Huawei Technologies’ three-year-old patent for advanced patterning comparable with 2-nanometre grade technology without extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools has intensified speculation about a potential breakthrough in advanced chips. The US-sanctioned company is working to patent a metal integration technique for manufacturing semiconductors, which allows narrow metal structures to be integrated using deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology even for “metal pitches below 21nm”, a feature...