Huawei reportedly plans to set up a chip factory without U.S. technology

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The British Financial Times reported on November 1 that a person familiar with the matter was quoted as saying that the Chinese technology giant Huawei is formulating a plan to set up a chip factory in Shanghai that is accused of not using US technology, so that the company can be subject to US sanctions. The required materials are still being obtained for the core telecommunications infrastructure business. According to the report, the manufacturing plant is expected to start manufacturing low end 45nm chips. Huawei's goal is to manufacture 28 nanometer chips for Internet of Things equipment by the end of 2021 and 20 nanometer chips for 5G telecom equipment by the end of 2022.

According to the report, Huawei has no experience in manufacturing chips. According to two people familiar with the matter, the plant will be operated by Huawei's partner, the Shanghai Integrated Circuit R&D Center supported by the Shanghai Municipal Government. According to the information on its official website, this R&D center is a national integrated circuit R&D center supported by the Chinese government to establish and cooperate with production, education and research.

An informed semiconductor industry executive said, the planned new production line will not help the smartphone business because the chipsets required for smartphones need to be produced at more advanced technology nodes. However, a senior executive also said, If it succeeds, it can become a bridge for the company’s infrastructure business toward a sustainable future.

A few days ago, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei pointed out that the current difficulty Huawei is facing is the advanced chips they design, which the domestic basic industries cannot make. However, some people in the industry pointed out that the software used by Huawei to design chips also relies on a lot of foreign software. In addition, in early September this year, the then rotating chairman Guo Ping also responded to the chip issue. He said that he will continue to maintain their investment in HiSilicon and at the same time help front end partners to improve and build their own capabilities. He believe they will have a stronger HiSilicon in a few years.

According to another report, at the Mate 40 mobile phone press conference a few days ago, a Huawei partner told AI Finance and Economics that they had just participated in a Huawei partner meeting a few days ago. A Huawei leader specifically emphasized that 20 billion has been invested. U.S. dollars are used in fields such as chips.