A few months ago there were rumors that Huawei was planning to open its own factory to manufacture processors as part of the US sanctions. According to a report in the Financial Times, plans now appear to be concrete. The factory is to be built in cooperation with a partner company called Shanghai IC R&D, which will operate the factory. The interesting thing: In order not to offer the USA a target for sanctions, the factory should run completely independently of US companies and their technologies.

In the past, Huawei was repeatedly taken away from possible trading partners such as TSMC by US sanctions. Probably the best known and most devastating effect is still the ban on using the Android operating system. This makes smartphones of the brand that is actually popular in the West uninteresting for most users, as Google services such as the PlayStore or similar are no longer available To be available. Only recently they presented concrete plans to establish their own mobile operating system called Harmony OS.

The commissioning and production of the first chips should start this year. For the time being, however, only the rather outdated 45 – nm process can be used, a Production in the 20 – nm process should then be carried out by the end of next year consequences. It will be some time before Huawei can produce competitive SoCs for high-end smartphones and other mobile devices.

For comparison: Apple is already working with the chip manufacturer TSMC on a 2 nm manufacturing process. However, their own chips still offer new possibilities in the area of ​​smart TVs and the Internet of Things. In the year 2022 the production of 20 – nm structure widths follow, together with the start of production for 5G technologies.

Although own production is owned by the Chinese group secures long-term prospects, it remains unclear how the company will survive the next few years. After all, with the de facto ban on the sale of usable mobile devices outside of China, the most important source of income breaks away. Huawei has not yet commented on the plans.