Now unable to have its custom Kirin chips manufacturered by TSMC, can Huawei’s mobile division survive the increasingly brutal US trade embargo?
A Huawei executive’s recent suggestion that the Huawei Mate 40 series will quite likely be the last of the company’s phones to feature its in-house Kirin silicon was both shocking and inevitable. With US trade sanctions against the Chinese giant now extending as far as foreign chipmakers that use or license and US technology, this prevents TSMC or Samsung from manufacturing chips for Huawei. Without a manufacturing partner, Huawei’s Kirin is no more. Simple as that. Of course, this would also have a knock-on effect Huawei’s routers, switches, and other bits of hardware that all use Kirin silicon. What happens next is a quagmire of trade rules and weighing up options that may or may not pan out. Read more: The Huawei and US debacle: The story so far Huawei could look to China’s own Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) to manufacturer Kirin. However, even SMIC uses US-made equipment, so even as a short-term option, it would still stir up trouble with Washington. In addition, SMIC is notably behind on cutting edge lithography technology, sat as it is on 14nm FinFET versus TSMC’s 7nm FinFET and soon to be 5nm EUV processes. SMIC isn’t close to replacing TSMC as a premium-tier manufacturing option. Alternatively, Huawei is still allowed to procure chips from rival designers, providing they aren’t US-based. Qualcomm is obviously out of the question and Samsung doesn’t have a track record of selling large numbers of Exynos chips to outsiders. This leaves MediaTek. Huawei has already begun using MediaTek chips for some of its more affordable phones. Meanwhile, industry insiders suggest that Huawei purchases from MediaTek will surge by up to 300% this year as a result of the trade ban.
