1, the source of Huawei's mobile phone is an extension of communication business: first of all, you should understand that Huawei is a communication enterprise, and its initial business has been around the communication field. Whether Huawei can extend its business to consumer terminals such as mobile phones, and the corresponding research and development of mobile phone chips also depend on communication services.
Mobile phone itself is a product in the field of communication, which will be applied to a large number of communication technologies. At the same time, because communication allows Huawei to have corresponding carrier resources, this can help Huawei ship in mobile phone sales. In fact, Huawei's early mobile phones were only used as carrier channels and were not sold to the consumer market alone.
Since there are terminal services such as mobile phones, it is natural to make mobile phone chips! After all, Huawei has always been technology-oriented. Only by mastering the core technology of equipment in its own hands can it have greater voice and be safer.
Finally, Huawei's mobile phone and the corresponding Kirin chip can succeed. More importantly, there are two points. First, long-term R&D capital investment. If you want to do this, you need subsidies from other businesses. Previously, operators' business income accounted for most of Huawei's revenue. Second, Huawei mobile phones persistently support their own chips, and no matter how bad the chips are, they dare to use them on their flagship. In the long run, it will be difficult to succeed.
2. Huawei has no technology accumulation in mask aligner: As can be seen from the above, the success of Huawei's mobile phone is gradually extended from the communication field, and there is technical interoperability and product consistency between the two.
But the mask aligner is completely different. Communication is completely different from mask aligner, and it is purely two technical fields. If Huawei wants to develop mask aligner, it will start from scratch, which means that Huawei needs to invest huge resources, such as manpower, capital and time. However, as far as Huawei's operating conditions are concerned, it is obviously unable to bear such a huge investment in resources, which is likely to drag down the whole Huawei.
At present, ASML, the leader of mask aligner, has not started from scratch. Its initial team came from Philips, a veteran European manufacturer, and Philips' lithography equipment business has a good technical foundation. At the same time, through the integration of global supply chain such as acquisition and cooperation, it has gradually developed to today's status.
You let Huawei, an inexperienced manufacturer, be mask aligner because he died not fast enough.
3. mask aligner is a huge systematic project: let's talk about the difficulty of R&D in mask aligner! Mask aligner's own system is very complicated, and the technologies applied to various core subsystems in mask aligner alone are very high-end, such as objective lens, light source (technology of optical system), immersion system, double stage (only mastered by the Netherlands and China in the world) and excimer laser. Any technology involved in these systems can allow Huawei to engage in N years.
At present, the above subsystems have been successfully developed in China, and they are all solved by professional R&D teams in their respective fields. The double stage is Tsinghua, the immersion system is Zhejiang University, the objective lens and light source are developed by Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the excimer lasers are Institute of Optics and Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Mechanics, etc. Now Changchun Institute of Optics and Mechanics is tackling the problem of EUV light source.
Back to Huawei, with Huawei's strength in those days, do you think you can handle these?
Lscssh technical officer's point of view: On the whole, Huawei's original business has nothing to do with mask aligner, and it is inevitable that it will succeed in making mobile phones, but making mask aligner from scratch can only make Huawei fall faster.
Of course, there is still some hope for Huawei to cut into mask aligner now! First, the main core subsystem of mask aligner has been successfully developed in China and can be used directly; Second, Hisilicon has developed chips for many years and accumulated a lot of related technologies in the semiconductor industry, and it still has considerable strength in the chip field; Third, Huawei's current revenue can support its related R&D investment to a certain extent, and people and funds can be well solved.
Finally, the United States will once again upgrade its ban on Huawei and will not allow the procurement of third-party chips. Huawei's future is really difficult.
I don't know if you remember. Huawei's mobile phone was not very powerful in the past few years. Many shopping malls don't sell much. The most common place is bundled sales in major mobile telecom business halls.
Later, with the development of smart phones, Huawei quickly joined this camp. Realistically speaking, the threshold of smart phones is not high. In addition to several domestic brands that we are familiar with now, many home appliance companies have produced smart phones, but they are not popular because of their low cost performance.
It can be said that it is simpler and easier for Huawei to produce smart phones, because Huawei is originally a communication device, and it has rapidly developed into the overlord of the communication industry. The production of mobile phones is a sprinkling thing for Huawei.
However, being able to do it and becoming bigger and stronger are two different things. Huawei used its R&D advantages to independently develop chips with superior performance, and soon became an industry leader. That is, because of Huawei, the domestic high-end smartphone market really started.
