Huawei's New SoC Features Processor Cores Designed In-House (arstechnica.com) 88
"Huawei is emulating Apple in developing the processors that power its latest smartphone," reports Ars Technica, "a breakthrough that will help the Chinese company to reduce its reliance on foreign technology as it confronts US sanctions."
Analysis of the main chip inside the Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which launched at the end of last month and immediately sold out, reveals that Huawei has joined the elite group of Big Tech companies capable of designing their own semiconductors. Four of the eight central processing units in the Mate 60 Pro's "system on a chip" (SoC) rely purely on a design by Arm, the British company whose chip architecture powers 99 percent of smartphones. The other four CPUs are Arm-based but feature Huawei's own designs and adaptations, according to three people familiar with the Mate's development and Geekerwan, a Chinese technology testing company that took a closer look at the main chip...
While Huawei is still licensing Arm's basic designs, its own HiSilicon chip design business has improved on them to build its own processor cores on the Mate's Kirin 9000S SoC. This will give it the flexibility needed to produce high-end smartphones despite the constraints of US export controls, said analysts and industry insiders. The Kirin 9000S also features a graphics processing unit and neural processing unit developed by HiSilicon. Its predecessor, the Kirin 9000 SoC, had relied completely on Arm for its CPUs and GPU...
Huawei was able to produce its own phone processors by adapting CPU core designs that were originally used in its data center servers, according to people with direct knowledge of its development. The strategy resembles Apple's moves to turn its iPhone processors into chips capable of powering its Mac computers — but in reverse. "No one ever did this before," said analyst Brady Wang of Counterpoint Research of Huawei's server-to-phone innovation...
Various testing teams, including Geekerwan's, have found that Huawei's semiconductor capabilities are one to two years behind those of chips made by the US's Qualcomm, the leading mobile chipmaker. Huawei's chips also consume more power than its competitors', according to measurements, and can cause the phone to heat up.
Reuters reports that "The United States has no evidence that Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips in large volumes, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday."
But meanwhile, a Huawei Technologies unit "is shipping new Chinese-made chips for surveillance cameras, in a fresh sign the Chinese tech giant is finding ways around four years of U.S. export controls, two sources briefed on the unit's efforts said." The shipments to surveillance camera manufacturers from the company's HiSilicon chip design unit started this year, according to one of the sources, and a third source familiar with the industry supply chain. One of the sources briefed on the unit said at least some of the customers were Chinese...
"These surveillance chips are relatively easy to manufacture compared to smartphone processors," said the source familiar with the surveillance camera industry's supply chain, adding that HiSilicon's return would shake up the market... Before the U.S. export controls, it was the dominant chip supplier to the surveillance camera sector, with brokerage Southwest Securities estimating its global share in 2018 at 60%. By 2021, HiSilicon's global market share plummeted to just 3.9%, according to data from consulting firm Frost & Sullivan...
TechInsights analyst Dan Hutcheson said their analysis of the Mate 60 Pro and other components such as its radio frequency power chip also suggested that Huawei had access to sophisticated electronic design automation (EDA) tools that "they are not supposed to have".
"We don't know if they got them illicitly, or more probably the Chinese developed their own EDA tools," he said.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
While Huawei is still licensing Arm's basic designs, its own HiSilicon chip design business has improved on them to build its own processor cores on the Mate's Kirin 9000S SoC. This will give it the flexibility needed to produce high-end smartphones despite the constraints of US export controls, said analysts and industry insiders. The Kirin 9000S also features a graphics processing unit and neural processing unit developed by HiSilicon. Its predecessor, the Kirin 9000 SoC, had relied completely on Arm for its CPUs and GPU...
Huawei was able to produce its own phone processors by adapting CPU core designs that were originally used in its data center servers, according to people with direct knowledge of its development. The strategy resembles Apple's moves to turn its iPhone processors into chips capable of powering its Mac computers — but in reverse. "No one ever did this before," said analyst Brady Wang of Counterpoint Research of Huawei's server-to-phone innovation...
Various testing teams, including Geekerwan's, have found that Huawei's semiconductor capabilities are one to two years behind those of chips made by the US's Qualcomm, the leading mobile chipmaker. Huawei's chips also consume more power than its competitors', according to measurements, and can cause the phone to heat up.
Reuters reports that "The United States has no evidence that Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips in large volumes, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday."
But meanwhile, a Huawei Technologies unit "is shipping new Chinese-made chips for surveillance cameras, in a fresh sign the Chinese tech giant is finding ways around four years of U.S. export controls, two sources briefed on the unit's efforts said." The shipments to surveillance camera manufacturers from the company's HiSilicon chip design unit started this year, according to one of the sources, and a third source familiar with the industry supply chain. One of the sources briefed on the unit said at least some of the customers were Chinese...
"These surveillance chips are relatively easy to manufacture compared to smartphone processors," said the source familiar with the surveillance camera industry's supply chain, adding that HiSilicon's return would shake up the market... Before the U.S. export controls, it was the dominant chip supplier to the surveillance camera sector, with brokerage Southwest Securities estimating its global share in 2018 at 60%. By 2021, HiSilicon's global market share plummeted to just 3.9%, according to data from consulting firm Frost & Sullivan...
