiAnalysis has been building a state-of-the-art teardown lab in Oregon capable of analyzing the world’s most advanced and important chips over the last year and half. We have already generated revenue on advanced datacenter chip teardowns including our recent reverse engineering of a major TSMC customer’s COUPE CPO optical engine + EIC 3D stack. This is the first public report from the SemiAnalysis Teardown Engineering & Evaluation Lab, or STEEL for short. The lab is aggressively scaling up and out and we’re excited to announce it publicly. This is a bit of inconvenient timing for TechInsights as they are private equity owned and currently being sold while having enjoyed virtually no credible competition for decades. This has led to TechInsights underinvesting in CAPEX. SemiAnalysis exceeds TechInsights in revenue despite no venture or private equity ownership and being founded only 6 years ago. Because we have no external investors and are founder led, we move faster, build faster, and we can release client chip teardowns for free regularly, while focusing on datacenter for our major clients. Here’s the first public image from our lab, the HiSilicon Kirin 9030 Pro SoC: This report will detail our teardown of the Kirin 9030 and our findings on SMIC’s N+3 process, the most advanced in China. For comparison, we’ll show our teardown of the MediaTek Helio G99, made on TSMC N6. Through this comparison, we can look at the effect of export controls – SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are comparable nodes, but one is heavily export-controlled, the other free to use the West’s most advanced equipment. Here we see both China’s progress and constraints. SMIC N+3 reaches TSMC N6-class logic density, but it requires far more aggressive DUV multi-patterning, so it does not match N6 on process maturity or cost. The Kirin 9030 Pro performs similarly to three-year-old Android flagships, and trails far behind the current flagship SoCs from Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Samsung. The efficiency gap is even wider. Export controls have not stopped Huawei and SMIC from shipping advanced silicon, but they have forced a different path. Without EUV, SMIC is leaning harder on DUV multi-patterning, DTCO, and increasingly complex integration. The roadmap continues forward through tighter design rules and backside power, but each step adds cost and process risk. Huawei’s τ scaling and LogicFolding show another path: stacking active logic and recovering density through advanced packaging and system-technology co-optimization (STCO). To understand the Kirin 9030, we must first understand Huawei’s SoC history. HiSilicon is Huawei’s chip design arm, responsible for the Kirin smartphone SoCs, Kunpeng server CPUs, Ascend AI accelerators, and switch/router networking silicon. Before export controls, Huawei was TSMC’s largest customer – the only customer on TSMC’s first EUV node, N7+, and among the first on N5, alongside Apple. That ended in late 2020. Huawei switched to Qualcomm SoCs in its flagship smartphones, though export controls limited them to 4G-only variants. In late 2023, Huawei returned to in-house silicon with the Kirin 9000s, a successor to the Kirin 9000, fabricated on SMIC N+2 instead of TSMC N5. In the following years, they released the Kirin 9010 and 9020 on the same N+2 process. These chips used Huawei’s in-house TaiShan CPU cores and Maleoon GPU. We have not torn down a Kirin 9020 ourselves, so the predecessor die shot is from Kurnal. The die shots show how Huawei spent its silicon budget: which functional blocks are where, and how their areas compare to the predecessor. First, a quick guide to the major blocks on the die. The total die area is nearly identical, but the 9030 uses that area more aggressively. A denser process lets Huawei fit an extra middle CPU core, more GPU and NPU cores, and larger caches into the same footprint. In contrast, the Helio G99 is a much smaller, low-cost SoC, built for budget smartphones rather than a flagship device. While the Kirin 9030 is ~140 mm², the G99 is only ~29 mm², roughly one-fifth the area. The underlying TSMC process technology, however, is directly comparable as a baseline for analyzing SMIC’s. The Kirin 9030 is an evolutionary refresh, not a clean-sheet design. Its CPU, GPU and NPU cores carry over the 9020’s families, and the gains come from three levers: the SMIC N+2-to-N+3 process step, DTCO and floorplan work, and incremental microarchitecture. Area is where the first two show up, and the 9030 scales well here. Performance and efficiency are the harder test. Huawei’s design holds up better than its node would suggest, but the chip still trails, both because N+3 sits behind the leading-edge nodes and because its cores, while competent, remain a few generations behind the newest designs. The new prime core is an incremental update. The main changes are a 10% frequency increase from 2.5 GHz to 2.75 GHz and a doubling in the L2 cache from 1 MiB to 2 MiB. Despite the increased cache, the core size decreased by 7.6%. Excluding the private L2 cache, the core size decreased by 21%. This is a large reduction for an incremental node. Compared with the TaiShan New V120 core in the Kirin 9020, the Kirin 9030’s middle core is almost unchanged architecturally, yet each core shrinks by ~22%. Most of that comes from the move from N+2 to N+3, with layout likely accounting for the rest. Visually, the most noticeable change is the increase from 3 middle cores to 4. There is also a 20% increase in the shared L3 cache of the big cluster. This helps to improve multi-core performance without sacrificing much in terms of area. Even with each core shrinking, the big CPU cluster’s total area is essentially unchanged. The per-core savings went back into an additional middle core and larger caches. The tiny cores shrank less than the prime core (excluding its L2 cache) and less than the middle cores. This is likely because fixed overhead is a larger share on a small core. We cannot resolve any architectural changes from the die shot alone, but the per-clock and efficiency gains shown below point to more than pure process and layout scaling. The area reduction was offset by a doubling of the shared L2 cache from 2 MiB to 4 