Huawei made a splash in the second half of the year, circumventing U.S. sanctions and launching the Kirin 9000S to the industry, but it has broader goals for the future. To help achieve that goal, some Taiwanese tech companies are helping the Chinese company set up companies across the region to make chips, according to Bloomberg.
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It is already clear that Huawei has built a new chip factory in Shenzhen, which started construction in August this year, but the latest report from Bloomberg did not mention its purpose.
As for the Taiwanese companies that will assist the former Chinese giant in establishing this "secret" chip factory network, TSMC is not among them, but the Chinese subsidiaries of Yaxiang Engineering, Silicon Acer, Hantang Integrated, etc. are named.
The companies' collaboration is said to be crucial to building a state-of-the-art semiconductor factory in Taiwan, so it's safe to assume that their intention is to achieve the same goal in China. The report did not mention what technology these chip factories will produce, nor how these Taiwanese companies plan to provide support to Huawei.
Therefore, it is difficult to determine whether Huawei has actually violated U.S. trade sanctions restrictions. We have mentioned that the mass production of Kirin 9000S is the semiconductor manufacturer SMIC. If it cannot purchase advanced EUV machines from companies such as ASML, it will not be able to surpass the upper limit of 7nm lithography technology.
ASML has been banned from selling any such ultraviolet equipment to SMIC or China. Even so, the report did not detail whether these Taiwanese companies could play any role in helping Huawei produce future smartphones, tablets and automotive chipsets with more advanced manufacturing processes.
However, the report does mention that one of the companies is engaged in research on semiconductor waste management systems, but this still does not provide enough information to explain what Huawei's ultimate goal is in the future. Maybe next year we will have a clearer idea.
Read the original report:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-03/taiwan-tech-companies-are-helping-huawei-build-a-secret-network-of-chip-plants