Huawei HiSilicon is back in surveillance chip business: Report

Huawei has long been a leader in the surveillance chip market and it seems that the chip subsidiary, HiSilicon, is back in business in this particular field.

A report from Reuters reveals that HiSililcon, the chip designing unit of Huawei, is selling a new China-made product for surveillance cameras, citing sources related to this matter. It is claimed that HiSilicon started the shipment of such chips earlier this year and some of those customers are Chinese.

It is also said that the development of such surveillance device chips is easier than advanced chips for smartphones. Therefore, HiSililcon has a vast possibility of returning to the market to compete against others.

HiSililcon:

HiSilicon has long-standing experience in chip designing and it only makes products for Huawei devices. In March this year, Huawei announced a breakthrough in EDA tools at 14 nanometers (nm) and above.

It is certain that the processing node is behind at least two generations of the current most advanced chips. However, Huawei can easily utilize these EDA tools to make telecom gear and other products. The reason is that these devices don’t require advanced processing.

Before, US restrictions, HiSilicon reached a major market share in the surveillance camera segment as its global share in 2018 was estimated to be 60%. In 2021, market research shows that HiSilicon reached an all-time low at 3.9%.

Kirin 9000s:

Last month, Huawei released its Mate 60 Pro smartphone with the Kirin 9000S chipset, which is drawing attention with its 5G capabilities. However, the major interest in this story is based on the chip’s manufacturing process from China’s SMIC.

Huawei has been sanctioned by the US since 2019. It has no permission to print HiSilicon chip designs via TSMC or any other global chip manufacturer. Therefore, the launch of Kirin 9000s has become a major point of discussion.