Text/Dong Review/Zi Yang Proofreader/Zhi Qiu
Huawei's sanctions on chips have hindered the supply of high-end chips, which is no longer unfamiliar news for many people in China. For Huawei, although it has long been prepared for the relevant chip ban, it has also hoarded a lot of chips before the ban takes effect.
But with the passage of time, the relevant ban has not ended the trend in the slightest, and huawei's hoarded chips have basically been used. Therefore, for Huawei, it faces a serious problem of chip shortage. Even the chip shortage has seriously affected the development of Huawei's mobile phone business.
Judging from the current development status of Huawei's mobile phone business, when a number of smart phone manufacturers continue to deepen the development layout of 5G mobile phones, Huawei has not had a 5G flagship new machine for a long time due to the shortage of chips. Even the flagship new machine Huawei Mate 50 series, which should have been released in the second half of 2021, has not been able to meet with consumers as scheduled.
All of the above seems to indicate that Huawei's hoarded chips are basically out of stock. However, what is surprising is that Huawei has recently announced surprising news. According to related reports, Huawei said that it expects two new machines Huawei Mate 40E Pro and Huawei P50E to meet with consumers next month.
In addition, according to industry insiders, Huawei's Mate 40E Pro uses a Kirin 9000L chip, which is a proper 5G mobile phone.
This can't help but make a lot of people wonder, where can Huawei get the Kirin chip? Who produced the Kirin 9000L chip used by Huawei's Mate 40E Pro?
The author believes that if the news exposed in the industry is true, Huawei's upcoming new machine Huawei Mate 40E Pro will soon use the Kirin 9000L 5G chip, on the one hand, it may be as many consumers said, before Huawei has a batch of Kirin 9000 defective chips, after frequency reduction and shielding treatment, derived from the Kirin 9000 chip; on the other hand, Huawei did find a chip foundry company to carry out the foundry work of Kirin 9000L. But this chip foundry company will definitely not be TSMC. Industry sources revealed that the new batch of Kirin 9000L chips used by Huawei is produced by Samsung.
As for why TSMC will not help Huawei to manufacture Kirin chips? This point needs to be from what will happen if TSMC insists on going its own way and secretly gives Huawei a foundry chip? Analyze.
First of all, if TSMC insists on acting as Huawei's foundry chip, it is likely that it will not be able to guarantee the supply of EUV lithography machines. In addition, TSMC's existing EUV lithography machine has problems and may not be able to get timely repairs. The reason why TSMC can develop into a global chip foundry giant is inseparable from the blessing of EUV lithography machine.
Secondly, TSMC chose to be an enemy of the United States and forced Huawei's foundry chips, which may lose many orders from American companies. At that time, Samsung and Intel will take this opportunity to swallow the orders spun out by TSMC, and may even seize this opportunity to catch up with TSMC.
Obviously, whether it is unable to guarantee the supply of EUV lithography machines or lose orders from some American companies, it is difficult for TSMC to bear the consequences. Therefore, TSMC, which has always been profitable, cannot offend the United States because of Huawei, no matter from which angle it is analyzed.
Therefore, the possibility of TSMC obstinately acting as Huawei's foundry chip is basically zero.