MiB, leaving the total tiny CPU cluster area slightly larger. Area is the easiest improvement to see from a die shot, but it is only one part of PPA (power, performance, area). For modern logic, power and performance matter just as much, and often more. Since Dennard scaling broke down in the mid-2000s, voltage and frequency have not scaled in step with transistor dimensions, so each node has had to fight harder for gains in performance and efficiency. The starkest comparison is not Kirin 9020 versus Kirin 9030 Pro. Apple’s efficiency cores run circles around Huawei’s prime core. Apple’s low-power core delivers 20% higher integer performance while drawing only 1 W, compared with 4.5 W for Huawei’s prime core. N+3 matches TSMC N6, but N6 is several generations old. Apple and Qualcomm build on N4 and N3P, which are denser and sit on a better voltage-frequency curve, giving them a larger transistor budget and more performance per watt. The 9030’s own cores did improve. The middle and tiny cores gained 17% and 14% in per-clock integer performance over the 9020, with floating-point flat on the middle core and up 11% on the tiny. The tiny core improves cleanly, with performance rising while power falls and efficiency increases by 45% in integer and 24% in floating point. The middle core is mixed: integer performance rises but power rises faster, cutting integer efficiency by 7%, while lower power lifts floating-point efficiency 16%. Per-clock gains at the same or lower frequency are microarchitectural, so the cores are tuned, not just shrunk. Both also failed to hold their rated maximum frequencies, pointing to thermal, power, or stability limits. Per clock, the middle core sits around Arm Cortex-A720 and the tiny core near the Cortex-A520; absolute performance trails because Huawei clocks them much lower. The prime core is roughly Cortex-X2 class per clock, a 2021 design. Apple’s 2020 M1 Firestorm core is still 35% higher per clock and 57% faster in absolute integer performance at a similar 4.5 W. The current leading edge is further ahead again: the Apple M5 P-core is 60% higher per clock and 2.7× faster, the Arm C1 Ultra 45% higher and 2× faster. Matching older high-end cores per clock is a genuine design achievement. What Huawei cannot match is the voltage-frequency curve and transistor budget of leading-edge nodes, which let Apple, Qualcomm and others spend more transistors in the same area on wider cores, larger caches and deeper buffers while running at lower voltage. Huawei’s LogicFolding roadmap is one answer, stacking active logic to recover density and shorten signal paths. We return to it later. The GPU compute units (CUs) changed more visibly than the CPU cores, moving to a more rectangular layout for both the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) clusters and the CU overall. Even with ray-tracing support added, a CU shrank ~28%. However, that shrink is offset by the increase from 4 to 6 CUs and the area outside the CUs grew 33%. Overall, the GPU cluster is larger by ~10%. The GPU is where Huawei makes its biggest gains. The Maleoon 935 is not competitive with current flagships, but it is a large step up from the 920 and reaches older-flagship territory. In 3DMark it is 70% faster in Wild Life Extreme (WLE) and 79% faster in Steel Nomad Light (SNL) than the 920; with 11% higher clocks and 50% more CUs, the ~67% theoretical uplift roughly matches WLE and is beaten by SNL. It edges ahead of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 in WLE and SNL, and the Dimensity 9200 and Apple A16 in WLE, but stays far behind newer parts: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Dimensity 9500 are ~2.4–2.6× faster in WLE and ~3.2× faster in SNL. The Maleoon 935 is Huawei’s first GPU with hardware-accelerated ray tracing; there it lands slightly ahead of the Exynos 2200, and on par with the Apple A16, with current flagships up to 3.7× faster. The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) saw the largest structural changes of any block, moving from a Lite and a Tiny core in the Kirin 9020 to a Lite and two Tiny cores in the Kirin 9030. Both core types also show significant layout changes. This is a reversal in Huawei’s NPU design. The Kirin 9000 5G, its last flagship chip on TSMC N5, used two Lite and one Tiny core. The series of SoCs on SMIC N+2 moved to one Lite and one Tiny core, likely for area savings. With the Kirin 9030, Huawei has shifted back toward a larger multi-core NPU cluster, but with the additional area going to a Tiny core rather than a Lite core. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Before diving into the process stack, the package and memory are worth separating from the SoC itself. The Pro variant of the Kirin 9030 carries 12 GB of Samsung DRAM, with two stacks of four dies each. The dies were identified as the K4L2E165YD, a 12 Gb LPDDR5X-9600 device fabricated on Samsung’s 1a node, the fourth generation of its 10 nm-class DRAM after 1x, 1y and 1z. 1a has shipped in volume since 2022, so this is current memory rather than older-node inventory. The 16 GB Pro Max variants we obtained were found with both CXMT and Samsung packages. The CXMT package is marked CXDD7JEDM, with two stacks of four dies, packaged in week 45 of 2025. The inferred die dimensions from X-ray computed tomography (CT) are consistent with a known density of ~0.3 Gib/mm² for the CXMT G4 process, roughly equivalent to other manufacturers’ 1z processes. The Kirin 9030 uses a typical integrated package-on-package (iPoP) stack: multiple DRAM dies in a memory package sit above an organic redistribution layer (RDL) interposer, which sits above the SoC and package substrate. The full package is then mounted to the printed circuit board (PCB) through ball-grid array (BGA) solder bumps. The memory package substrate is a thin bismaleimide-triazine (BT) laminate carrying the LPDDR5X stack. The organic RDL interposer over the SoC routes the PoP signals around the die and carries possible dummy thermal copper pillars. The package substrate, a thicker Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF) build-up over a BT core, fans the flip-chip bumps out to BGA pitch and embeds the power planes. The whole stack is organic. The only silicon is