On May 15, 2019, U.S. time, according to the presidential executive order signed by Trump, the U.S. Department of Commerce officially included Huawei and 70 of its affiliates on the U.S. “Entity List”, prohibiting Huawei from operating in the future. Obtain components and related technology from U.S. companies with U.S. government approval.
On August 17, 2020, U.S. time, the U.S. Department of Commerce once again upgraded the ban, further tightening restrictions on Huawei’s access to U.S. technology, and also listed Huawei’s 38 subsidiaries in 21 countries around the world. Enter the "Entity List".
At this point, Huawei has ushered in the "darkest moment" in the development of its chip industry.
After the US government implemented a series of sanctions and repressive measures, Huawei's chip industry has been almost completely locked up. Where will it go from here?
The basic processes and steps of the entire chip industry chain can be roughly divided into three aspects: design, manufacturing and packaging and testing.
Next, I will analyze the difficulties faced by Huawei from these three aspects. After reading this, you will probably understand why Huawei's chip industry has ushered in its own "darkest moment."
Let’s first talk about “sealing and testing”, which is the middle and downstream link of the entire chip industry chain. The so-called “sealing and testing” refers to “packaging” and “testing”.
"Packaging" refers to a series of processes such as dicing, patching, bonding, and electroplating on the manufactured wafers; "testing" refers to testing the functions and functions of semiconductor products such as chips and circuits. Steps to verify performance.
Friends who know something about China's chip industry should know that the current "sealing and testing" link of China's chip industry can be said to be the world's leading.
According to statistics from the China Semiconductor Association, the global market share of China's packaging and testing industry in 2019 was as high as 64%. Domestic packaging and testing leading manufacturers have entered the first echelon in the world, and the leading enterprise ASE Group has accounted for about 20%. market share.
In addition to ASE Group, Changdian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics, and Huatian Technology also occupy the top ten list of global packaging and testing companies. Among the top ten list, the only US packaging and testing company is Ankuan.
Therefore, as far as the "sealing and testing" link is concerned, the country can be said to be strong and full of talents.
So, since the "sealing and testing" link of the domestic chip industry is so powerful, why is it also restricted and basically locked by the United States?
That is because domestic packaging and testing companies rely heavily on packaging and testing equipment imported from the United States and Japan, and the proportion of domestic packaging and testing equipment is extremely low.
According to the global semiconductor packaging and testing equipment manufacturer ranking list released by VLSI Research, a US semiconductor industry research company, in 2018:
Among the top fifteen list, Japanese manufacturers account for 7 , American manufacturers account for 4, European manufacturers account for 3, and China and South Korea account for 1 each. The market share of Japanese manufacturers is as high as 54, and the market share of American manufacturers has also reached 32.
Japan, together with the United States, occupies most of the global chip packaging and testing equipment market, and can be said to be in a monopoly position.
Needless to say, the United States has been sanctioning and suppressing China's chip industry. As an ally of the United States, Japan has always been wearing the same pants as the United States. Without the consent of the United States, we would never dare to rashly export packaging and testing equipment to Chinese companies.
As for domestic packaging and testing equipment companies, their technical strength and market share lag far behind American and Japanese companies, and they are completely unable to meet the high standards and requirements of the chip packaging and testing process.
As the saying goes, "It is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without rice." Although the domestic chip industry leads the world in packaging and testing, its packaging and testing equipment relies heavily on the United States and Japan. Once you don’t have advanced packaging and testing equipment, even if you lead the world, it will be in vain.
Let’s talk about “manufacturing”. “Manufacturing” is the intermediate link of the entire chip industry chain, and it is also a very important link. It involves many steps and processes. Due to space limitations, we will not discuss them here. Let’s go over them one by one.
The manufacturing link is a relatively weak link in China’s chip industry, and the United States has also comprehensively suppressed Huawei in the manufacturing process.
Last year, Taiwan's famous chip manufacturer "TSMC" was affected by the US ban and announced that it would no longer cooperate with Huawei. This incident has aroused great concern among many people in the country.
TSMC is an outstanding representative of the chip industry and is the strongest chip manufacturing foundry on the planet.
TSMC, the full name of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., was founded in Taiwan in 1987 by Zhang Zhongmou.
TSMC is the world's largest wafer foundry. TSMC's market share in 2018 reached 56%. More than half of the world's market belongs to TSMC, while the second-placed Samsung semiconductor market share is only 16%. about.
TSMC’s production technology is more advanced than its competitors, its foundry quality is more reliable than its competitors, and its wafer production volume is also very stable. Almost all global chip industry giants have cooperative relationships with TSMC. Qualcomm, Apple, Huawei HiSilicon, MediaTek, etc. are all TSMC's perennial partners.
Last year, the United States’ ban put TSMC in a dilemma.
As TSMC’s second largest customer, Huawei contributes more than 30% of TSMC’s total revenue every year.
If TSMC abandons Huawei, it means that its revenue will be significantly reduced in a short period of time; but if TSMC insists on cooperating with Huawei despite the US ban, once TSMC is also sanctioned by the United States, it will probably mean Its end is coming.
After careful consideration, TSMC finally chose the former, followed the US ban and gave up cooperation with Huawei.
Some people may mention that since TSMC is so important, we must hurry up and issue second-generation ID cards to the people of Taiwan. By then, TSMC will no longer have to be controlled by the United States.
However, this idea is very superficial. The reason why TSMC is able to produce more advanced 3nm and 5nm chips than its competitors is because they use more advanced chip production equipment in the United States.
