Huawei has a new solution to US ban: Build its own chip factory

According to a new report by the Financial Times, Huawei is planning to build its own chipset factory in Shanghai, China. This is supposed to act as the company’s best solution to US ban and keep continuing in the hardware business. The factory is said to also manufacture parts for its telecom hardware business. It is worth adding that Huawei has not seen much success in maintaining the telecom infrastructure in the US. But the new factory can potentially let it bypass the ban.

The new factory is said to run by Shanghai IC R&D Center, Huawei’s partner. For now, the factory is said to be an experiment till it starts making products for user-end products.

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The plan is to start by building 45nm chipsets, followed by 28nm in 2021 and 20nm chipsets in 2022. Although it won’t be the ideal progress speed for Huawei and might just push it behind its rivals in the telecom hardware market, it indeed will be an investment for long term survival.

However, that said, while these chips might be good for IOT devices and 5G network hardware, it won’t be as good for the company’s smartphone business. As it is the firm has been working out on finding a market outside China ever since the US ban.

Although some firms have shown interest in selling parts to Huawei for the chipset, the ban still prevents the firm from buying parts for 5G business.

Just recently, Huawei introduced its Mate 40 flagship smartphone series in China and the highlight of it was the company’s first-ever 5nm-based Kirin 9000 processor.