The chip industry chain is large and complex, especially with many technology patents and numerous barriers. It is unrealistic for any company to control the entire chip industry chain. Global cooperation is the best way to maximize resource utilization. The actual situation is also the same. For example, chip architecture companies include ARM, Intel, etc., chip R&D companies include Huawei, Qualcomm, etc., lithography machine production companies include ASML, Nikon, etc., and chip foundry companies include TSMC, Samsung, etc.
Technical differences will eventually affect the distribution of benefits, and there may even be a difference of ten or a hundred times between the two. Huawei's rapid development in the 5G field has worried technology powers. In order to suppress Huawei's development, the balanced cooperative relationship in the chip industry was broken, and Huawei faced the embarrassing situation of having no cores available. Forced by the situation, Huawei had to explore more possibilities in the chip industry chain alone.
According to DigiTimes, Huawei will build its first wafer fab in Wuhan, Hubei, and is expected to start production in phases from 2022. According to relevant sources, Huawei's wafer fab mainly produces optical communication chips and modules, thereby achieving self-sufficiency in semiconductors.
There have long been rumors that Huawei will establish a HiSilicon factory in Wuhan. One is that Huawei once planned to issue bonds in China, with an early scale of 3 billion and a mid-term scale of 20 billion; the other is that Wuhan City has issued a A land planning plan also mentions the HiSilicon factory project.
What exactly is an optical communication chip? Can Huawei's chip shortage problem be completely solved?
Unfortunately, optical communication chips cannot solve the problem of core shortage in Huawei mobile phones. The two applications are not in the same field. Although most people know Huawei through its personal consumption businesses such as mobile phones, tablets, and smart screens, Huawei is actually a communications manufacturing company. Optical communication chips are mainly used in the field of optical communication, and Huawei remains the world leader in this field. Ren Zhengfei talked about this issue in an early interview. Huawei can produce 800G optical communication chips, but the United States is still far away from this.
The global 5G base station market has been reshuffled again, and Huawei 5G has regained the first place. The optical communication chips set up in Wuhan this time are bound to become a strong cornerstone of Huawei's communications, and there will no longer be problems like the inability to produce 5G baseband chips.
Before there is a breakthrough in domestic lithography machines, purchasing chips externally may be Huawei’s best choice.
According to relevant domestic experts, purely domestic chips using the 28nm process will be realized this year, and purely domestic chips using the 14nm process will be realized next year. Since it is purely domestically produced, it will not be restricted by the core technology of the United States. Does it mean that domestic photolithography machine companies can reach the level of the 14nm process next year?
Huawei also recently announced a technology patent called "A Chip Synchronization Method and Related Devices." Many users have speculated, can dual 14nm process chips reach or approach the performance of a single 7nm process chip?
There are constant discussions on this topic on the Internet. I am a bit conservative and think that the possibility of realization is low. Simply relying on the superposition of chips will not produce the effect of one plus one being greater than two, otherwise many technology companies will not be keen on improving the process. This is not to question Huawei’s scientific research capabilities. Perhaps the patent is not used in this aspect. Putting aside performance for the time being, one is the power consumption problem of chip stacking, the other is the temperature problem generated, and the other is the volume problem. These are not suitable for use in mobile phone products.
There are various signs that Qualcomm has opened the door to supply Huawei chips.
At the Huawei Hongmeng 2.0 version conference, a tablet computer used Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor; another tablet computer to be released in September will use Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 processor; Huawei Maimang 10SE mobile phone is also equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 processor. Qualcomm will soon launch a Snapdragon 888 processor that has emasculated 5G functions. According to reports, this processor is also built for Huawei.
The road to self-developed processors is blocked, and external purchasing is undoubtedly the best solution. Although Huawei's first wafer fab this time only produces optical communication chips and modules, it does not ensure that the second and third wafer fabs will not develop into other fields.