Huawei has been under the shadow of the US ban since May 2019. A year later, updated sanctions by the US entirely cut the company’s access to American technologies, which the company heavily relied on. Lately, the Chinese tech giant has started to ramp up the fabrication and manufacturing of its own chipsets.
According to recent reports from Chinese media, the company is in talks to open a new chip fabrication plant in Shenzhen, China. The new site will be brought to action with the help of SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation). As per initial predictions, the project will cost tens of billions of dollars.
But the industry believes that money is not a problem for Huawei.
SMIC is the largest contract chip manufacturer in mainland China. According to the reports, Huawei plans to leverage SMIC’s expertise in semiconductor manufacturing and combine it with its own chip fabrication process.
Notably, the brand also sought Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) supply chain for collaboration to expand independent chip manufacturing capabilities through official fundings.
The report further mentions quotes from SMIC saying “Recently, Huawei has come to us to help build a fab in the mainland.”. The quotes further added that Huawei’s principal focus is to acquire adequate equipment and resources to start high-level mass production.
So, Huawei has reached out to members of the “TSMC Alliance.” This, in turn, would help accelerate the process of setting up its fabrication plant while reducing the time to reach mass production.
In addition to chip manufacturing, the project also aims to manufacture chip design tools, semiconductor materials, and compound semiconductors, all of which are vital for chip fabrication.
