Exclusive|Xu Zhijun: Huawei has overcome some key links of independent substitution

Huawei Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun in his speech

Text | Xie Lirong

On February 28, Huawei held a summary and commendation meeting at its headquarters in Shenzhen, where rotating chairman Xu Zhijun disclosed the latest progress of Huawei's software design tools for the first time.

Xu Zhijun said that Huawei has completed the localization of EDA tools above 14nm in the chip field, and will complete full verification this year; Huawei's three R&D production lines (hardware development, software development, and chip development) have replaced 78 software tools for software/hardware development, which can basically ensure the continuity of R&D operations.

Xu Zhijun emphasized in this speech that although Huawei has made a lot of achievements in product development tools breakthroughs in the past three years, it still faces arduous challenges, and there are many product development tools that have not completely made breakthroughs, and Huawei needs to redouble its efforts to attract more global talents in order to achieve strategic breakthroughs.

Software development tools are the foundation of all hardware and software product development, design and operation and maintenance, without software development tools, from the underlying chip, to the middle-layer operating system, database, middleware, to the upper-layer software applications and services.

Taking the EDA tools required for processes above 14nm disclosed by Xu Zhijun this time as an example, EDA is an indispensable and important part of chip IC design, covering all processes such as integrated circuit design, wiring, verification and simulation, running through the entire chip industry chain, and each tool is intertwined, known as the "mother of chips".

Under the premise that the US government is increasingly banning Chinese chip exports, the autonomy of the EDA design tools required for processes above 14nm mentioned by Xu Zhijun is of great significance.

The global EDA software is mainly monopolized by Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens EDA, which can provide complete EDA tools covering the whole process or most of the integrated circuit design and manufacturing process. Chinese companies have been laying out the EDA field for many years, but domestic EDA is mainly point tools, the tool chain is incomplete, and it mainly meets the requirements of low-end processes.

Since EDA is at the forefront, EDA must be more advanced than the chip process. 14nm is a mid-range chip process. EDA itself is extremely complex, and the realization of EDA tool autonomy can basically achieve the prerequisites for semiconductor autonomy.

In the three R&D production lines of hardware, software and chip development mentioned by Xu Zhijun, 78 software tools have been replaced. Huawei should be the first in China to develop a full set of software design tools on three R&D production lines of hardware, software and chip development. This is related to its state, for Huawei, there is no retreat in front of it, and all difficult roads have to be walked again.

According to the information disclosed by Xu Zhijun, Huawei should make the greatest progress in the field of software development tools, and in today's software and hardware integration, without software development tools, it is impossible to ensure the continuity and iterative development of all Huawei service product solutions. As of December 2021, Huawei has 195,000 employees, including 107,000 R&D personnel. The continuity of the software business is crucial to Huawei's survival.

In addition, Huawei's breakthrough in the field of basic tool software in the past three years has been completed together with large and small companies in the domestic industrial chain, and after a set of actions, Huawei has completed a key step in the independent replacement of tool software, and the domestic related industrial chain has been upgraded and integrated.

According to Xu Zhijun's speech, Huawei's latest plan is to open some software design tools to the outside world through HUAWEI CLOUD. This implies a message: Huawei does not rule out expanding its market capabilities in the field of basic software.

From a development perspective, this provides a new option for some software companies. At present, a large number of Chinese enterprises generally directly purchase US software development commercial tools in terms of software design tools, or choose domestic software tools, but the domestic software tool chain relies heavily on open source technology packaging, once sanctioned in the future, open source technology platform is disabled, which will directly lead to business shutdown. For enterprises, whether to choose design software based entirely on Huawei's independent technology needs to consider more practical factors.

The following is the full text of Xu Zhijun's speech:

Today is both a commendation meeting and an oath meeting, congratulating the winning teams and individuals in the breakthrough of one of the "Wujiang natural risks" - product development tool software, and especially thanking all partners and all heroes who have made contributions in the process of tool software research.

