Huawei's "core-making" goes one step further? Hao smashed 600 million to establish a precision manufacturing company, and already has a certain scale of mass production capacity!
Huawei "Core Making" Precision Manufacturing Company
According to industry and commerce information, Huawei Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd. was formally established on December 28 with a registered capital of 600 million yuan. It is wholly-owned by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and the legal representative is Li Jianguo. Among them, the company's business scope includes manufacturing of optical communication equipment, manufacturing of optoelectronic devices, manufacturing of electronic components, and manufacturing of discrete semiconductor devices.
As soon as the news came out, many netizens speculated that this is the rhythm at which Huawei is about to start producing chips? Some people even said that Huawei is making precision parts for lithography machines.
However, unlike everyone’s guess, a relevant person within Huawei soon said that Huawei Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has a certain scale of mass production and small batch trial production capabilities, but it is mainly used to meet the system integration needs of Huawei's own products. At the same time, the company does not produce chips. Its main business is the precision manufacturing of some core devices, modules, and components of Huawei wireless, digital energy and other products, including assembly and packaging and testing.
In other words, the manufacturing of discrete semiconductor devices mentioned therein is mainly responsible for the subsequent packaging and testing of discrete devices.
There are two major branches in the semiconductor industry, namely integrated circuits and discrete devices. The integrated circuit uses a specific process to interconnect discrete devices such as transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and wiring, and integrate them on a wafer of semiconductor materials. Through different forms of packaging, they become microstructures that can achieve certain functions. To put it simply, our common CPU, FPGA, MCU and other chips all belong to the category of integrated circuits.
Discrete devices are independent parts that implement certain independent functions according to their own material properties or material electrical properties, and are generally divided into optoelectronic devices, sensors, power devices, and so on. Materials such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide, which are well-known to the public with fast charging technology, are used in the manufacture of power devices such as diodes and MOSFETs.
Huawei's own R&D layout in the field of discrete devices
As an important part of discrete devices, with the trend of miniaturization of power equipment and the development of power devices towards high frequency and high voltage, especially in the tide of domestic substitution of semiconductors, power devices based on third-generation semiconductors have received a lot of attention .
In March of this year, after the news broke, Huawei is recruiting a large number of power device R&D talents, including IGBT, MOSFET, and mainstream power devices such as SiC and GaN. The R&D team is said to have hundreds of people.
In September of this year, Huawei’s patent for "Power Semiconductor Packaging Devices and Power Converters" was published. Now it seems that it is indeed consistent with the statement of Huawei insiders that "the main business is the precision manufacturing of some core devices, modules, and components of Huawei's wireless, digital energy and other products, including assembly and packaging and testing."
Earlier in November 2019, it was also reported in the industry that Huawei was recruiting talents from some IGBT manufacturers and preparing to develop IGBTs on its own.
In fact, Huawei set up a power device department in Songshan Lake Base in Dongguan in 2019, mainly for the development of IGBTs for applications such as photovoltaic inverters, UPS, vehicles and base stations. And at this time, it happened to be the point where the United States announced that it had begun to impose a ban on Huawei.
In addition to IGBTs, Huawei has long established a layout on GaN power devices. Huawei released a 65W GaN dual-port super fast charging charger in April 2020 and outsourced it to Sumitomo Electric. According to industry insiders, the core power IC and GaN MOSFET in the charger are likely to be developed by Huawei. Mao Semiconductor foundry.
Not only in the field of consumer electronics, GaN-based discrete devices are also suitable for high-power power supply equipment such as data centers and communication base stations. For Huawei, which has a large market share in the field of communication power supply, it is obvious that investing in research and development of GaN power devices is a wise choice.
In addition, GaN has applications in optoelectronic devices and radio frequency devices. In June 2020, Huawei established an optoelectronics R&D and manufacturing base in the UK, which will develop and manufacture optical devices and communication optical modules. At the same time, GaN also plays an indispensable part of the lidar system. Huawei debuted its lidar products last year. Under the demand for autonomous driving in the future, the accelerated popularity of lidar will also drive the demand for GaN optical devices. The outbreak.
In 2019, as the Sino-US trade conflict continues to deepen, in the face of increasing domestic demand for power semiconductors, localization has become an urgent goal. After all, China is the world's largest consumer of power devices, but the overall self-sufficiency rate of domestic power devices is less than 10%, especially for high-end devices.
Therefore, whether it is from the perspective of the development of the enterprise itself or the perspective of ensuring the stability of the national industrial chain, the wide applicability of discrete devices requires the investment and development of enterprises in the industry to accelerate the pursuit of leading foreign technologies. Like Huawei, the entry of a giant with a strong voice may trigger a new wave of industrial layout.
Huawei's investment layout
In fact, before the establishment of Huawei Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd., it also invested in many discrete device companies.
For example, on July 4, 2019, Hubble Investment, a subsidiary of Huawei, took a stake in the domestic signal chain analog chip leader Seripu. According to the latest industry and commerce information, Hubble Technology Investment Co., Ltd. is the sixth largest shareholder of Si Ruipu and currently holds 4.8 million shares of Si Ruipu, which account for 6% of the total shares.
On June 11, 2020, Hubble Investment made a strategic investment of several hundred million yuan in VCSEL manufacturer Zonghui Xinguang. What's interesting is that Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund and BYD shares are all on its shareholder list.
On July 10, 2020, Hubble Investment conducted an undisclosed amount of strategic financing for Dongwei Semiconductor. According to the latest industry and commerce information, Hubble Investment holds 3,330,800 shares of Dongwei Semiconductor, with a shareholding ratio of 6.59%.
In addition, Hubble Investment is also actively deploying upstream semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Including the only domestic company and the world's third company with 193nm ArF excimer laser technology research and commercialization, Keyi Hongyuan is currently a supplier of light source systems for lithography machines of Shanghai Microelectronics.
In October last year, Hubble Investment also formed a joint venture with Malaysian semiconductor test equipment manufacturer JF Technology to produce and supply high-performance test contactors in China for semiconductor test equipment. This information is also consistent with the packaging and testing of Huawei's incoming discrete devices, which further proves Huawei's forward-looking equipment layout.
