Chinese semiconductor industry

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Oldschool

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Huawei should not directly get involved in fabrication. Instead it should invest in and support third party fabricators. The industry trend is towards fabless, this model has proven to work better. Going back to vertical integration will not work for Huawei, they should focus on their core competency.
They did. Until TSMC , Samsung, and SMIC ditched it under US sanction.
You sound as if Huawei has any choices.
 

Oldschool

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Do you have an estimate for the time of completion? Also, can the chip they patented be used for general applications like phones, or is it something specialized?
Not sure about completion date. My feeling is phone maybe too small for this. Photonics needs a solid state laser. An example would be a DVD rom. The photonic chip gonna be bigger. I would think they target base station, server..
 

Oldschool

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vscel is for stuff like LIDAR.

View attachment 68776

I'd assume Huawei is doing it for the automotive lidar systems.

gotta make money with >45nm fab.

View attachment 68777
I don't believe Huawei photonic fab is also the 45nm fab. 45nm is purely digital cmos standardized process. I believe the 45nm fab is delegated to Shanghai ICRD. Whereas photonics and vscel require specialized process and material.
Hisilicon applied patent for photonic chip.
And because it uses photon it requires a laser source, vscel. They could use that fab to produce for lidar also
.
 

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
What? I was not even making any suggestions before the sanction. :) Huawei is right to invest in chip manufacture, just that IDM is a bad model. Intel has proved it, AMD has, Qualcomm has, every Japanese electronics maker has, etc. TSMC and SMIC proved that dedicated fabrication is the way to go. The same for other elements of the supply chain. Samsung is an outlier... it will probably will fall behind as well.
Having most companies fail but one succeed doesn't prove that a model doesn't work; it proves that the right type of company can make it work. Predicting that Samsung will fall behind doesn't lend credibility to your claim either because it's imaginary. Huawei is more similar to Samsung than to any of those that you mentioned, except that Huawei is backed by China, which has more resources, talent and manpower than several Koreas compounded. If Samsung can make it work, Huawei can make it work better.
 

horse

Colonel
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The chip shortages caused by TSMC blackballing European car makers are producing a reaction in EU.
Forget where I read this, the reason some believe there is a chip shortage at the moment, the reason is Huawei.

When President Trump continued his attacks against Huawei, the semiconductors were placed on the restricted list.

What Huawei did naturally was stockpile chips, to hold them over until they figure something out. That stockpile has to last a couple of years at least.

It was only last month, that we find out that Huawei was not the only company hording chips back last summer. A few companies were doing it, as it is alleged Samsung was hording chips too.

Seems like certain companies have stockpiles, while other companies have no inventory and have to actually stop production.

Here is some stuff we do not know about.

It appears no Chinese company has come out on record that they have run of chips, unlike the western car manufacturer. Why is that? TSMC reportedly worked non-stop to get Huawei their chips before the restriction deadline.

TSMC says they are fully booked, which is true. Apple will get their chips. What about the others? Well, TSMC is fully booked. No soup for you.

That's the real world. It's complicated.

Could this mean a black market for high end chips is developing due to shortages? Could be. We only need to look at what happened to PPE gear during the spring in the west during the pandemic.

Who knows.

:p
 

Oldschool

Junior Member
Registered Member
2012 年,华为收购英国光子集成公司 CIP;

 2013 年,华为收购了比利时硅光技术开发商 Caliopa 公司。


也就是通过这两项收购,华为正式进入了光通信芯片市场,成为首家掌握硅光子技术的国内厂商


此外,据英国《金融时报》报道,华为在上海正准备建立一个芯片组工厂,这个工厂将由总部设在上海的研发公司直接代表华为进行管理,且不会使用任何源自美国的技术,根据规划,该工厂将在 2021 年底开始生产 45 nm 芯片组,并采用 28 nm 光刻技术。力争在 2022 年使用 20nm 以下的先进工艺来制造专门服务于旗下电信部门的芯片。


