Chinese semiconductor industry

UniSoc (i.e. Spreadtrum) supposedly got an infusion of HiSilicon engineers several months back.
That is likely to be the Chinese champion against MediaTek and Qualcomm in the future.
Given typical chip design cycles I expect their work to show up in two years time.

Notice how with Trump's moves:
- Qualcomm stops their deal where they fab older 4G chips at SMIC.
- Huawei is forced to buy older 4G from Qualcomm.
- Huawei cannot fab their own 5G chips anywhere.

The 28nm fab will only be good for switching equipment and other backbone settings. I won't be any use in either high-end servers or smartphones. Even for something like Honor they need at least 14nm to be competitive. I think at 10nm or 7nm node China has a chance to make mass market chips competitive with other offerings (but not at the high-end).

This is why, I think, selling Honor was a mistake. Well, I can understand, it gave Huawei a cash infusion and it increased that division's suppliers list (maybe). But in the long run Huawei needs the low end because that's what Chinese semi factories will produce.

I think Huawei is making a big mistake in paying the bribe to Qualcomm.

Huawei under itself brand already produce all lines of smarpnones from low-end Huawei Y5 to high-end Huawei Mate40, there no need for Honor brand for the low end. In general, the entire division between the Huawei and Honor phone lines was somewhat artificial, even some models were almost completely identical.

Navigator said:

Huawei under itself brand already produce all lines of smarpnones from low-end Huawei Y5 to high-end Huawei Mate40, there no need for Honor brand for the low end. In general, the entire division between the Huawei and Honor phone lines was somewhat artificial, even some models were almost completely identical.

Click to expand...

It was a cheap brand for 3rd world countries to use. That's where the growth in the mobile sector is.
Do you think Samsung started catering to boutique customers like Apple? No, they built cheap products that worked and went from there.

gelgoog said:

The 28nm fab will only be good for switching equipment and other backbone settings. I won't be any use in either high-end servers or smartphones. Even for something like Honor they need at least 14nm to be competitive. I think at 10nm or 7nm node China has a chance to make mass market chips competitive with other offerings (but not at the high-end).

Click to expand...

For some reason, Intel can sell all sorts of server chips to Huawei.

Because the Commerce Department, in its infinite wisdom, says that 5G cellphones have more military applications than cloud computing.

gelgoog said:

It was a cheap brand for 3rd world countries to use. That's where the growth in the mobile sector is.

Click to expand...

There was such an idea at the beginning, but in reality everything turned out differently. Under Huawei brand still produced even cheap pnones and under Honor brand produced some smartphones the price of which is approaching to the top models from Huawei.

gelgoog said:

It was a cheap brand for 3rd world countries to use. That's where the growth in the mobile sector is.
Do you think Samsung started catering to boutique customers like Apple? No, they built cheap products that worked and went from there.

Click to expand...

Huawei produces a lot of cheap smartphones. Honor is straight out redundant and duplication, and Honor also has high end smartphones.

WTAN said:

Looks like this Huawei Phone slated to launch in 2021 will be the first phone to use the new Harmony OS.
There is still a large Market for 4G phones in many parts of the World and especially in developing regions like Africa, South America, South Asia etc.
This will be the perfect Phone Model to promote the Harmony OS.
Huawei has to build up a Ecosystem around Harmony OS.
Harmony OS already has its own Search Engine, Navigation, App Store etc.

Click to expand...

I think as long as those 4g phones offer enough performance so that Huawei can continue to improve their camera work. I think they will be fine competing against the likes of Samsung and google in the high segment.

Do wonder what does 4g chipsets even mean does it mean a 5g modem is not allowed to be baked in on the SOC?
Could Huawei for example buy higher end chips and use their separate 5g chip trading in battery life for more performance?

via broadsword look good
SMIC GETS MASSIVE ORDERS – CUSTOMER DEMAND IS STRONG
Efe Udin EFE UDIN NOVEMBER 26, 2020

SMIC
According to Chinese chip maker, SMIC, it is currently operating normally and smoothly. Furthermore, the company claims that it is actively communicating with relevant US government departments. SMIC is the largest chip foundry in China. To the Chinese, SMIC is what TSMC is to the world. However, the foundry uses some American technologies in its manufacturing process.

