Chip pain is not sudden death, see how Huawei "revives"

On May 17, He Tingbo, president of Huawei HiSilicon, announced the "spare tire to regular" plan, which immediately excited the nation and received thumbs up from the entire network.

However, although feelings are important, technical matters can never be achieved overnight. Now let us put aside our enthusiasm and slogans for the time being and analyze the situation rationally.

There is no doubt that Huawei has a strong sense of crisis and a very accurate strategic direction.

According to the Financial Times, Huawei began to increase its component inventory after the Canadian incident earlier this year, with an initial target of 6-9 months, and then raised the target to 1 to 2 years.

Huawei's rotating CEO Xu Zhijun said in an internal speech at Huawei's annual work conference in February 2019

"We now have a team of more than 8,000 people working day and night for business continuity, without holidays."

There is also a key sentence:

"Consumer business is a little different from ICT infrastructure business. In terms of business continuity, we are basically not dependent on the United States. Although we use American devices on a large scale, we can achieve independence, which is a more practical point."

At the same time, there are rumors that by the end of 2018, Huawei's inventory was extended from six months to two years. All chips that can be transferred to domestic suppliers have been transferred to domestic suppliers, and the purchase volume of all orders is at least twice as much as before. There are also family members of domestic supplier employees who confirmed that they are currently rushing to meet Huawei's orders and shipping as soon as possible.

It seems that the relatively sufficient inventory has also left Huawei with a certain R&D buffer period, allowing time for the results in the "safe" to be verified and produced.

In 2002, Huawei and Cisco began a ten-year legal battle. Ren Zhengfei's sense of crisis made him realize that he had to reduce his dependence on American chips. By October 2004, Huawei's sales reached 46.2 billion yuan, and with a certain confidence, it established Shenzhen HiSilicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd. based on its own ASIC design center, which is what we often call "Huawei HiSilicon" now.

According to the latest data released by IC Insights, HiSilicon ranks 14th among the world's semiconductor manufacturers, and for the first time surpassed MediaTek to become the number one fabless chip company in Asia and the fourth in the world.

From public information, among the products HiSilicon has released, the product lines involve mobile phones, servers, set-top boxes, security, TV, network communication, AI and other fields, and the product forms are mainly SoC and ultra-large-scale digital circuits. Moreover, the product lines such as mobile phones, security, and set-top boxes have reached the first-tier level, which also shows that digital chip design is HiSilicon's strength. In terms of analog, although Huawei's self-developed analog chips appeared in the disassembly of the P30 mobile phone, HiSilicon's analog works are still too few, which is not enough to prove that HiSilicon has a great advantage in analog device design.

Let’s take stock of Huawei’s main US semiconductor suppliers and their products in 2018: Intel (computing and storage), XILINX (FPGA chips and video encoding), Micron (storage products), Qualcomm (modulation and demodulation chips), ADI (analog and digital mixed signals), ON Semiconductor (optical image stabilization, tunable resonant RF devices), Ospirent (verification and testing business), Synopsys (artificial intelligence mobile phone chips and software security assessment), Skyworks (RF chips), Qorvo (RF solutions), Cypress (sensors), Broadcom (WIFI+BT modules, positioning hub chips), TI (DSP and analog chipsets), Cadence (EDA software), and Maxim (analog signal chain products).

Among them, Synopsys and Cadence provide software tools for chip design and verification, which is also the link that netizens are most worried about. However, according to the limited channels that the editor has learned, it is said that HiSilicon has its own EDA software, but the products of the above two companies are still mainly used. However, once the EDA software license is authorized, it will not be taken back. It is just that it cannot be purchased and upgraded to a new version. The old version can be used after paying. This will give Huawei time to gradually replace the above products that have been purchased.

The same is true for the ARM core used in HiSilicon's own SoC. Although ARM is owned by SoftBank, it will also be subject to jurisdiction because it uses US intellectual property. However, the US Export Control Regulations cannot be traced back to products that have been sold before, and the ARM architecture has been permanently licensed. Even if Huawei is no longer authorized to release a new version, Huawei can continue to develop it on its own based on the previously purchased version. The following picture is Huawei's explanation of the public's doubts about the autonomy of the ARM architecture at a marketing event in January 2019. Huawei has a permanent license for the ARM V8 architecture, which is the latest commercial architecture. Huawei can design processors completely independently without being restricted by the external environment.

Many netizens are worried that the FPGA provided by XILINX is a product that is difficult to replace. However, HiSilicon's strong digital circuit design skills are its advantage. Although replacing FPGA with ASIC is not a good solution, it is also a possible way. Moreover, the research and development of domestic FPGAs is not without progress. It is reported that domestic FPGA manufacturers are actively investing and catching up. In the military field, they mainly include Ziguang Tongchuang, Fudan Microelectronics Institute, HuaWei Electronics, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 58th Institute, Aerospace 772nd Institute, etc.; in the civilian field, the main companies include Guangdong Gaoyun, Shanghai Anlu, Xi'an Zhiduojing, Shanghai Aoxinge, etc.

Similarly, the problem of replacing digital chips supplied by other US companies is believed to be relatively easy for HiSilicon to overcome.

Among the above-mentioned US companies, Skyworks, Qorvo, and Broadcom are mainly responsible for the supply of RF devices. It is reported that Huawei has used some self-developed RF chips, and HiSilicon is also capable of handling WTR, NC, and PA in RF. In addition, possible potential suppliers include Jiangsu Zhuosheng Microelectronics (a company whose main business is the research, development, and sales of RF front-end chips, which are mainly used in mobile smart terminals such as smartphones. The IPO application was approved on May 16) and Japanese and Korean manufacturers such as Murata.

What is more difficult is the replacement of analog signal chain chips, that is, the products provided by TI, ADI, and Maxim mentioned above. Analog chip design is not HiSilicon's forte (at least there is no advantage in the current products, and I hope there will be surprises in the safe). At present, the development of domestic analog chips is still relatively backward, and analog design is a job that relies on long-term experience accumulation and is difficult to achieve quickly. Therefore, the editor boldly speculates that Huawei may turn to products from European or Japanese manufacturers. However, the domestic analog chip industry should really be strengthened, otherwise the crisis will not be truly eliminated, and there is no construction without destruction.

The US crackdown on Huawei has touched the hearts of hundreds of millions of Chinese people. The semiconductor industry, or the more general electronic information industry, has always been known for its numerous sub-sectors, highly complex industrial chains, and high technical barriers. It should not and cannot be the responsibility of Huawei alone to tackle such a tough problem. We hope that the development of the entire industrial chain of the country can promote overall development and control our own destiny.