回过头,我们再来看武汉华为光工厂,它是否是华为海思的项目呢

值得一提的是,华为选择在武汉建立光芯片工厂,一方面与武汉光谷的定位、发展有关,从上世纪 80 年代开始,武汉光谷用了近 30 年的时间,成为全球最大的光纤光缆生产基地、光电器件研发基地、激光产业基地、是中国最大的光电子产业集聚地。目前在光电领域,只有武汉和西安,是跑在全国最前面的,武汉有光谷,西安有国家光电研究所。另一方面,华为海思的磷化铟实验室本就建在这里,是一条磷化铟的中试线。磷化铟(InP)是第二代化合物半导体材料,具有电子迁移率高、耐辐射性能好、禁带宽度大等优点,在光子和射频领域拥有关键优势,是军事通信、雷达和辐射测量等性能驱动型利基市场以及自动测试设备的首选。因此,研发、生产集中在一个有需求、有服务、有配套的地方,有助于降本,这也在侧面证明武汉光芯片工厂是海思的阵地

In 2012, Huawei acquired CIP, a British photonic integration company;  In 2013, Huawei acquired Caliopa, a Belgian silicon light technology developer. Through these two acquisitions, Huawei officially entered the optical communication chip market and became the first domestic manufacturer to master silicon photonics technology.


In addition, according to the British "Financial Times" report, Huawei is preparing to establish a chipset factory in Shanghai. This factory will be directly managed by a Shanghai-based R&D company on behalf of Huawei and will not use any technology originating from the United States. According to the plan , The factory will begin production of 45 nm chipsets by the end of 2021, and will use 28 nm lithography technology. Strive to use advanced processes below 20nm in 2022 to manufacture chips dedicated to serving its telecommunications sector.



It is worth mentioning that Huawei chose to build an optical chip factory in Wuhan. On the one hand, it is related to the positioning and development of Wuhan Optics Valley. Since the 1980s, Wuhan Optics Valley has taken nearly 30 years to become the world’s largest optical fiber. The optical cable production base, the optoelectronic device research and development base, and the laser industry base are the largest gathering place for the optoelectronic industry in China. At present, in the field of optoelectronics, only Wuhan and Xi'an are in the forefront of the country. Wuhan has Optics Valley and Xi'an has the National Institute of Optoelectronics. On the other hand, Huawei HiSilicon’s indium phosphide laboratory was originally built here, which is a pilot line for indium phosphide. Indium Phosphide (InP) is a second-generation compound semiconductor material. It has the advantages of high electron mobility, good radiation resistance, and large forbidden band width. It has key advantages in the field of photonics and radio frequency, such as military communications, radar, and radiation measurement. The first choice for performance-driven niche markets and automated test equipment. Therefore, the concentration of R&D and production in a place where there is demand, service, and supporting facilities will help reduce costs. This also proves that Wuhan Optical Chip Factory is the position of HiSilicon

±±++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hisilicon had an indium phosphate InP lab at wuhan awhile back. That's why Huawei build this fab at wuhan. InP is a key material for photodetector
 
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Oldschool

Junior Member
Registered Member
2012 年,华为收购英国光子集成公司 CIP;

 2013 年,华为收购了比利时硅光技术开发商 Caliopa 公司。


也就是通过这两项收购,华为正式进入了光通信芯片市场,成为首家掌握硅光子技术的国内厂商


此外,据英国《金融时报》报道,华为在上海正准备建立一个芯片组工厂,这个工厂将由总部设在上海的研发公司直接代表华为进行管理,且不会使用任何源自美国的技术,根据规划,该工厂将在 2021 年底开始生产 45 nm 芯片组,并采用 28 nm 光刻技术。力争在 2022 年使用 20nm 以下的先进工艺来制造专门服务于旗下电信部门的芯片。


回过头,我们再来看武汉华为光工厂,它是否是华为海思的项目呢

值得一提的是,华为选择在武汉建立光芯片工厂,一方面与武汉光谷的定位、发展有关,从上世纪 80 年代开始,武汉光谷用了近 30 年的时间,成为全球最大的光纤光缆生产基地、光电器件研发基地、激光产业基地、是中国最大的光电子产业集聚地。目前在光电领域,只有武汉和西安,是跑在全国最前面的,武汉有光谷,西安有国家光电研究所。另一方面,华为海思的磷化铟实验室本就建在这里,是一条磷化铟的中试线。磷化铟(InP)是第二代化合物半导体材料,具有电子迁移率高、耐辐射性能好、禁带宽度大等优点,在光子和射频领域拥有关键优势,是军事通信、雷达和辐射测量等性能驱动型利基市场以及自动测试设备的首选。因此,研发、生产集中在一个有需求、有服务、有配套的地方,有助于降本,这也在侧面证明武汉光芯片工厂是海思的阵地

In 2012, Huawei acquired CIP, a British photonic integration company;  In 2013, Huawei acquired Caliopa, a Belgian silicon light technology developer. Through these two acquisitions, Huawei officially entered the optical communication chip market and became the first domestic manufacturer to master silicon photonics technology.