TechInsights analyst Dan Hutcheson said their analysis of the Mate 60 Pro and other components such as its radio frequency power chip also suggested that Huawei had access to sophisticated electronic design automation (EDA) tools that "they are not supposed to have".
"We don't know if they got them illicitly, or more probably the Chinese developed their own EDA tools," he said.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.
Can the USA even produce semiconductors? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can the USA even produce semiconductors? (Score:5, Informative)
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that's the thing. China has no real need for EUV right now, they can do plenty without, including high level processing, albeit, perhaps, at higher space and energy requirements, which is not a real issue for them.
they are working on a local EUV source. they will eventually succeed in manufacturing it, considering the current US behavior, I'm pretty sure they threw more resources at the problem to get there faster.
the condescension and hubris shown by the US is not going to appease things with the chinese,
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the condescension and hubris shown by the US is not going to appease things with the chinese, on the contrary.
nor anyone else for that matter. I can imagine the amount of face-palming that goes on behind closed doors among Americas 'friends' and 'allies' every time the USA exercises its abundance of hubris.
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I can imagine the amount of face-palming that goes on behind closed doors among Americas 'friends' and 'allies' every time the USA exercises its abundance of hubris.
Nah.. the "hubris" is just to manipulate global financial markets and the domestic audience. They just move their hedge funds over to the Asian (including China) markets. They shift their accounts seamlessly across borders while sabotaging national economies for a quick profit. Whaddya gonna do?
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that's the thing. China has no real need for EUV right now, they can do plenty without, including high level processing, albeit, perhaps, at higher space and energy requirements, which is not a real issue for them.
Space and power are just additional costs, which can can be straightforwardly addressed with more money. Not a big deal. However, what is a big deal is time to solution. The rage right now is LLMs, which can take weeks to train, and since finding a practical model is an iterative process, this might mean months of extra time. Worse yet, the extra time might mean missing a solution, e.g., skimping on training epochs or not being able to probe as much of the hyper-parameter space.
they are working on a local EUV source. they will eventually succeed in manufacturing it, considering the current US behavior, I'm pretty sure they threw more resources at the problem to get there faster.
the condescension and hubris shown by the US is not going to appease things with the chinese, on the contrary.
It's not clear that time is t
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All the high end fabrication happens in Taiwan.
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high end like the stuff made by TSMC is not really necessary. they can do similar things with larger nodes.
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There is a lot of wafer production in the US. Storage/SSDs, and a lot of SoCs. Those older process node plants are not just going to be tossed to the side, because those have a long tail. They are only going to get better as high-yield 10-20nm process node fabs come up to speed... which may not be good enough for the latest Apple CPU, but good enough for a vehicle ECU, or most MCU chips.
The US does a lot of wafer production. It just isn't mentioned as much over the glitz and glamor of TSMC's processes.
Re:Can the USA even produce semiconductors? (Score:5, Informative)
Globalfoundries says hi.
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Globalfoundries says hi.
GlobalFoundries?
You mean the company majority owned by the soveraing fund of the Unied Arab Emirates?
You mean the company that had a 7nm process almost ready to enter production and then canned it on the last minute (while SMIC was able to get to 7nm) to stick in 12nm limbo "forevur"?
Intel would habe been a better example, as the DO have EUV, and also 7nm and below, and is a USoA majority owned company. And most of their chip etching is done on USoA soil (the packaging is a different story)
Skywater is also
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Phoenix has had Intel fabs for years and Chandler, AZ is now one of the most advanced cities in India, being populated entirely by H-1Bs and robotaxis.
Now TSMC is moving in, with spending nearing $50 billion so far.
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A lot of the companies are USA based, but everything is manufactured and assembled in China or SE Asia, no? I guess there are a few Intel (and possibly AMD) fans located in the usa, but then they ship the wafers to China for a the assembly into the end product package, right? If still the case, it makes sense that China is able to catch up so fast. (only 2yrs behind means they'll catch up and surpass before then?)
They have now the money to hire talent and create the tech they need.
At the end of it all, its just people with skills and knowledge.
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Major fabs in the US include Intel, Samsung, and GlobalFoundries as well as companies that run older or more specialized processes like NXP, ON Semi, Qorvo, etc.
There are also plenty of test and assembly facilities in the USA as well as other countries that are not China. Intel even runs their own in the US, Malaysia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Israel and the Philippines and are building a new one in Poland. (Intel fabs are located in USA, Israel, and Ireland.)
AMD does not have any fabs anywhere.
Nobody wants your Chinese spy phone (Score:3)
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the chinese have a local market of 1.4B individuals, which is 4 times the US population... they don't really care about selling their wares outside china.
Bzzt. The Chinese absolutely care about selling their wares outside of China. 1.4B is a lot of hungry mouths to feed. Per capita, they have way less land area to grow the food they need to keep their people happy. Why do you think China keeps making artifical islands at sea? They are desparate for land.
Selling good outside of China means they get outside currency with which they can use to purchase food. And what is the USA's main export? That's right, agricultural produce.
