Due to its high design difficulty and complex manufacturing process, chips are called the jewel in the crown of modern technology. Taking Huawei's latest 5-nanometer process Kirin 9000 chip as an example, tens of billions of transistors are integrated into the chip size of a fing

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Due to its high design difficulty and complex manufacturing process, chips are called the jewel in the crown of modern technology. Taking Huawei's latest 5nm process Kirin 9000 chip as an example, a chip sized by fingernails integrates tens of billions of transistors, and each line inside condenses the most advanced technological force of mankind for thousands of years. According to the process, the chip industry can be divided into three major links: chip design, chip manufacturing, and chip packaging and testing. The most difficult part is chip manufacturing, followed by chip design, chip packaging and testing is relatively easy.

like Qualcomm, Chip companies such as Broadcom, Apple, Huawei HiSilicon, MediaTek , etc. They only do chip design, and hand over the chip manufacturing part to foundry companies such as TSMC and Samsung Electronics. Different companies are responsible for what they are good at, and together promote the continuous progress of the chip industry. From 130 nanometers, 60 nanometers, and 45 nanometers to today's 5-nanometer

At present, Huawei HiSilicon is the only company in China that is capable of developing mobile phone chips, and its R&D level has reached the industry-leading 5-nanometer process. However, since May 2019, the United States has revised its ban on Huawei three times in a row:

1. prohibits Huawei from using the US chip design software EDA
2. prohibits foundry companies containing American technology to produce chips for Huawei.
3. is prohibited from selling chips containing American technology to Huawei

In this way, Huawei's chip path is almost completely blocked

However, Huawei still has a card in its hands because there is a place in the chip industry that has not been completely occupied by the United States, that is, the chip architecture. At present, more than 95% of smartphones and tablets in the world adopt the British ARM architecture. It allows Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, and Huawei to use ARM architecture to design chips

Theoretically, even if The United States has blocked EDA software and does not sell chips to Huawei. As long as there is an ARM architecture that can be used, Huawei can still design chips through domestic EDA software, and then use pure domestic chip manufacturing equipment to produce chips. This perfectly bypasses the American chip technology system

. Unfortunately, this path may soon be blocked.

According to the latest media news, ARM's parent company, Japan SoftBank, has decided to sell ARM at 40 billion (about 270 billion RMB) . The buyer is NVIDIA, the US GPU chip giant. This is a major event for Huawei and the entire chip industry, and the entire industry may be completely reshuffled!

is the most popular chip architecture in the world. Although the intellectual property rights belong to the UK, the UK has adopted relatively loose management of ARM and has almost no restrictions on others' use. At present, ARM has been authorized to thousands of chip companies around the world. The chips with billions of mobile phones, tablets and IoT devices are all designed with ARM architecture

" Once ARM is acquired by a US company, the United States will prohibit some companies in other countries from using ARM architecture in order to support domestic companies. For example, Huawei's chip path is completely blocked! " An expert in the American chip field expressed his concerns on social media, and many netizens also expressed similar views

, but don't be too pessimistic. According to the news previously announced, Huawei has obtained the permanent authorization of ARM v8 version, that is, no matter who ARM is eventually acquired, Huawei still has the right to use ARM 3, then Huawei still has the right to use ARM 3. The v8 architecture is used to design chips, but the latest ARM architecture may not be able to use

In addition, in addition to the ARM architecture, there is also an open source RISC-V architecture in the industry that can be used for free. Currently, Huawei, Samsung and others are researching and improving chip design based on RISC-V architecture. industry estimates that by around 2025, chips of 60 billion devices around the world will use RISC-V architecture

, and are better off seeking yourself. In addition to purchasing authorization and open source architecture in the industry, China is also developing its own chip instruction set. In , China's Loongson announced that it would completely abandon the US MIPS instruction set and switch to its own development of LognArch instruction set, giving Loongson a thumbs up!

Huawei's supply cut off from the United States has a great impact on Huawei and domestic companies in the short term, but in the long run it is not a completely bad thing. It is better to have a short pain than long pain. It just happened to take this opportunity to give up your fantasy and let go of your hands and do it. What do you think? Will Huawei's chip road be completely blocked?