"The significance is that it shows that China has been able to stay 2-2.5 nodes behind the world's best (chip) companies," Dan Hutcheson, an analyst with TechInsights said

China's ban on iPhone use by government workers was extended to local government entities last month, raising fears that Apple and its suppliers could be hit hard by rising Sino-US tension

Republican chair of influential House panel calls for harsher curbs after the discovery of new chips in Huawei phones "that may violate trade restrictions"

State media said the investment was a clear sign of Beijing's push to end the country's reliance on foreign semiconductor firms

Analysts expect more debate in the US on the effectiveness of chip curbs and the possibility of Congress including harsher sanctions in a competition bill it is preparing against China

The Taiwanese tech giant blamed falling smartphone sales after its revenue in August fell 8% year-on-year and was down 12% on the previous month

The development follows sanctions-hit Huawei's success in building an advanced 7-nanometer processor, in collaboration with state-backed SMIC

Reports that Huawei's latest smartphone has 5G capabilities has sparked questions on the effectiveness of US sanctions and whether chip curbs on China should be expanded

Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, AMD, as well as Intel, Samsung, plus Cadence Design and Synopsys are among the firms and clients that said they will be strategic investors in the chip designer's listing

The 100-million-people country has only 5,000 to 6,000 trained hardware engineers for the chip sector, against expected demand of 20,000 in five years

The company said it will continue to ship the products in its NXT:2000i and more advanced DUV models, which fell under the restrictions that started on Friday

If true, the development of a homegrown 5G chip would mark a win for China's local semiconductor sector, which has seen stock market gains of roughly 8% so far this week