the SoC and the LPDDR5X dies; there is no silicon interposer. Keeping it all-organic brings the package’s coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) close to the PCB’s, reducing board-level warpage, and avoids the cost of a silicon interposer the SoC’s bandwidth does not need. In an iPoP stack, the memory package connects to the organic RDL interposer through an array of solder bumps. Underfill fills the gap around those bumps, adding stiffness and protecting the joints from mechanical stress. The Pro and Pro Max variants differ here, which we cover behind the paywall. The die shot and architecture tell us how Huawei allocated its silicon budget. The process tells us what SMIC can manufacture. We use the Helio G99 as the process reference for TSMC N6. Both SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 are evolutions of previous 7 nm-class nodes. We used targeted TEM cross-sections through logic and memory regions, imaged in both fin-cut and gate-cut directions. Each cross-section caption gives its horizontal field width (HFW), the real width of the imaged area. We start at the transistor fins, then move up through standard cells, local interconnect, and SRAM. SMIC has not overtaken Intel or TSMC. It uses aggressive DUV scaling and DTCO to reach N6-class density, but that density doesn’t translate into comparable performance and efficiency, for two reasons: the node gap to leading-edge nodes, and Huawei’s core designs. Fin Profile One of the most important knobs in a FinFET process is the fin profile: the shape of an individual fin and the channel where current passes from source to drain. The ideal fin is tall, narrow, and nearly vertical. A taller fin increases effective channel width, while a narrower fin improves electrostatic control by thinning the body the gate must control. Push either too far, and the process pays for it: weaker drive current, fragile fins, taper, footing and line-edge variation that hit yield and device variability. The Intel 22 nm, 14 nm, and 10 nm fin cross-sections show how FinFET nodes have improved over time. 22 nm fins were a first-generation structure, relatively short, wide and strongly tapered. The shape limits current density and reduces gate control uniformity across the height of the fin. At 14 nm and 10 nm, Intel pushed the fins taller and narrower while also making the sidewalls more vertical. Rather than shrinking the device, these changes increase the effective channel width per fin and improve electrostatic control. The trade-off is that taller fins at tighter pitches are much more difficult to manufacture. Now, let’s compare the Helio G99 on TSMC N6 with the Kirin 9030 on SMIC N+3. Both processes are in the same class, with fin pitch of 30-32 nm on N+3 and 34 nm in our N6 cross-section. The pitch for N6 is especially interesting as N7’s HD library is generally listed with a 33 nm fin pitch, and N6 did not shrink pitches directly. Its density gains came from DTCO instead of tighter pitches. The 34 nm pitch was stable across our sampled region and serves more as a comparison against the SMIC N+3 we have not investigated further. Pinning down N+3’s fin patterning scheme takes more than one core unit. The CPU cores show a dense ~32 nm pitch, with the pitch between N-P fin pairs alternating between 78 and 88 nm. Logic alone may be consistent with dual-pitch mandrels of 120 and 110 nm, but this is a complex and unusual approach. Combining the pitch from the the 8T SRAM, which has more complex repeat unit, with the CPU core sequence allows us to reverse engineer the patterning steps with more confidence. As both the logic and SRAM should share the same base grid, a single CD mandrel lithography pattern with 128 nm pitch undergoing SAQP produces a die-wide ~32 nm grid (128 nm/4), which supports the pitch sequencing seen in both logic and SRAM cells. In the sampled cross-sections, N+3 shows a taller, narrower, higher-aspect-ratio fin than N6. The measured fin aspect ratio is ~9.5:1 on N+3 versus 7.8:1 on N6. N+3 also shows less top rounding, with an estimated radius of ~2 nm, compared with 2.8 nm on N6. Even though the fin widths differ, the ratio of top rounding to fin width tells the same story, with N+3 at 0.37 and N6 at 0.44. In a geometric sense, lower is better; a perfectly rectangular fin would have no top-rounding penalty. These are single-digit-nanometer features measured from a handful of cuts, so treat the absolute numbers as approximate. The important result is the relative gap: N+3’s fins are consistently taller, narrower and less rounded than N6’s. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. Standard Cell A standard cell is the basic building block of chip layout: a fixed-height row pairing one NMOS and one PMOS transistor that share a gate, tiled in a grid to build logic blocks. The key dimensions are contacted gate pitch (CGP), cell height (CH), fin count, and the lower-metal routing grid. To measure density, we use the Bohr metric: a weighted average of NAND2 gate area (60%) and scan flip-flop area (40%). This represents a realistic mix of combinational and sequential logic. This metric has its limitations, especially for complex cell layouts like TSMC’s FinFLEX, which alternates cells with different fin counts. Even so, it is the best metric for a pure process-level comparison. Another important measurement is the fin pitch; it refers to the distance between two fins of the same transistor. In a FinFET process, multiple fins are used in each transistor to increase the drive current and thus performance. TSMC N6 ships both a high-density (HD) library with 2 PMOS and 2 NMOS fins per cell, and a high-performance (HP) library with 3 of each. More fins under the shared gate mean more effective channel width. HP cells switch harder at the cost of area. Designers mix the two on a die, primarily spending HP cells on timing-critical paths, and matching their PPA targets. In the Cortex-A55 core of the Helio G99, we found a cell height of 240 nm for the HD cell. MediaTek has used HD cells in the G99 to minimize die size and thus cost. As an SoC for budget smartphones at ~$100, this is essential. By contrast, we found only one library in the Kirin 9030, with 2 NMOS and 2 PMOS fins. This suggests a narrower library strategy than TSMC N6, where both HD and HP libraries are widely used. This likely reflects the smaller customer base and the more constrained domestic design and electronic design automation (EDA) ecosystem. In all three CPU cores of the Kirin 9030, we found cell heights of 228 nm, 5% smaller than on N6. This is also a reduction of 9.5% over SMIC N+2’s cell height of 252 nm. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6’s HD library both feature a CGP of 57 nm. For SMIC, this is a 9.5% shrink over N+2. In the past, CGP and cell height alone may have been enough to compare transistor density. Now, however, we must consider scaling boosters and DTCO as well. SMIC’s density gain does not come from EUV. It comes from using every available DTCO booster aggressively. First is fin depopulation: reducing the number of NMOS and PMOS fins in each cell. The first FinFET nodes started with 3 or 4 fins for each transistor. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 HD both use only 2 fins per transistor, trading drive strength for density. Next is contact over active gate (COAG). By landing the gate contact directly over the active gate, instead of out over the isolation region, the cell height drops. N+3 integrates COAG while N6 does not. Our N+3 gate-cut cross-sections indicate COAG, with the gate contact sitting over the active region, while N6 shows an off-gate contact. Last is single diffusion break (SDB). Diffusion breaks are inserted between cells in the same row to provide electrical isolation, but they also introduce local layout effects (LLE), layout-dependent shifts in electrical characteristics. In the past, a double diffusion break was used, consuming the space of two CGPs. SMIC N+3 and TSMC N6 instead use SDB, saving area but increasing LLE sensitivity. This must be controlled at the process level and accurately modeled in the process design kit (PDK) so that EDA tools can account for it. Overall, SMIC N+3 has a transistor density of 113.4 MTr/mm², slightly above TSMC N6 at 107.7 MTr/mm². Even without EUV, SMIC has achieved density beyond TSMC’s mature N6 node which utilizes EUV. Metal Stack The smallest critical dimension in the teardown is M0; SMIC N+3 uses a 32.5 nm local metal pitch. That is smaller than the 36 nm M0 pitch on Intel 18A in Panther Lake. However, this does not mean that SMIC has a better process than Intel 18A or TSMC N3P. M0 is a local intra-cell routing layer. Its usefulness depends on the full interconnect stack: M1 and M2 pitch, track count, via and line resistance, design rules, mask count, overlay control, and routing flexibility. The 32.5 nm M0 is consistent with self-aligned quadruple patterning (SAQP), whose four-population line-width loading we read coarsely as alternating widths of 21.5 to 24 nm; M1 and M2, at 38 and 40 nm, are consistent with self-aligned double patterning (SADP), a single A/B split. On TSMC N6, M0, M2, and M3 sit at a relaxed ~40 nm and are consistent with SADP-class double patterning, with no need for quadruple patterning. That said, we measure M2 for example at ~43 nm, likely inflated by sparse routing. We do not assign any specific layer to EUV from our cross-sections; the distinction we can draw is double versus quadruple patterning, not lithography wavelength. Transistor-level density in the front-end-of-line (FEOL) sets an upper bound, but the design is ultimately limited by what the interconnect stack can route. The lowest metals are the most important for standard-cell density, but the semi-global and global layers determine how usable that density is at the block and chip level. Two axes are commonly used for chip cross-sections: the fin-cut and the gate-cut. The micrograph above is a fin-cut and shows metals 0 through 3. This axis lets us see the even-numbered metals, with M0 right above the fins. There are two kinds of M0 lines. The first are the power rails; these are wide wires for the VDD and VSS running horizontally at the top and bottom edges of each standard cell. The wide wires measure 55 nm across, more than double the other M0 lines. Their width minimizes resistance and reduces IR drop. The second kind are intra-cell wires, short segments within the cell that connect terminals to M1. These have alternating widths between 21.5 and 24 nm. The M0 pitch is 32.5 nm, a 19% reduction versus N+2 and N6. At this pitch, DUV patterning requires more aggressive multi-patterning, increasing mask count, overlay sensitivity, process complexity and cost. M0 is below what a single DUV-defined spacer (SADP) can resolve, so SMIC cascades a second spacer step (SAQP). The cross-section reflects the cost: the M0 trenches are visibly more re-entrant (narrower at the bottom than the top) than M1 or M2 on the same chip and carry a bright barrier-rich foot where the trench meets the etch-stop layer. That shape is partly the intended damascene profile, as a slightly narrow bottom helps void-free copper fill, but its magnitude at M0 is driven by the tight pitch and the higher trench aspect ratio. Intel 18A supports an M0 pitch of 32 nm, although Panther Lake has only shipped with a looser 36 nm pitch. This is due to Intel’s heavy usage of HP libraries. Among leading-edge nodes, 18A has the loosest M0 pitches due to PowerVia. With power routing moving to the backside, congestion is reduced, and the entire front-side metal stack can be used for signal routing. M2 is the first true inter-cell routing layer. It runs horizontally like M0 but spans across multiple cells to carry block-level signals. The M2 pitch sets the cell’s track height – the number of M2 tracks that fit between the VDD and VSS rails, defining what the library calls a 6-track or 7.5-track cell. This layer is the most important, limiting the routing of entire blocks. SMIC N+3 features a 5.7-track cell. The M2 pitch is 40 nm, a 5% decrease over N+2 and the same as N6. This shrink keeps the pitch at the edge of what is possible with double patterning. Future nodes will need to increase the number of masks for M2 as reducing the number of tracks is much harder due to the limitations in routing. The micrograph above is in the perpendicular direction, the gate-cut, and shows metals 0 through 4. This allows us to see and measure the