It is natural that Huawei's mobile phone business has achieved such great success. First of all, Huawei has strong technical strength. Secondly, Huawei has money and is willing to invest. In the mobile phone industry, its strong financial strength can often negotiate with the best suppliers to get the best raw materials. Another point is that Huawei has its own chip design company, Huawei Hisilicon, which is very competitive in the research and development of core chips. It is precisely because of these favorable conditions that Huawei has become a leading enterprise in the smart phone industry.
However, as I said before, smart phones are an industry with a very low threshold. When the smart phone market is hot, people who do air-conditioning, color TV and even anti-virus talk shows flock, hoping to get a piece of it. Compared with Huawei, they have no core chips, but they can buy them. As long as they buy it in place, they can assemble a smart phone.
However, mask aligner and mobile phone are two completely different concepts. Mask aligner is the core equipment in the chip industry, and it is also one of the most complicated and sophisticated equipment so far. The complexity of its research and development is unmatched by mobile phones.
Although Huawei has the ability to design its own chips, Huawei has no ability to produce its own chips. In fact, the production technology and equipment of the chip are very complicated. The most advanced chip manufacturer in Chinese mainland is SMIC, although it still lags far behind the most advanced chip companies in the world. Huawei, on the other hand, does not have the ability to produce chips. Many of the chips it designs need OEM production by companies such as TSMC.
So Huawei can't produce chips because it doesn't want to? That's not the answer. The reason why Huawei doesn't produce chips, only chooses to design chips and produce mobile phones is because the chip production process is too complicated and requires a lot of imported equipment and raw materials. If Huawei takes this road, its R&D and production cost will increase greatly.
The research and development in mask aligner is much more difficult and complicated than the production of chips, and the more advanced mask aligner is, the more difficult it is. Now our country can actually make mask aligner, but the precision is not enough to produce high-end chips. The most advanced ASML and mask aligner are what we can't expect now. At the current development rate, it is basically impossible for us to produce mask aligner that can compete with ASML within three to five years.
Some people say that if it is possible for Huawei to do research early, it is almost impossible. In mask aligner, besides ASML, it is Japanese Nikon. When it comes to technology, Nikon is definitely not worse than Huawei, but it is such an old mask aligner manufacturer that has spent many years trying to catch up with ASML, and now it seems that the gap is getting bigger and bigger. Although Huawei is powerful, its strength is mainly in the field of communication, and it is a layman in the field of lithography. If it develops mask aligner, it will be a great surprise to be on an equal footing with Nikon, let alone surpass ASML.
For Huawei, making mobile phones is undoubtedly a very successful business, which can not only make huge profits, but also feed back other industries of Huawei. For example, Huawei Hisilicon's chip design ability is getting stronger and stronger under the stimulation of mobile phones.
If Huawei had developed mask aligner at that time, the span would have been too great, which would not only be difficult to succeed, but also be dragged down. In fact, early ASML was not as good as Nikon. Later, global technology was gathered, and the chip giants of the United States and South Korea injected capital behind them. Eventually, ASML became what it is today. R&D in mask aligner needs a lot of financial support. It is definitely not enough to rely on one enterprise alone, and it is necessary to gather the strength of the whole country.
Where do you focus, where is your success? Although Huawei is a very large enterprise, it is still the case when there is no professional Huawei mobile phone. The main industry is network communication. Although the layout of research chips and research systems is relatively early, it does not mean that we specialize in this aspect! So if we study chip production and mask aligner technology, we don't intend to become today's TSMC enterprises, but is TSMC really strong? Not really!
I think Huawei is in the right direction. Without the popularity and fame of Xiaomi, Huawei, oppo, vivo and Apple, at least companies like TSMC and even Qualcomm MediaTek would not have gained such high popularity. Now, as a global leader in the field of smart phones, Huawei is a big customer in Qualcomm and MediaTek, especially in TSMC!
Therefore, Huawei's chip production technology is actually very important in such a special event, and it has really weathered the storm. If we produce chips from the beginning and have not experienced so many things, we may not be so famous. This is also not worth the loss. This time, it was only the national factors that prevented the smooth production of chips. However, this does not mean that companies such as MediaTek, Huawei and TSMC are unwilling to cooperate with Huawei, but forced to do so! Therefore, if Huawei focuses on the field of semiconductor chips and does not build mobile phones, it will undoubtedly be a phased loss for the industrial companies of these chips. Maybe it's not so famous these years!
Some people say that there are no companies like Xiaomi, oppo and Biji. Although these enterprises are also very rapid and developing rapidly, which brings a strong sense of pride to the country, they are not as effective as the glory of Huawei and its sub-brands in the past two years. So naturally, the success of Huawei mobile phone is not only the gospel of Huawei itself, but also the gospel of this chip industry chain. So if Huawei doesn't make mobile phones, but chips, maybe we don't know what will happen now, and maybe the whole industry will be depressed!