On May 16, 2019, the United States put Huawei on the Entity List, and all US products, chips, and devices cannot be provided to Huawei without permission, nor can they provide services to Huawei.

For a time, all U.S. companies that provide Huawei with product development tools and software and other companies with American components in their products have stopped upgrading and services, and we can only rely on tool software that cannot be upgraded and have a limited license period for chip design, single board design, structural design and simulation verification, and software development, or soon enter the situation where no product development tools are available. This is just like the Wujiang natural danger that was on the way of the Red Army, and only by breaking through the "Wujiang natural risk" and achieving a strategic breakthrough can we continue to develop products - that is, to create leading product development tools and software from ore and sand to products, and completely get rid of the dependence on development tool software.

First, in the past three years, we have worked hard to build our tools around three R&D production lines of hardware development, software development and chip development, and completed the replacement of 78 software tools for software/hardware development, ensuring the continuity of R&D operations.

The software development tool development team has been laying out since 2018, striving to build a complete set of tool chains for software from coding, compilation, testing, security, build, release to deployment, etc., and adopts the strategy of self-research and joint research and development with partners to solve the problem of tool continuity. This not only supports the software development of more than 100,000 software engineers, but also provides external services based on HUAWEI CLOUD to achieve internal and external consistency.

The hardware development tool development team, with the support and help of partners, broke through the root technology, introduced new architectures, released cloud-native schematic tools, created high-speed and high-density PCB layout tools, polished structural design 2D/3D CAD tools, and laid out hardware multidisciplinary simulation tools.

The chip design EDA tool team and EDA companies in the United Nations have jointly created EDA tools required for processes above 14nm, basically realizing the localization of EDA tools above 14nm, and will complete their full verification in 2023.

As of today, we and our partners have released 11 product development tools, and all product lines have been switched to our own tools, which can also be used by partners and customers on HUAWEI CLOUD. More than 200,000 software developers, 197,000 hardware developers are using our tools or our partners every month, and 203 companies are willing to pay to use our software tools, which is a recognition of the development tools team.

Second, although we have made a lot of achievements in product development tool breakthroughs over the years, there are still many challenges, and there are many product development tools that have not completely broken through, which require us to work non-stop and redouble our efforts to continuously attract global talents and achieve a strategic breakthrough.

1. The product development tools and software that have been put into use and released to the outside world should be user-centered, strive to improve user experience, continue to optimize based on user needs and technological progress, and ensure the continuous leadership of tools in order to effectively support the efficiency and quality of product development engineers.

2. For product development tools and software that have not made breakthroughs, such as optical simulation software and multiphysics simulation software, it is necessary to find professional talents on a global scale, and continue to support partners to use new technologies and architectures such as cloud and AI to break through key problems.

3. HUAWEI CLOUD should develop some common and difficult technologies required for tool software, and use them as services for tool developers to call to help tool developers quickly launch products and be competitive. It is necessary to establish the engineering data standard of the tool software and open up the data of the tool software. At the same time, we should support the cloudification of tool software, and work with partners to base tool software on HUAWEI CLOUD services for all customers.

4. The tools and software developed by ourselves first serve Huawei internally, and then provide external services based on HUAWEI CLOUD, which are consistent internally and externally. HUAWEI CLOUD cooperates with tool software vendors to provide services under the brand of tool vendors.

5. It is necessary to promote colleges and universities to accelerate the construction of tool software courses and talent training systems, and cultivate tool software talents. At the same time, it is necessary to take the lead in using all the published tools and software in colleges and universities, so that students can use these tools and software from the beginning of contact with the tools to form a spark.

"Xiongguan Mando is really like iron, and now step forward from the beginning", break through the "Wujiang natural danger", the clarion call to achieve a strategic breakthrough has been sounded, the battle flag has been awarded, looking forward to the development of product development tools and software The soldiers will meet victoriously on December 31, 2024, and put all software, hardware, chips... The development tools are released to the community. Let us live up to our mission, live up to Shaohua, and forge ahead! Thank you!