The 2026 International Symposium on Circuits and Systems took place in Shanghai on May 25. He Tingbo, Director of Huawei and President of the Semiconductor Business Unit, officially introduced the „Tao (τ) Law“ during her keynote speech — marking China’s first proposal of a guiding principle for global semiconductor industry development. Centered on reducing the time constant (τ), the Tao Law advocates „temporal miniaturization“ as an alternative to the „geometric miniaturization“ approach underpinning Moore’s Law. It also promotes innovative techniques like logic folding to continuously shorten signal propagation delays and boost transistor density, thereby establishing a multi-level collaborative optimization framework spanning devices, circuits, chips, and systems. According to He Tingbo, Huawei has successfully designed and mass-produced 381 chip models over the past six years thanks to this law; by 2031, transistor density in high-end chips developed under this framework is projected to reach levels comparable to those achievable via 1.4-nanometer fabrication processes.
The emergence of the Tao Law comes amid growing challenges facing Moore’s Law, which is now constrained by both physical limits and economic factors: geometric miniaturization has slowed significantly, cost advantages have diminished, while demand for computing power continues to rise exponentially. Huawei’s move is seen as a strategic effort to forge a distinct semiconductor development path independent of cutting-edge lithography equipment, particularly against the backdrop of U.S. export controls restricting access to advanced fabrication technologies. This autumn, Huawei plans to launch a new Kirin smartphone chip fully utilizing logic folding technology. In her speech, He Tingbo emphasized: „The future belongs to open collaboration. We look forward to working closely with scientists, engineers, and industry partners worldwide to drive sustained growth in the semiconductor and electronics sectors.“