Once the United States restricts the export of chip production equipment to TSMC, even if TSMC eventually cooperates with Huawei, its technology will continue to stagnate, its production equipment will not be continuously updated, and it will eventually fall behind other competitors.
TSMC cannot cooperate, but what about Samsung?
As the world's second largest chip manufacturing company, although its technical level and product quality are not as good as those of TSMC, it has been actively deploying 5nm and 7nm production lines over the years to keep up with it.
If Samsung can cooperate with Huawei, it might not be a good choice.
However, everyone should not forget that South Korea is also one of the allies of the United States. To this day, the United States still has a large number of troops stationed in South Korea. The South Korean president does not even have wartime command authority and is firmly controlled by the United States.
Therefore, when TSMC announced the termination of cooperation with Huawei, Samsung, TSMC’s main competitor, has not attracted Huawei and announced cooperation with Huawei.
Counting on Samsung is completely unreliable.
So, if other companies are unreliable, what about our own chip manufacturing companies in mainland China? Some people may think of SMIC, led by the famous entrepreneur Liang Mengsong.
SMIC, as the current leading company in China's chip manufacturing industry, has experienced rapid development in recent years. In 2019, SMIC conquered the key node of 14nm and officially entered the international leading position.
However, compared with TSMC and Samsung’s 5nm and 7nm, there is still a considerable gap in its technical strength.
If Huawei really can only use SMIC's 14nm chips, its competitiveness will of course be greatly reduced.
In addition, even the 14nm production line of SMIC is subject to strict restrictions in the United States.
Some time ago, the delay in the delivery of the photolithography machines purchased by SMIC from ASML also aroused great concern among the Chinese people.
Although ASML is a Dutch company, its photolithography machine technology is American. In order to avoid being targeted by the United States, ASML has delayed shipments to SMIC.
Therefore, SMIC has always been controlled by the United States in terms of chip production equipment.
It is really difficult to rely on domestically produced products.
Huawei neither engages in chip packaging and testing nor manufactures chips, so why has it become China’s “light of chips”?
That’s because Huawei HiSilicon is a top chip design company.
Huawei HiSilicon, the full name of Shenzhen HiSilicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd., was established in October 2004. Its predecessor was the Huawei Integrated Circuit Design Center founded in 1991.
Huawei HiSilicon is the holding company of Huawei chip design. After more than ten years of development, Huawei HiSilicon has become one of the world's top chip design companies. Its advanced Kunpeng processor and independent Kirin chips are very competitive internationally.
If Huawei cannot cooperate with chip manufacturing, chip packaging and testing companies, as long as it can design chips, it will still have major advantages.
However, a cruel fact is that Huawei is also subject to strict restrictions by the United States in its chip design process, which can be said to be full of obstacles.
First, let’s talk about the architecture used in Huawei’s chip design. It uses the public version architecture of the British ARM company, and has conducted independent secondary development on top of its public version architecture.
Just like mobile phone systems, most domestic mobile phone manufacturers use the Android system, but many manufacturers carry out secondary development on the original basis of the Android system and form their own unique of mobile phone system. For example, Huawei, Xiaomi, vivo, etc. are all like this.
Therefore, it is particularly important whether the British ARM company will continue to cooperate with Huawei.
All in all, ARM has been changing its orders on this matter day and night, and the changes are unpredictable, which is really a bit unreliable. What the future will hold, none of us knows.
In addition to the chip design architecture, another more troublesome issue is the software used in chip design.
In the process of chip design, chip design companies generally use EDA design software. This is just like if you want to create photos, you generally need to use PS. This is a professional software for the entire industry.
However, the main problem arises in this regard.
At present, the global EDA software suppliers are mainly the three international giants Synopsys, Cadence and Mentor Graphic. The three major EDA companies account for 50% of the global market. Shares exceed 60.
The eda design software used by Huawei mainly comes from these three companies.
But the unfortunate fact is that all three companies are American. Among them, although Mentor Graphic was acquired by Siemens of Germany in 2016, all its patented technologies belong to the United States.
Therefore, Huawei has also been severely restricted by the United States in terms of EDA software for chip design. Once there is no EDA software, designing chips is basically a fantasy for Huawei.
Although there are also outstanding EDA software companies in China, such as the leading company BGI Jiutian, there is still a big gap between the overall strength of BGI Jiutian and the three giants.
If Huawei uses BGI Jiutian's EDA software to design chips, its efficiency and quality are completely foreseeable.
Therefore, although Huawei HiSilicon is a top chip design company, it is also difficult to move forward and has many obstacles under the sanctions and suppression of the United States.
At present, Huawei is basically locked in all aspects of the chip industry chain by the United States. Its situation is quite difficult. It can be said that it has ushered in the "darkest moment" of its development so far.
As the leading company in China's chip industry, this is not only the "darkest moment" for Huawei, but also the "darkest moment" for China's overall chip industry!
Nowadays, under the sanctions and suppression by the United States, it is difficult for Huawei to continue to update and produce new mobile phone chips.
When Huawei’s chip inventory has been sold out, where will its future path go?
Of course, I do not advocate capitulationism. Although the sanctions and suppression by the United States are so cruel, the Chinese have always been hard-core.
In today's "darkest moment" reality, it is even more necessary for various companies in the domestic overall chip industry to work together to overcome the difficulties.
As the saying goes, "Unity is strength." I believe that with the collective efforts of the Chinese people, we will eventually usher in a better tomorrow.