odd-numbered vertical metal layers. The M1 pitch is 38 nm, 9.5% less than N+2 and 33% less than N6. The M1-to-gate ratio matters because it sets local routing flexibility. N+2 and N+3 use a 3:2 ratio, while N6 uses a 1:1 ratio, explaining the huge differences in M1 pitch. The more M1 lines there are compared with the gates, the more flexibility there is for power and signal crossing within the cell. Routing flexibility enables more complex and better cells. Clean fractional ratios are also preferred as a grid is periodic and improves layouts. The 3:2 ratio gives SMIC more local routing flexibility than a strict 1:1 grid, but it also complicates layout and patterning. This is a DTCO choice, with SMIC increasing process complexity to recover density and routability without EUV. This 3:2 ratio is not very popular in the leading-edge nodes. TSMC has only used it on N7+, the N5 family, and the short-lived N3(B). They have switched back to a 1:1 ratio for N3E. Intel has only used it on the 10 nm/Intel 7 family, with Intel 4, 3 and 18A all using a 1:1 ratio. Samsung is the only one still using a 3:2 ratio at the leading edge, using it in the SF4 and SF3 families. It remains to be seen if SMIC will remain at a 3:2 ratio or move to a 1:1 ratio with its future nodes. The industry is still actively exploring these local-routing ratios. At VLSI 2026, imec will be presenting work on even higher ratios, including a 2:1 scheme that can reduce area by up to 14%. We will be covering the conference in a future newsletter article. Subscribe We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Interested in joining us on this ride and think you can be a difference maker? Check out our Careers page. The final local interconnect layer for N+3 is M3, with a pitch of 44 nm. The M3 pitch is the same as on N+2 and 10% larger than on N6. The semi-global layers carry the majority of block-level signal routing. They have a coarser pitch than the lower local layers. On leading-edge nodes, they are designed to sit at the limit of DUV single patterning. M4 through M11 pitches were found divided between 80–82 nm (M4–M6), 128 nm (M7–M10), and 148 nm (M11). Given limited sampling, it is possible these are divided further in dense routing areas. At the top are two giant metal layers, M12 and M13. These have kept the same pitches as N+2 at 1920 nm and 4600 nm respectively. While the lower layers’ pitches are generally fixed by the process and library, the upper layers vary much more in pitch and count, depending on the design. Even two smartphone SoCs on the same process can have wildly different metal stacks. The Helio G99 carries fewer routing layers, reaching coarse metal pitches of 850 nm by M9, while the larger and higher-performance Kirin 9030 keeps fine pitches until M11. SRAM At the leading edge, SRAM is much more difficult to scale than logic. TSMC’s latest nodes have seen little to no bitcell scaling, while logic still has more DTCO levers to pull. While looking for other logic libraries in the GPU compute units, we stumbled upon the SRAM. The most common type of SRAM has 6 transistors (6T), but this cell had 8 transistors (8T) instead. 8T SRAM adds two transistors to form a dedicated read port. Unlike a 6T cell, where reading disturbs the storage, the decoupled read port removes read-disturb, improving read stability and letting the cell be pushed harder for performance. At first glance, the cut looked like an unusual logic library, with each cell row having 3 fins of one polarity and 5 fins of another. The rows also alternated in orientation. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) resolved our confusion. The cut had not landed on the GPU logic, but on the SRAM macro beside it. The unusual fin pattern was due to the SRAM library. We return to EDS in the process flow analysis behind the paywall. SRAM libraries are not like traditional logic libraries. Due to the unequal number of PMOS and NMOS transistors, they require specialized rules and layout libraries. They do not need the flexibility of logic libraries, so they are hyper-optimized for one purpose: dense, reliable memory. The SRAM cell we found is a 1:2:2-2:2 cell. This means there is 1 fin per pull-up (PU) PMOS transistor, and 2 fins per pull-down (PD) and pass-gate (PG) NMOS transistor. These 2 PU, 2 PD and 2 PG transistors would usually form a single 6T high-current cell (HCC). An 8T HCC adds a read-pull-down (RPD) and a read-pass-gate (RPG) NMOS transistor, each with two fins. We measured a cell height of 406 nm, which brings the bitcell size to 0.0463 µm². That is a theoretical peak density of 21.6 Mib/mm². We estimate that a 6T HCC would have a cell height of 292 nm and a size of 0.0337 µm². This is ~12% larger than a 6T HCC on Intel 3 and 4. We also estimate the 6T high-density cell (HDC) to have a cell height of 228 nm and a size of 0.0260 µm². This is coincidentally the same as the logic standard-cell height measured earlier. The estimate puts the cell near Samsung 7LPP/5LPP and slightly below TSMC N7/N6. That is a theoretical peak density of 38.5 Mib/mm². 6T HDC is arguably the most important cell as it is used for the largest caches in a chip, the L3 caches and system-level cache (SLC). Both the Kirin 9020 and 9030 have split the SLC into 4 banks to raise total SLC bandwidth. In the Kirin 9030, the SLC increased from 2 MiB to 3 MiB per bank. Correspondingly, the number of arrays within the bank also increased by 50%, from 16 to 24. Each array can store 128 KiB and forms an orderly pattern on the die shot. From the Kirin 9020 to the Kirin 9030, the area of a 128 KiB SLC array decreased from 0.0477 mm² to 0.0392 mm², an 18% shrink. The achieved density is 25.5 Mib/mm², 66% of the theoretical maximum. While the SLC was quite similar across both chips, the L3 has seen some major changes, particularly in terms of its layout. The total capacity also went up from 10 MiB to 12 MiB. Much like the SLC, the L3 is also split into 4 banks. In the Kirin 9020, an L3 bank consisted of 16× 128 KiB arrays and 16× 32 KiB arrays. However, an L3 bank in the Kirin 9030 instead consists of 48× 64 KiB arrays. In the Kirin 9020 L3, a 128 KiB array was 0.0513 mm² and a 32 KiB array was 0.0154 mm². The size of the 128 KiB array is different