Recently, Huawei disclosed for the first time an invention patent involving chip stacking technology.
Figure: Chip stacking technology patent
Recently, according to the information published on the official website of the State Intellectual Property Office, Huawei published a chip stacking packaging and terminal equipment patent, and the patent abstract shows that the patent is a semiconductor packaging technology, which can ensure the power supply demand while solving the problem of high cost caused by the use of silicon through-hole technology.
Chip Master has reported that HiSilicon has been promoted to a first-level department, Guo Ping: with stacking, area for performance, in the field of chips that have been plagued by process manufacturing for a long time, Huawei has made two key and far-reaching decisions in 2022.
The first is to enhance hi-Silicon's position in the internal structure (level two becomes level one), disguised as a response to the outside world's concerns about the future of HiSilicon, as a banner of Chinese mainland IC design, HiSilicon will once again accumulate in the familiar adversity.
The second is the first public announcement of chip stacking technology as a development path, and using stacking and area for performance is a reasonable and pragmatic choice at present, which is similar to SMIC, and Huawei has made a lot of related technical reserves before this.
Figure: Chip stacking relies on packaging technology
In fact, chip masters have reported many times that Huawei has been successively laying out non-advanced process chips (IGBTs, car cameras and driver ICs, etc.) and peripheral packaging manufacturing in recent years.
People who understand the situation have revealed that the chip technology patents previously disclosed by Huawei are related to the "dual-core superposition" technology (that is, chip stacking technology) previously exposed, including 3D packaging, heterogeneity, etc. are within the scope of this patent.
Figure: Chip stacking in a 3D package
In December 2021, Huawei also invested 600 million yuan to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary of electronics manufacturing, industrial and commercial information shows that the company is called Huawei Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and its business scope is optical communication equipment manufacturing, optoelectronic device manufacturing, electronic component manufacturing, and semiconductor discrete device manufacturing.
At that time, Huawei insiders said that the company had a certain scale of mass production and small batch trial production (capabilities), but mainly used to meet the system integration needs of its own products. "Chips are not produced, mainly precision manufacturing of some core devices, modules and components."
At the same time, the "semiconductor discrete devices" mentioned in the business scope are mainly the packaging and testing of discrete devices. From this point of view, Huawei has a clear internal planning of the chip stacking route, and has been put into the manufacturing process.