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After three proactive attacks, how did Huawei, which suffered a cut-off of supply, consider continuing to thrive on the high-tech battlefield?

Release on : Sep 24, 2021

After three proactive attacks, how did Huawei, which suffered a cut-off of supply, consider continuing to thrive on the high-tech battlefield?


On September 16, at the 2021 World New Energy Vehicle Conference, Huawei's large-array high-resolution millimeter wave radar and Huawei's recommended AI algorithm-based battery thermal runaway cloud warning technology stood out from 34 innovative technologies and 13 cutting-edge technologies, respectively , Won the Global New Energy Vehicle Frontier and Innovative Technology Award. Wang Jun, BU and COO of Huawei Smart Car Solutions, said at the meeting that the golden age of smart electric vehicles is accelerating.
On September 17, Nikkei and the research institution Cyber ​​Creative Institute investigated more than 20,000 patent applications related to core 6G technologies such as telecommunications, quantum technology, base stations, and AI, and found that China’s patent applications accounted for as high as 40.3%. Ranked first in the world, followed closely by the United States with 35.2%, and Japan ranking third with 9.9%. Nikkei news shows that the 6G patent application submitted by Huawei has helped China become the largest country of 6G patents.
On September 13, at the launch of Huawei's new smart office products, Huawei's executive director and consumer business CEO Yu Chengdong revealed that as of September 12, the number of HarmonyOS 2 upgraded users exceeded 100 million, becoming the world's fastest mobile operation with more than 100 million users system. Hongmeng ecology has begun to take shape. The number of Huawei Hongmeng ecological developers has exceeded 1.2 million, and more than 300 application partners have joined the Hongmeng system.

Under the U.S. ban, Huawei suffered a cut-off of EDA supply. TSMC was unable to manufacture chips for it. Huawei's 5G mobile phones have almost become an absolute success. At the same time, Huawei's mobile phones have limited Google services. Later, Huawei sold Glory decisively and survived with a broken arm.
Huawei's consumer business suffered a huge setback, but Huawei's other businesses did not quickly sink down, but achieved new breakthroughs on multiple tracks. The author sorts out the strategic significance brought by Huawei's latest three attacks.
Huawei has established strategic cooperation with the five major automakers, and the lidar and MDC platforms help the intelligent and connected cars to land
On September 17, Wang Jun, BU and COO of Huawei's Smart Car Solutions, told the media that smart cars have become a hot spot in the industry, and the new generation of consumers are very appreciative of electrified, intelligent, and personalized car products. Reforms on the supply side have also accelerated. Major car companies around the world have increased their new energy vehicle product layout. It is estimated that the global sales of electric vehicles will exceed that of fuel vehicles in 2030, reaching 30 million. The development of new energy vehicles has promoted the development of intelligent and service-oriented vehicles, and has become the core anchor point for the differentiated competitiveness of future vehicles.


Picture: Wang Jun, BU and COO of Huawei Smart Car Solutions Picture from official WeChat of Huawei Smart Car Solutions
Huawei and five automakers reached strategic cooperation


Figure 2: Electronic enthusiasts drawing pictures based on public information
"Huawei does not build cars, Huawei helps car companies build good cars." Wang Jun revealed that Huawei's R&D investment in the field of auto parts has reached 1 billion U.S. dollars, and the R&D team has reached 5,000 people. It has introduced high-end talents through R&D centers in Europe, Japan and China to create high-quality products. Huawei has launched more than 30 types of intelligent auto parts, among which MDC, Lidar, Harmony OS cockpit, AR-HUD, all-in-one powertrain and other products are in the leading position in the industry.
Taking MDC as an example, Bi Shuzhan, Director of the MDC Solution Department of Huawei Smart Car Solutions, brought us a specific analysis. The autonomous driving computing platform, especially the computing platform oriented to L2 to L5, has achieved 10 to 100 times the challenge in hardware engineering and software engineering compared to traditional ECUs. For example, when 200T to 400T, the power is about 100 to 300 watts. Such a large heat dissipation has not been encountered before. There are also engineering problems such as liquid cooling, anti-condensation, and EMC complex environments that face huge challenges. The second layer is the automotive safety challenge. With more than 30 years of long-term accumulation in the fields of chips, hardware systems, operating systems, middleware, and communications security, Huawei can provide specialized computing platforms for automakers.