Huawei to move from TSMC to SMIC

SMIC said that the company’s customer demand is strong and the orders are full. This means that the foundry is running at full capacity. This year, the company had to review its annual growth rate from 24% to 26%. The annual gross profit target is higher than last year. At present, there is no obvious phenomenon of customer transfer orders. The company maintains a partnership model of active communication and close cooperation with customers.

At a performance briefing two weeks ago, Dr. Yonggang Gao, Chief Financial Officer of SMIC, said that SMIC’s sales revenue reached a record high in the third quarter of 2020, reaching $1.083 billion. This is an increase of 15.3% month-on-month and a year-on-year increase of 32.6%. Strong customer demand, full orders, and quarter-on-quarter growth in average wafer prices were the main factors for revenue growth in the third quarter. In addition, other business income was also one of the main driving forces for business growth in the third quarter. Its gross profit hit a record high, $262 million.

The gross profit margin of 24.2% is higher than the original guidance. This is mainly due to the improvement of product mix, the increase in wafer ASP, and the growth of other business income. The quarter-on-quarter decline in gross profit margin is mainly due to the increase in depreciation costs.

Co-CEO Dr. Liang Mengsong said that SMIC’s 14-nanometer process platform is technically complete. Its chips are already on multiple platforms such as communications, computers, the Internet, and smart vehicles, etc. SMIC’s 14nm process commenced mass-production in the fourth quarter of last year, and the yield has reached the industry’s mass production level. The second-generation advanced process technology n+1 is steadily advancing. The n+1 process is undergoing customer product verification as well as small-volume trial production.

Relative to the first-generation advanced technology, the second-generation technology platform is oriented towards low-cost customization. It improves performance by 20% and reduces power consumption by 57%. Furthermore, it also reduces the logic area by 63% and the integrated system area is 55% smaller. In general, SMIC is cooperating with domestic (Chinese) and foreign customers on more than 10 advanced process tapeout projects. This includes the 14nm and more advanced process technologies

That EUV really makes things easier under 10nm



Good read on new EUV systems coming up

Hi Hendrick_2000,

Thanks for the info, especially on the 14nm which is ready this year and the 7nm next year, just as WTAN, you and others had posted.

Here's the other one, The strategy may look strange but Ren Zhengfei may had taken and follow LIU BOCHENG saying at heart.

WHEN YOU KEEP MEN AND LOSE LAND
THE LAND CAN BE RETAKEN
IF YOU KEEP LAND AND LOSE MEN
YOU LOSE BOTH

from cnTechPost
Huawei's Ren Zhengfei says he wishes Honor to be Huawei's strongest competitor
2020-11-26 19:38:47 GMT+8 | cnTechPost
0


Honor needs to be Huawei's strongest competitor in the world, and surpassing or even beating Huawei can be its self-motivated goal, said Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei.
Huawei recently announced the sale of Honor, and the Huawei President's Office today released a by Ren at Honor's farewell party.

He said that he hoped Huawei and Honor would deal with the separation sensibly, manage strictly according to compliance, strictly abide by international rules, and each achieve their own goals, "we are competitors in the future."

Ren mentioned that Huawei will not drag innocent people down with it because of the blow to itself and that it cannot cause millions of people to lose their jobs in its agents and distributors in 170 countries.
After the spinoff, Honor will need to resume production quickly to solve the difficulties of its upstream and downstream partners, he said.
Huawei's harsh management in the past has transformed a number of young employees into "warriors," "In the past, some of our methods were too cold, I'm sorry," he said, adding, "Today I want to bid you farewell, the same reluctance. ...... take care all the way."