on the L3 and SLC as the assist circuitry for the two arrays differs depending on their purpose. In the Kirin 9030 L3, a 64 KiB array is 0.0210 mm². Although not a like-for-like comparison, normalized for capacity, it is 18% smaller than the 9020’s 128 KiB L3 array and 31% smaller than its 32 KiB L3 array. The achieved density is slightly lower than the SLC, at 23.8 Mib/mm², 62% of the theoretical maximum. Unlike the L3 and SLC, the prime cores’ private L2 cache uses a 2-bank design. As the prime cores’ L2 is latency-critical, it likely uses 6T HCC instead of 6T HDC. The 9020 has 16 arrays in each bank while the 9030 has 32. Each array has a capacity of 32 KiB. A 32 KiB array in the L2 shrank from 0.0171 mm² to 0.0142 mm², ~17% smaller. The density is 17.6 Mib/mm², ~59% of the theoretical maximum for 6T HCC. SRAM scaled well from N+2 to N+3, shrinking by ~19%, close to the theoretical logic shrink. The caveat is that N+2’s bitcells were unusually large, bigger than comparable 7 nm-class nodes, so part of the gain is catch-up rather than true scaling. With the insights from STEEL’s teardowns, we will be doing a deep dive into SRAM in a future newsletter article. Subscribe Everything above came out of a single STEEL teardown: die annotation, block-level area analysis and TEM cross-sections through logic and SRAM. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com. Future Roadmap The same cross-sections that pin down N+3 also show where SMIC can go next. Although N+3 is already close to the practical limits of DUV multi-patterning in several layers, SMIC still has a few scaling levers left. A theoretical N+4 would likely start with cell height. N+3 uses 5 M0 tracks between its power rails. Moving to 4 M0 tracks, as on SMIC N+2 and TSMC N6, could reduce cell height by roughly 15%. The routing grid is only one side of the shrink; the front end also must fit into the smaller cell. One possible FEOL lever is reducing the p-to-n isolation spacing from two diffusion grid units to one. Intel used this scaling booster on Intel 4, and TSMC did so on its N3 family. This path trades layout flexibility for density. Fewer M0 tracks reduce local routing resources, while tighter p-to-n spacing raises integration and design-rule difficulty. M2 is also constrained by the cell height shrink. For SMIC to maintain a ~5.7-track cell, M2 would need to move toward ~35 nm. That would move another layer into SAQP territory. SMIC could also reduce the CGP from 57 nm to 54 nm. Intel reached a similar CGP on Intel 10 nm/Intel 7 without EUV. The local interconnect is also tougher. If SMIC keeps the 3:2 M1-to-gate ratio, M1 would need to shrink to 36 nm and would likely require SAQP as well. If SMIC moves to a 1:1 ratio, M1 could relax to 54 nm, but it would give up routing flexibility. Under this theoretical path, we estimate that SMIC N+4 could reach a cell height of 198 nm and a CGP of 54 nm, implying a Bohr density of 137.8 MTr/mm², on par with TSMC N5 or Samsung SF4. However, the difficulty is cumulative. Each step is individually plausible, but together they make N+4 harder than the transition from N+2 to N+3. It will likely take longer, cost more, and carry less process margin. A theoretical N+5 would require a larger integration shift. One possible path is backside contacts (BSCon), moving power routing and source/drain contacts to the backside, which would reduce front-side routing pressure and enable another reduction in cell height. The front-side metal pitches could relax to reduce the process complexity. M0 would likely relax slightly to ~34 nm, and M2 and M4 pitches could relax further. CGP is unlikely to shrink much further. Even with EUV, 48 nm has been the practical limit for yield and process control. This approach would allow N+5’s cell height to fall to 170 nm and its CGP to 53 nm. This implies a Bohr density of 163.6 MTr/mm², on par with Intel 18A’s HP library. However, this would not make N+5 cost-competitive with the leading edge. It would reach a similar density through a much more expensive route. The integration difficulty rises sharply, with new process flows for backside alignment, wafer thinning, contact reveal, and backside metallization. Past this point, standard density and interconnect scaling become increasingly unattractive. That is where Huawei’s roadmap stops looking like a normal foundry roadmap and starts looking like a packaging roadmap. At ISCAS 2026, Huawei unveiled its tau (τ) scaling law, reframing process scaling in the time domain. τ is the time cost of data movement and processing: switching delays in transistors, RC signal propagation delays in circuits, compute, memory, and networking latency. Outside Huawei’s terminology, this is called system-technology co-optimization. This is Huawei’s answer to its lack of EUV lithography. Without EUV, planar density cannot keep pace with TSMC, Intel, or Samsung. If transistor density cannot shrink further, Huawei’s alternative is to shorten wires, reduce buffering, and stack logic vertically. “LogicFolding”, Huawei’s implementation of this new scaling idea, is, in practice, an aggressive 3D stacking approach. AMD V-Cache places SRAM above or below a CPU die. AMD’s MI350X places active interposer dies (AIDs) underneath accelerator and compute dies (XCDs), with the AIDs handling cache, IO interfaces, the network-on-chip (NoC) and embedded metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. With LogicFolding, parts of the same logic block are split across multiple active dies bonded face-to-face at ultra-fine pitch. This allows Huawei to shorten some critical paths and reduce buffer overhead, not merely add cache capacity or offload the IO and interconnect. Shortening wires is where the higher clocks come from. A large share of a modern core’s delay and energy budget goes into driving long interconnects and the repeater buffers along them. LogicFolding distributes a block’s critical-path gates across multiple stacked tiers bonded at a very fine pitch, so the bond interface behaves like an additional metal layer and the longest paths get shorter. That is how Huawei expects to recover frequency and efficiency it cannot get from the process alone. Huawei’s roadmap shows its intent. Prime core frequency is