At present, Huawei has no way to make chips and study mask aligner, which is also a way to save itself. But from another angle, if the competition in the chip market is fierce, you may not be so successful if you want to build your own industrial mobile phone through chips, because the manufacturing water in the mobile phone industry is still very deep, and you can only understand it after experience, otherwise how can you understand what is behind it?
If Huawei developed and produced mask aligner very early, would it be more successful than mobile phones and become ASML in China?
Someone should know that some media have mentioned Huawei's Tashan plan before-
The plan refers to the use of American technology to build a 45-nanometer chip production line, which is expected to be completed this year. More importantly, 28nm is also under cooperative exploration. Is this news true? We don't know. If it really exists, it will be an excellent thing.
What we are discussing now is: If Huawei embarked on the road of producing mask aligner long ago, would it be the China version of ASML? And then you have to tell everyone seriously? This situation is almost impossible. Why?
You can see why ASML succeeded first.
1. Its parts are all from all over the world, with more than 80,000 parts. It can be said that ASML is complex. And, like some monopoly technologies, including American light source, German lens, Japanese photoresist and so on.
There is also an important content, the restriction of Watson Agreement, which is why western technology always restricts China's semiconductor technology. Therefore, if Huawei develops mask aligner by itself, the first impact will be limited by technology.
In fact, if our current mask aligner technology wants to reach ASML technology, we must take an unusual path. If we take the road of ASML, our technology will be subject to various restrictions, which may affect our overall development. Therefore, we can only choose to overtake in a corner, so that we can really embark on the road of mask aligner.
We can't imagine that if Huawei really developed it in advance, lithography opportunities would not be as world-famous as mobile phones. But we can be sure that if Huawei studies mask aligner, it will definitely bring a ray of sunshine to our present chip manufacturing.
Thank you for reading.
If Huawei had started developing and producing mask aligner in the early days, would it have been more successful than making mobile phones now? The idea of the topic looks good, but unfortunately, it really can't be done.
The technical barriers and capital requirements for producing mask aligner are very high. Even if ASML can develop to this point today, it is largely the result of American support. If the United States was unwilling to support ASML at the beginning, it would not be able to do so today. Even now, the United States is still the actual controller of ASML.
At first, as a communication manufacturer, Huawei's fastest and most practical direction to cut into the semiconductor industry was chip design. Even today, there is nothing wrong with this decision. With Huawei's financial strength at that time, it was impossible to invest huge sums of money in R&D and production of mask aligner, and it was impossible for the United States to let Huawei master this technology.
During this period, there have been many articles about the complexity of mask aligner. I believe the author can also have an intuitive understanding of mask aligner's R&D based on these articles. Even with Huawei's current strength and financial resources, it is difficult to bypass mask aligner, ASML, and embark on a new technical route by itself. It's not enough to shout a few slogans, especially with the evolution of technology, the requirements for mask aligner are getting higher and higher, and more and more products are made in mask aligner.
No, because mask aligner is a very small market, only a few billion dollars a year, and it is highly dependent on downstream chip manufacturers. Huawei's development climbed from the terminal market, relying on its own terminal market advantages, which conforms to the general market rules. Without the support of the terminal market, mask aligner cannot survive.
I don't think so. mask aligner is a product with a small demand. Sometimes it is very important, but with it, there is no demand? ASML is just an assembly factory, especially hostile to the rapid development of China. Otherwise, if it is delivered on time, it is estimated that the United States will not make a fuss about the issue of re-chip!
This is the result of the United States destroying the global industrial chain by all means in order to suppress Huawei! Because there is actually no whole industrial chain. The imbalance of world economic development is absolute, and the development and layout of world science and technology are also formed by historical development. Some state-owned enterprises are leading in this respect, while others are leading in this respect. Mask aligner's technology is ahead of the Netherlands, which is limited by the United States. The Netherlands will not sell the most advanced mask aligner to China to suppress Huawei's chip production. Now we are forced to break through mask aligner's technology. Mask aligner has a small market share, and Huawei's positioning is communication technology. G-5 technology leads the world, and the United States is holding Huawei back and delaying the influence of advanced technology on the United States. Curb the development of China!
In fact, studying rockets will be more promising than Musk.
Huawei has a TSMC-sized company that will be full of food and energy. This is forced out, otherwise it will not cover everything, and often it will not have a good result, so it has its own specialties.