It’s nearly impossible for Huawei to source chips for servers and telecom products that are widely used in countries like China. But that doesn’t mean the company can’t get chips at all. I just don’t want anyone to know who sells them. At his Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company demonstrated its new server his motherboard. All chips were covered in camouflage tape and coolers to hide the supplier’s name.
Huawei still sells tons of servers and telecom gear in China and many other countries, but it needs chips to build those devices. Virtually all chips today, whether logic ICs or memory ICs, are designed using US-developed electronic design automation (EDA) tools, and include US-developed technology. Manufactured by Commercial transactions to sell them to Huawei or its subsidiaries.
But these licenses are hard to come by, so Huawei has to either buy the chips on the gray market or use complex means to get the hardware from developers. In both cases, as you can see from the images, the company doesn’t like to openly show what they use or hide their suppliers. Jay Goldberg goes public on Twitter, a 5G, IoT, and networking analyst focused on China. Of course, another reason to hide the chips you use from prying eyes might be how to hide trade secrets from your competitors (and Chinese companies imitate Huawei products).
Visited Huawei booth #MWC2023. They have dozens of boards on display, and the packages of every chip on every board are hidden. pic.twitter.com/gwMDorOdA6March 1, 2023
One of the boards (marked with GFMPUB Ver. A) uses radiators or tape to hide the logic chip as well as the memory IC supplier. Another board that looks like a prototype (or mockup) of a 4-way server motherboard not only hides some chip markings, but also doesn’t have a processor. Board stolen.
After Huawei fell victim to the US-China trade war over its ties to the People’s Republic of China military, Huawei acquired hardware and software from US-based companies or including technology developed in the US. I can no longer do it. Appropriate license from the US Department of Commerce. Huawei’s HiSilicon subsidiary lost access to advanced semiconductor production outside of China, severely hampering advanced chip development.
As it turns out, there are still ways for Huawei to get the chips it needs. Additionally, the company is working with China-based SMIC (another company that has rapidly lost its ability to develop due to US-imposed sanctions) to build a fab capable of producing the necessary chips and system-in-packages. It is said that build that product.
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