In addition, according to the British "Financial Times" report, Huawei is preparing to establish a chipset factory in Shanghai. This factory will be directly managed by a Shanghai-based R&D company on behalf of Huawei and will not use any technology originating from the United States. According to the plan , The factory will begin production of 45 nm chipsets by the end of 2021, and will use 28 nm lithography technology. Strive to use advanced processes below 20nm in 2022 to manufacture chips dedicated to serving its telecommunications sector.



It is worth mentioning that Huawei chose to build an optical chip factory in Wuhan. On the one hand, it is related to the positioning and development of Wuhan Optics Valley. Since the 1980s, Wuhan Optics Valley has taken nearly 30 years to become the world’s largest optical fiber. The optical cable production base, the optoelectronic device research and development base, and the laser industry base are the largest gathering place for the optoelectronic industry in China. At present, in the field of optoelectronics, only Wuhan and Xi'an are in the forefront of the country. Wuhan has Optics Valley and Xi'an has the National Institute of Optoelectronics. On the other hand, Huawei HiSilicon’s indium phosphide laboratory was originally built here, which is a pilot line for indium phosphide. Indium Phosphide (InP) is a second-generation compound semiconductor material. It has the advantages of high electron mobility, good radiation resistance, and large forbidden band width. It has key advantages in the field of photonics and radio frequency, such as military communications, radar, and radiation measurement. The first choice for performance-driven niche markets and automated test equipment. Therefore, the concentration of R&D and production in a place where there is demand, service, and supporting facilities will help reduce costs. This also proves that Wuhan Optical Chip Factory is the position of HiSilicon

±±++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hisilicon had an indium phosphate InP lab at wuhan awhile back. That's why Huawei build this fab at wuhan. InP is a key material for photodetector

Fortunately, Huawei acquired some key silicon photonics tech from UK and Belgium in 2012, 2013 before China US tech war. Such acquisition not possible under current condition. Its easier to do certain things back then.

The first product build would optical transceiver used in telecom.

From the perspective of composition, the optical chip is composed of multiple types of components, including laser chip, modulator chip, coupler chip, beam splitter chip, wavelength division multiplexer chip, detector chip, etc. After these chips/devices are integrated , Coupled with peripheral circuits, form an optical communication module, which is finally used in the construction of optical networks such as routers, base stations, transmission systems, and access networks.

Huawei will become optical module supplier to ZTE. Also the same fab can make Lidar radar for cars.
 
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Oldschool

Junior Member
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For people gadgetcool5 whom doesn't really understand technology. There is no going fabless for huawei. silicon photonics fab. Its a specialized material fab where mostly vanilla digital logic foundry like TSMC , SMIC cannot provide.
This will be Huawei core competency down the road.good thing is equipments for fab can be sourced domestically. If lithography used it doesn't have the strict requirement like digital chip manufacturing.

Huawei probably not going touch digital logic chip manufacturing. It gives to ICRD. At least not for now.
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
For people gadgetcool5 whom doesn't really understand technology. There is no going fabless for huawei. silicon photonics fab. Its a specialized material fab where mostly vanilla digital logic foundry like TSMC , SMIC cannot provide.
This will be Huawei core competency down the road.good thing is equipments for fab can be sourced domestically. If lithography used it doesn't have the strict requirement like digital chip manufacturing.

Huawei probably not going touch digital logic chip manufacturing. It gives to ICRD. At least not for now.
Most of the current fab equipment on the market can be repurposed for the materials specific to photonic chips. It would take new R&D on fabrication process, but there’s no fundamental incompatibility with the current manufacturing technologies.
 
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