targeted to rise from 2.75 GHz in the Kirin 9030 to roughly 5 GHz by 2031, far beyond what planar scaling alone could deliver. Prime cores with 3.1 and 3.39 GHz clocks are being tested in its labs, although their power consumption is unknown. Beyond that, chips are in the design, simulation or pathfinding phase, meaning the frequencies are targets. However, the direction matters more: LogicFolding also helps with performance, not just density. The catch is that Huawei’s density claim is not directly comparable to foundry densities. A stacked design can report more transistors per package footprint by adding active layers, even if each patterned die remains well behind TSMC or Intel in front-end density. This is how Huawei can claim to reach foundry 14A-equivalent density by 2031. This is not a like-for-like foundry comparison, with Huawei using stacked logic and measuring density per package footprint. On a normalized Bohr-density basis, SMIC N+3 is ~114 MTr/mm², 38% less than Intel 18A’s HD library. Huawei’s 3D roadmap closes the gap by stacking active logic, reaching 215 MTr/mm² by 2030. In 2031, the roadmap density jumps to 295 MTr/mm², implying either a third active layer, partial EUV insertion or aggressive planar DUV scaling. Huawei’s methodology makes other foundries look much denser as well. Applying it to AMD’s MI450X with an N2 top die on an N3P base die yields a theoretical density of 460.2 MTr/mm² in 2026, compared with Huawei’s 295 MTr/mm² in 2031. This Kirin 9030 does not use LogicFolding, remaining in a conventional mobile SoC package. Instead, it forms the baseline for how far Huawei and SMIC can push planar scaling. Future teardowns of Kirin and Ascend chips will show both planar logic density and Huawei’s hybrid bonding solutions. Export controls changed China’s optimization problem rather than ending it. EUV restrictions raised the cost and complexity of leading-edge manufacturing without freezing it. SMIC reaches N6-class logic density through DUV immersion, SAQP and DTCO, while Huawei shifts more of the burden onto architecture, packaging and system-level integration. Future nodes will be tougher. N+3 still had room to tighten local metals and reduce cell height and CGP. Further scaling without EUV leaves fewer levers. More aggressive multi-patterning adds masks and overlay error. SMIC can keep pushing DUV, but each step will get more expensive and less forgiving. The design side is just as critical. Huawei had domestic EDA tools and flows before the Kirin 9030, with the Kirin 9000s, 9010 and 9020 making that clear. Huawei was able to ship multiple consumer SoCs on SMIC N+2 and N+3 while cut off from the Western EDA stack. US export controls restricted EDA tools for advanced chips in 2022 but did not target tools for more mature chips. In 2025, the US government briefly placed much broader restrictions on EDA software from Synopsys, Cadence, and others, before lifting them less than two months later as part of a trade deal tied to rare earths. Huawei has been unable to access those tools because it remains on a US trade blacklist. That forced Huawei, SMIC and Chinese academic institutions to build their own tools and flows. Researchers at Peking University recently announced a prototype EDA tool for Huawei’s LogicFolding architecture, which requires a new flow to handle the multilayer layout and floorplan. This is not the same as replacing the full Synopsys or Cadence stack, but it shows where domestic EDA is headed: toward tighter co-optimization between architecture, process and packaging. These advances are also diffusing into the Chinese ecosystem. SMIC is licensing its N+2 and N+3 processes to HLMC/Hua Hong at the government’s direction rather than by choice. If the same process learning feeds into Ascend accelerators for AI training and inference, the choke point shifts from one named fab to an ecosystem. Alibaba’s T-Head silicon arm and Cambricon, a Chinese AI chip designer that is expected to supply ByteDance, could also be major beneficiaries. Sanctions aimed at SMIC alone become less effective once the manufacturing knowledge has spread to other fabs and design houses. China is not closing the gap with Intel, Samsung and TSMC. The teardown shows the opposite in several places: no EUV, no backside power, higher process complexity, and visible trade-offs. But China is still advancing. If domestic chips become good enough for phones, inference, networking and security-sensitive workloads, they can matter strategically without matching TSMC at the leading edge. Behind the paywall, we show what else STEEL can do, with material and process flow analysis of SMIC N+3, and analysis of the Kirin 9030 package. We’re diving deep into the most advanced datacenter and AI hardware hitting the market. To learn more about what’s in the pipeline, access the full Kirin 9030 and SMIC N+3 analysis or to commission a custom teardown, contact sales@semianalysis.com.
Snake Bytes 6/14
Team News D-backs squander another one of Soroka’s walk-free quality starts “When you feel like the hitter might not know what’s coming, I feel a little bit more comfortable throwing balls completely over the plate,” Soroka said. “Last year, I think I ran into struggles, because I didn’t have those extra pitches. And second, third […]
Nothing new to report
Truly. Nothing new. Same ol’, same ol’ in this one. A 6-1 loss that felt pre-determined, or determined immediately after Pete Crow-Armstrong homered on the first pitch of the game thrown by Trevor McDonald. PCA continued to be a menace all evening: he collected two more hits, came up a triple shy of the cycle, […]
Padres hammer Orioles pitching, hit 5 home runs in win
News to know about your San Diego Padres and MLB for June 14, 2026.
Tarik Skubal pitches 4 2/3 innings during first Tigers start since elbow surgery, hits 99.9 mph in loss to Guardians
Detroit turned to Skubal for the first time since April 29, and, 38 days after his 'Skubal scope' procedure, he showed some encouraging signs.
Dooley campaigns with Kemp in Middle Georgia as lawmakers allege 'pay-to-play politics'
Derek Dooley is making some of his final pitches to voters in Middle Georgia as the U.S. Senate runoff inches closer to Election Day, and his campaign faces...
