Huawei to build chip wafer fab manufacturing with the help of SMIC

Huawei aims to build a wafer fab manufacturing with the help of SMIC in Shenzhen, China reported by Chinese Media. The SMIC is the largest wafer fab and contract chip maker in mainland China. Also, Huawei’s initial investment to build a water fab factory will be around ten billion dollars.

According to the information, Huawei’s chip design capabilities and SMIC’s semiconductor manufacturing technology have also approached TSMC’s supply chain for cooperation to expand independent chip manufacturing capabilities through official fundings.

However, the report mentioned underquotes that “Recently, Huawei has come to us to help build a fab in the mainland.” Also, it is added in the report that the industry believes that money is not a problem for Huawei.

The major focus of Huawei is on how to get a sufficient amount of equipment and plant resources, and how to start mass production. This time, Huawei has closed relevant members of the “TSMC Alliance” and with new hope using the experience of previous alliance members to assist TSMC’s fabs, shortening the learning curve of self-built fabs and rapidly entering mass production.

Furthermore, Huawei is looking for partners to promote its fab plan, and SMIC will be working with Southern. Due to official funding support from the mainland, the investment amount of individual companies is still unclear.

At the moment, it is still rumored that the Huawei wafer fab manufacturing factory will be built in Shenzhen to meet Huawei’s own needs. The industry pointed out that Huawei’s active self-made wafer should be the first step for the fab group. It will gradually evolve from IC design to integrated component (IDM) not only for smartphones but also for local manufacturing of chips such as Netcom.

Regarding this, Huawei has not made any announcement yet and responded on this matter yet. Meanwhile, Huawei has established a new precision manufacturing company with a registered capital of 600 million yuan on December 28 in China.

Moreover, it was also rumored that Huawei is going to build its own chipsets in this industry. But, Huawei insiders responded that Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has a certain level of mass production and small-batch trial production (capabilities), but this is mainly for Huawei’s own products.

(Via: ithome)