Huawei Subsidiary Invests in Lithography Machines, Aims to Forge Complete Chip Industry Chain !

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Huawei Unit Invests in Lithography, Aims to Forge Complete Chip Industry Chain
By GT staff reporters Published: Jun 06, 2021 08:13 PM

A researcher shows a device produced with the lithography equipment on November 29. Photo: VCG



Huawei is apparently stepping up its foray into the field of lithography machines, which are crucial in chip production, shortly after releasing its self-developed operating system HarmonyOS, further reflecting the Chinese telecom giant's goal to develop a complete industry chain to survive amid the US' crackdown.

Hubble Technology Investment, Huawei's fully owned subsidiary, recently invested 82 million yuan ($12.8 million) to become the seventh-largest stakeholder of Beijing RSLaser Opto-Electronics Technology Co, which focuses on light source system - one of three core technologies - of lithography machines.

Huawei's investment arm was established in April 2019 and has thus far invested in 28 semiconductor-related enterprises, including Epiworld International Co, NineCube, North Ocean Photonics and Zhonglan Electronic Technology Co.

The investment field covers analog chips, silicon carbide materials, power chips, artificial intelligence chips, automotive communication chips, and connectors, according to information from corporate data platform qcc.com.

"Huawei's move is mainly intended to offset loopholes and shortcomings caused by US restrictions, while supporting enterprises with high recognition to produce a higher level of products through investments. This is crucial for reducing China's reliance on certain countries and enterprises in the global semiconductor industry," Fu Liang, a veteran telecom industry analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that high-quality products can be adapted to other fields.

A source close to Huawei told the Global Times recently that Huawei has been forced to rely on domestic wafer foundries to fabricate 14- and 28-nanometer chips, as all manufacturers capable of fabricating 7-nm chips have been banned by the US from supplying Huawei.

"Huawei is actually investing in its strategic resources, which will have a significant impact on the company's development strategy, as it wants to make a big difference in lithography," Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The shortage of lithography machines is a big problem, as they are essential to the chip manufacturing process. Without these machines, Huawei's production and customer volume will be affected, Xiang said.

Analysts said that lithography machines are crucial to building the ecosystem of the chip industry, and RSLaser Opto-Electronics independently designed and developed the first domestic high-energy excimer laser, which broke the long-term monopoly of foreign manufacturers.

"Lithography machines and light sources determine the degree of precision of chips, but the global supply is still dominated by certain enterprises, so Huawei's investment in the lithography field aims to reduce its reliance on foreign companies," said Fu.

China actually has lithography machines, but the key problem is to solve issues related to developing light sources to achieve an upgrading in ultraviolet technology for the sake of making more refined chips, Xiang added.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225521.shtml

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Not waiting for the lithography machine? Huawei releases "big move", Chinese chip overtaking is expected
2021/06/08 20:22:46
Huawei has released a "big move"
Huawei has been developing in the chip field for more than ten years, and has never experienced too much setbacks. The problem will be overcome sooner or later. However, the external market environment factors make it necessary to readjust the accumulation for many years. Basically, OEM and procurement are not very feasible, and no one knows how long the current state can be maintained, so prepare early.

Huawei has promised that it will not stop its investment in HiSilicon and will continue to develop chips. Sure enough, Huawei did what it said. In early February, it released its "big move" and brought brand new chip patent technology.

According to public information, Huawei's newly applied chip patent is called "Optical Computing Chip, System and Data Processing Technology", but a short patent name reveals many key words. The three keywords of "optical computing chip", "system" and "data processing" almost all point to new areas.

And unlike traditional electronic chips, if Huawei's patents clearly point to chips in the optical computing field, it is equivalent to photonic chips. The understanding of electronic and photonic chips is actually not difficult. Electronic chips are electronic components created by traditional technology.

Whether it is Kirin 9000 or A14 belongs to electronic chips, all electronic components on the market can be collectively called electronic chips, and dominate the market for decades. It wasn't until Moore's Law fell into sluggishness that the future of the photonic chip became clear.

The advantages of photonic chips
Electrons and photons are very different. One is development and stability, but under the constraints of the physical limits of the chip, it will come to an end sooner or later. Another early development may be more difficult, but compared to electronics, it has faster speed and more ideal power consumption performance.

If we can break the existing industry's regulatory thinking and blaze a new trail, it may not be impossible. And the advantages of photonic chips are very obvious.

First of all, the first photon is currently the fastest particle in the world. After the optical technology developed in the industry is applied to the communication field, a qualitative leap has been achieved. This feature allows the chip to have a faster speed in actual calculations. In theory, the calculation speed of a photonic chip can surpass that of electrons by 1,000 times.

The second is to get rid of the demand for high-end technology. As we all know, if chip processors want to achieve better performance, they must increase the number of transistors that can be accommodated. The more transistors, the stronger the computing power. At the same time, the requirements for the chip manufacturing process are also very strict, and only then has the 5nm process.

Take Kirin 9000 as an example, it can hold 15.3 billion transistors after adopting 5nm process technology. But Moore's Law tends to be slow, and the number of transistors that can be accommodated in the future will become less and less.

At this time, photonic chips with faster computing speeds can hope to achieve the computing power required by electronic chips as long as they are built with mature technology. With faster and better efficiency, it reaches the level of existing high-end electronic chips, thus getting rid of the demand for high-end technology.

Overtaking in corners is expected
The photonic chip has not been widely used in practice, and the supporting system of software and hardware is still in the exploratory stage. But this is precisely the importance of the photonic chip. What others have already done and done very well, if you do it yourself, you will already lag behind others when you start.

Since everyone has not done it, then explore and develop by yourself. Once you make progress, you will be ahead of the industry. Judging from the major characteristics and advantages of photonic chips, perhaps by using the existing mature technology, a chip comparable to the high-end manufacturing process can be manufactured.

It seems that Huawei is not waiting for lithography machines. Huawei has applied for related patented technology, which shows that it is already in development. If the photonic chip is promising in the future, then the Chinese chip is expected to overtake the corner. If you can't overtake in a straight line, overtake in a curve.

Summary
Moore's Law is getting close to the dwindling day, and it is possible that within the next ten years, the chip technology manufactured by humans will come to an end. At that time, chip technology cannot meet the needs of science and technology, can human civilization still progress? Just like the top technology ten years ago, it has already been eliminated by now.

If the chip stopped at that time, would there be everything now? Therefore, the development of science and technology must consider the future, and the path of electronic chips should let the photonic chip go down.