Portland’s iconic Sports Bra bar pitches investors on national expansion as it bleeds red ink
Financial statements filed in The Sports Bra's latest fundraising effort show declining revenues amid widening operating losses.
Portland’s iconic Sports Bra bar pitches investors on national expansion as it bleeds red ink
Financial statements filed in The Sports Bra's latest fundraising effort show declining revenues amid widening operating losses.
Softball joins Oregon lineup of pro women’s sports with Cascade coming to Hillsboro
Athletes Unlimited Softball League, a six team professional women’s fastpitch league, will host games at the Hillsboro Ballpark.
Five rental pitchers Phillies could target amid Andrew Painter's struggles
Andrew Painter’s sustained struggles and Aaron Nola’s underwhelming output has forced the Phillies hand to improve their rotation via trade.
Braves look to stop slide in game against the Mets
Atlanta Braves (45-24, first in the NL East) vs. New York Mets (31-38, fifth in the NL East) New York; Saturday, 4:10 p.m. EDT PITCHING PROBABLES: Braves: Martin Perez (4-3, 3.02 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 47 strikeouts); Mets: Sean Manaea (1-1, 5.02 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 45 strikeouts) LINE: Mets -113, Braves -106; over/under is 8 1/2 runs BOTTOM LINE: The Atlanta Braves head into the matchup with the New York Mets as losers of three straight games. New York has gone 17-17 in home games and 31-38 overall.
105 mph?! Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski posts another velocity record while striking out 15 in first career shutout
Jacob Misiorowski threw the four fastest pitches ever recorded by a starter in a single inning. It wound up being one of the best starts MLB has ever seen.
104.5!? Jacob Misiorowski sets velocity record in unbelievable first inning
Jacob Misiorowski delivered arguably the most ridiculous inning by a starting pitcher ever in the first inning against Philadelphia
Dodgers turn to surprising Shohei Ohtani replacement following knee injury
For 63 of the Dodgers’ first 69 games this season, Shohei Ohtani was their leadoff hitter. The two-time defending National League MVP was occasionally afforded a day of rest because of his pitching schedule. On June 12, he was given…
Saints blank Mud Hens for second-straight win
Five pitchers combined on a four-hit shutout as St. Paul made it two wins in a row at Toledo with a 1-0 victory Thursday night. Austin Voth made his second start for the Saints. He didn’t qualify for the win, but struck out eight batters while allowing three hits and four walks over 4 2/3 innings of work. Drew Smith relieved him with two on and two out in the fifth and extinguished the Mud ...
College sports bill authors making pitch to Black caucus
The authors of a Senate bill that would overhaul college athletics warned this week that a lack of congressional action this year could financially wreck historically Black colleges and universities and could reduce chances for college educations for minority students. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said they […]
Red Sox Pitcher Aroldis Chapman Addresses Trade Rumors
Aroldis Chapman is putting together another impressive season with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox are 27-39 and sit in fifth place in the American League East. The lefty has spent the past two seasons in Boston and has produced a 1 ERA over 81 innings with the team.
Politics overshadow North America’s ‘unity’ World Cup
Political sparring, visa issues and expensive tickets have lingered over a tournament that was pitched with the overarching theme of unity.
New York Yankees' Next Pitching Move is Blatantly Obvious
The New York Yankees' next move for their pitching staff is abundantly clear.
Scammers hijacked the identity of a famous Oregon cancer doctor to pitch ivermectin online
The bogus accounts – and others like them – alarm doctors worried about how the misinformation can harm unsuspecting patients desperate for help.
Bulletin Board: Greenfield Garden Cinema outlasts Pipione’s Sports Shop in GGSL action
Greenfield Garden Cinema jumped ahead in the second inning in a 25-16 win over Pipione’s Sports Shop in GGSL action at Murphy Park on Wednesday Night. Greenfield Garden Cinema did not allow a run in the second, pulling ahead 10-5 after the second frame of Ponytail play. Makenna Ward was the winning pitcher in the […]
"Pitch Black" Preorders Now Live on Pokemon Center!
Preorders for select Pitch Black products are now available on the Pokemon Center! The set officially releases on July 17th. Elite Trainer Box Booster
The surprising science behind the 2026 World Cup grass
How scientists are engineering the perfect World Cup pitch—one so flawless that players never notice it
Pitching Woes Resume: Dbacks 6, Marlins 10
The Dbacks dropped the series opener in Miami on Tuesday 10-6 as the Arizona pitching was unable to keep any momentum this whole game long. The Dbacks offense would score, and then the pitching would immediately cough the lead right back up. The offense would come back, and then the pitching would give the lead […]
Google announces Gemini 3.5 Live Translate for instant voice-to-voice translation
Voice translations preserve speaker's tone, pacing, pitch—with SynthID watermarks for security.
Politics and the pitch
UD political science professor combines academics and hobby as a soccer referee
Why Toronto's Dylan Cease presents a different challenge for Phillies
Dylan Cease has expanded his pitch mix and missed bats at an elite rate, giving the Phillies a much different look Tuesday in Toronto.
FIFA World Cup 2026: The science behind perfect football pitches
From sand‑based soils to underground heating, explore the mechanics of playing surfaces for the FIFA World Cup.
Tennessee baseball lands transfer Brody Trosclair from Northwestern State
Tennessee baseball landed its second transfer of the offseason when Northwestern State transfer pitcher Brody Trosclair committed to the Vols.
Can Judge-less Yanks survive?
On deck Tonight: Los Angeles Dodgers at Pittsburgh, 6:40 p.m. Pitchers: Dodgers LHP Eric Lauer (2-5) vs. Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (6-5) TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh Radio: HANK-FM 96.1 The reigning MVP and Cy Young Award winners in the American League are both on the injured list. One is on his way back, the other went […]