Huawei can provide car company customers with a series of products for different scenarios, adopting a model of "unified platform architecture, serialized hardware, sharing a set of software, and continuous iteration of functions". This platform supports smooth upgrades of upper-level applications to specific product models. : MDC 810 has 400+TOPS computing power to meet L2+, L3, L4, L5 application scenarios. The current application scenario is urban + high-speed full road conditions; MDC 610 provides 200+TOPS computing power. It is mainly for L4 scenarios. For passenger cars; MDC 210 is 48 TOPS for L2+ scenarios; MDC 300F is for commercial vehicle scenarios, such as mining trucks, high-speed logistics, and parks.
The latest Huawei large-array high-resolution millimeter-wave radar, which won the award at the World New Energy Vehicle Conference, uses 12 transmitting channels and 24 receiving channels. Compared with the conventional millimeter wave 3 transmitter and 4 receiver antenna configuration, it is 24 times higher than the typical industry. The imaging radar has 50% more receiving channels. The horizontal angular resolution is increased by 4 times, the horizontal field of view is increased from 90° to 120°, the vertical field of view is increased from 18° to 30°, and the longitudinal detection range is increased from 200 meters to more than 300 meters. The large-array high-resolution millimeter-wave radar has excellent speed measurement capabilities, excellent weather and light robustness (not affected by light and rain and snow), and unique detection capabilities for non-line-of-sight obscured targets. With the camera, the lidar forms effective fusion and redundancy, and is an indispensable sensor for intelligent driving.
On August 31, 100 Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei Hi version production line verification vehicles officially rolled off the production line, and the road test was fully public. Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei Hi Edition is the world's first equipped with 3 lidars, and it is also the first intelligent driving mass-produced car with urban commuting capabilities. It has Huawei's highest level of intelligent driving. It is reported that Huawei is firmly taking the road of platform + ecology, providing car manufacturers with the basic elements of the car digital platform, reducing the difficulty of developing smart cars. Focusing on the three major computing platforms, the three major domain operating systems, and the multi-domain collaboration framework HAS Core, to build a hardware ecosystem and a software ecosystem, Huawei's circle of friends in the car is still expanding.
Huawei takes the lead, China's 6G patents lead the United States, Japan and Europe
Recently, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei talked about the progress of Huawei's 5G and 6G at a symposium with the Academia Sinica Innovation Pioneer. He said that from a realistic commercial point of view, Huawei should focus on industrial applications of 5G+AI, forming a legion of ports, airports, inverters, data center energy, coal mines, etc., to prepare for the assault.
Why study 6G desperately? Ren Zhengfei believes that 5G is the ability to face the Internet of all things, 6G may be the integration of communication and perception, and studying 6G is to take precautions and seize the patent position. Don't wait until one day when 6G is truly commercialized. Huawei is constrained because it does not have 6G patents. The future growth of 6G may not only be large-bandwidth communications, but may also have detection and perception capabilities, as well as the integration of communication perception. This is a larger scenario than communication, a new network capability that can better support expansion.
Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun wrote in the Xinsheng community that the technical environment of 6G is more complex than that of 5G, and cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, edge computing, heterogeneous computing, and endogenous security will all have an impact. He revealed that Huawei began investing in 6G research when it promoted 5G commercial use in 2017, and it is expected that 6G will be put into the market around 2030.


