The wafer foundry has an appointment in advance and has an appointment with Fumanwei. Otherwise, the foundry will not produce Fumanwei at all, or will not produce it again, because the foundry cannot do without American equipment, accessories, consumables and production software. Fumanwei is a factory-free IC design company, which is engaged in the design, packaging and testing of integrated circuits, while packaging and testing are certainly not chip production in the manufacturing sense. So, which foundry is making 5G RF chips for Fumanwei? Maybe TSMC. Fu Manwei said that he was one of the foundries of his own chips. Most likely, he did not say that the 5G RF chip was produced by TSMC.
The fundamental reason is that the US government gave the order first. Not to mention involving 5G, even 4G chips are not allowed to be produced by wafer foundries for Huawei. In the final analysis, it is the US government that "does not let" Huawei use 5G RF chips. No matter whether it is a chip design factory, a wafer foundry, an equipment factory, an accessory factory, a consumable factory or a software manufacturer, no matter whether it is domestic or foreign, it will not do such a thing spontaneously, let alone make a lot of money from Huawei. However, today, which wafer foundry in the world and China can leave all the equipment, accessories and consumables in the United States?
Can I ask a question about Fumanwei's own "100%" self-research? Fu Manwei announced earlier this year that the self-developed 5G RF chip has been mass-produced, and it is at the leading level in China from the selection process to the design level (some media people say it is impossible to enter the international first echelon), and its performance is excellent. On March 3, it was publicly announced that it had been supplied in bulk, and it was confirmed that it had entered the consumer market. It is planned to build a new factory in Pingshan District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province to expand the production scale. These things must have been and will be true, so there is no doubt. However, American patents, technologies or software may not be fully used in design. The "high-efficiency, high-precision and high-performance equipment" publicly announced to be purchased again also includes foreign ones in packaging and testing.
It is estimated that some independent development and some independent intellectual property rights have also been realized. This kind of "domestic success" has been quite a lot in our country. Of course, there has also been substantial progress and obvious leap. The key is to lay a sufficiently high technical foundation. There is no doubt about it. Just be happy and cheer for Fu Manwei!