Huawei has reportedly resumed production of HiSilicon chips on 12 and 14nm

It looks like Huawei’s strategy of “surviving” in recent years will start to pay off in 2023, as new rumours have emerged that the Chinese manufacturer may return to producing chips for mobile devices. The latest unofficial information says that Huawei has already managed to develop new chips on 12 and 14nm, very old technologies, in factories in China, and is already working on new technologies, such as a proprietary EUV lithography process.

Huawei’s new chips wouldn’t be developed for phones… yet

With Apple already preparing for 3nm chips, Huawei’s 12 or 14nm processors may already be considered “ancient” and may offer limited performance compared to today’s top models. However, such chips could be significantly more important on devices that don’t need top-end performance, decreasing dependence on external partners such as Qualcomm.

Huawei’s current problem, however, is its lack of access to 5G modems for smartphones, with the Qualcomm chips it gets limited to 4G. If it can shrink the manufacturing process, Huawei will be able to develop its own 5G-equipped chips again.

A patent in the field of processor lithography was recently filed by Huawei. If the company can develop a device that allows EUV lithography, the company could sell this technology to factories in China, such as SMIC, to develop processors on more modern manufacturing processes, such as 7 or 5nm, which could be competitive in the market with what we see from Apple, MediaTek, Samsung or Qualcomm.

Advanced chips with 5G won’t come in 2023, however. It looks like the first 12 or 14nm chips will be used in devices like wearables, where not much processing power is needed. Huawei is active in so many areas that many devices could be in line for new chips developed by its HiSilicon division. In China, at least, the company is investing heavily in the smart home, offering technology to home appliance manufacturers for integration with HarmonyOS.

Source: Huawei Central