Picture from Nikkei Asia
According to Nikkei’s research, a survey of more than 20,000 patent applications related to core 6G technologies such as telecommunications, quantum technology, base stations, and AI found that China’s patent applications accounted for 40.3%, ranking first in the world, while the United States accounted for 40.3% of patent applications. The ratio is 35.2%, ranking second. Most of China's patent applications are related to mobile infrastructure technologies, including satellite coverage, radio broadband base stations, etc. Most of the patent applications are submitted by Huawei, as well as state-owned enterprises such as the State Grid Corporation of China and the Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.
In addition, American companies with leading technical strength in the field of terminal devices and software, including IBM, Microsoft, etc., hold 6G related patents. Companies such as Google, Apple, and Intel also participate in the 6G technology research and development alliance Next G Alliance. Seize the opportunity in key technical areas.
Hongmeng system users exceed 100 million! Realize autonomous controllability of domestic mobile phone operating system and IoT operating system
CEIBS Chairman Zhang Jun said at the Shanghai Semiconductor Summit that the main problem of China's high-tech industry is the lack of cores and souls. Chip design and chip packaging are slightly stronger, but chip manufacturing, equipment and technology are all shortcomings. Soul refers to the core software, including EDA design tools and operating systems. The greatest significance of Huawei's Hongmeng system is to prevent the operating system from being monopolized by the United States.
From a strategic point of view, the PC and mobile terminals of the current operating system are almost controlled by American companies. The global market share of Microsoft's Windows system exceeds 90%, that of Google's Android system is 70%, and that of Apple's IOS system is 29%. That is, the US system occupies 99% in the mobile terminal. If the United States is blocked, the domestic mobile phone market may directly collapse. The official push of the Hongmeng system means that the domestic mobile phone operating system is autonomous and controllable.
On June 2 this year, Huawei officially released the Hongmeng system. By June 9th, more than 10 million Hongmeng users have joined. After a month of upgrading, Hongmeng OS has more than 25 million users. Before the end of July, Hongmeng's users increased by more than 40 million. As of August 30, Hongmeng OS has more than 70 million active users. On September 2, Huawei announced that it has more than 90 million users. By September 13, Huawei announced that Hongmeng operating system now has more than 100 million users.
100 million users is a new milestone for Huawei HarmonyOS 2. According to Huawei's official introduction, hundreds of models have been upgraded to Huawei HarmonyOS 2. In the near future, Huawei HarmonyOS 2 will open to upgrade more models, including many old smartphones and tablets from Huawei and Honor. Taking into account the speed of reaching the 100 million milestone, Huawei has raised its target of 300 million units to 400 million units.
The initial consideration in the design of Huawei Hongmeng system is to use a set of operating system to solve the problem of all IoT hardware equipment carrying systems, so as to realize the true interconnection of everything. Huawei has set a "1+8+N strategy" for ecological development. At present, Huawei Hongmeng system has realized the opening of smart screens, smart homes, car machines and other fields. In the future, it is expected that once Hongmeng 3.0 is officially launched, it may be the core mobile phone for the Internet of Everything Completely open up the field, realize the integration and interconnection of different devices, and it is expected to gradually build a brand-new ecosystem in the IoT era.
summary:
After the setbacks of smartphones, Huawei entered the smart car track while striving to ensure the growth of 5G communications and corporate business. It is also a wise choice after more than 30 years of technological strength in chips, communications, semiconductors, and middleware. . From the deployment of 6G patents, the rapid advancement of the smart car division to the breakthrough of the Hongmeng system, Huawei has established a broader growth space for the development of the next 5-10 years.
In addition, in order to achieve independent control in the chip field, Huawei announced that it will continue to develop world-leading semiconductor components internally, and the HiSilicon department will not make any reorganization or layoff decisions. In addition, in 2019, Hubble Investment, a subsidiary of Huawei, was established and deployed 40 companies in three years. Hubble has invested in 34 companies related to semiconductors, involving chip design, EDA, testing, packaging, materials and equipment, and further promote the formation of domestic chip supply chains.