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Selling good outside of China means they get outside currency with which they can use to purchase food. And what is the USA's main export? That's right, agricultural produce.
That's because US won't sell anything else that China wanted. High-tech/chips/etc? Nope. What ELSE did US sell that China wanted? Nothing, after importing garbage for "recycling" was banned. In the recent years, even Hollywood films find it hard to sell in China.
If you disagree, try naming something that the US produced and is willing to sell, that is not cheaper made in China and China can't get cheaper elsewhere.
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Complete nonsense. The artificial islands are about establishing ownership of parts of the South China Sea and Sea of Japan. Exclusive economic zones extend out from land.
China has plenty of farm land and production. No risk of food shortages. Artificial islands don't help with that anyway, they are too small, too remote, and a bad environment for growing most crops as there is little shelter from weather coming in from the sea. Lots of salt getting sprayed around too.
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China has plenty of farm land and production. No risk of food shortages.
China is a net importer of food and every country is facing reduction of arable lands and crop output in general due to AGW. Any nation which is not a net exporter is likely to have food shortages.
China's population (1.4 billion) is 18 per cent of the global population but China only has 8 per cent of global arable land [eastasiaforum.org]. Per capita water availability is only one quarter of the global average.
The idea that China is not facing food shortages is one which is directly opposed to everything that we know about fo
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Being a net importer of food doesn't meant that a country can't be self sufficient. The EU is a net importer of food, but also has massive over-production and schemes to keep land usable but not producing, in case it is needed in a crisis.
Being a net importer of food is just an example of how China's middle class is growing, and developing a taste for imported flavours.
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Being a net importer of food doesn't meant that a country can't be self sufficient.
They are importing a larger percentage as their population increases [cfr.org] which strongly suggests that it is necessary to avoid starvation.
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No, it strongly suggests that their population is rapidly becoming middle class.
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I call this playing dirty and cheating... the chinese will reciprocate.
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copyright and imaginary property are just that. imaginary.
the important thing is for humanity to progress.
Bet you wouldn't say that if you were the US copyright holder of Bobble-Headed Dashboard Jesus (Freedom edition) and Red China stole the design and made a cheap version that didn't even work.
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Typical philosophy of a person who has never invented a thing or had an original idea worth a penny.
Gimme gimme gimme, take take take.
Re: Nobody wants your Chinese spy phone (Score:2)
Typical american mindset âoemine mine mineâ
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Yeah weird. Someone spends their time and money on something and the gimme gimme useless people should just get it for free because uh reasons. You Marxist types are hilarious. Every single time your ideas have been tried has resulted in economic stagnation at best and mass starvation or worse in many cases.
Productive people don't owe useless people a free ride. You want something? Pay for it.
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The West favors Inspiration.
The East favors Perspiration.
Cultural differences are real, and the lazy-minded in both see those differences as evidence of evil.
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this is high school level insightful but really says absolutely nothing and is frankly insulting to the people from both nations
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Even before the ban, there was one big reason why a number of people didn't like Huawei phones. Not just locked bootloaders, but flashing firmware to lock already unlocked bootloaders. This was a deal-breaker for a lot of people, because Android's security depends on the integrity of the bootloader stack, and if one can't verify what is going on, one doesn't know if there may be a security issue... or worse.
I think Huawei offered bootloader unlocks for a bit, but not sure how that went. In any case, I kn
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A number of people != a majority, in fact it doesn't mean even a large amount of people. Way more people (me included) did actually like Huawei phones: powerful and reliable hardware at affordable prices. Before the ban, Huawei stuff was definitely better than Samsung.
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Before the ban, Huawei stuff was definitely better than Samsung.
Whoop de doo? Samsung has always been shit. Samsung will always be shit. Televisions, monitors, appliances, all shit. They are palpably shittier than others' products, you can literally feel how cheap and trashy they are at a touch. Plastics are thinner, buttons fit in their recesses poorly, everything about them screams CHEAP CRAP at every level. The only thing they are good at is designing the exterior of the case to look snazzy, and people lap that shit up because they are dumber than dogshit.
As a connoi
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Huawei phones (including their brands like Honour) sell decently well in the UK
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You mean except for the around 6% of US purchases that are products made in China? That share is likely much higher for electronics and mobile devices (even Apple products like iPhones are made in China). If you look at mobile apps right now, #1 in the Apple Store is Temu, the Chinese spyware shopping app and #5 is TikTok.
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So sending it to the NSA and GCHQ is any better? At least Chinese law and patriotism enforcement will have a hard time getting to you...
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I do. I still use my Huawei P10 Lite that I got in 2016. They make great stuff! I reckon that's the real reason they got banned...
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Sure the Chinese will be forced to buy it, but no one else wants to send their data to Xi.
You would be surprided that, outside of china, Huawei phones are very popular in SE Asia, LatAm, Afica, the Middle east, and even parts of europe.
Lot's of hardware power for less money, and easy to re-implement goggle services (if you want), or to put alternate services like MicroG and F-Droid if that's your cup of tea
What's not to like? Options are cool.
And, if you are part of the Non-Aligned-Countries, your options are being spied by the five eyes, being spied by the russians or being spied by the chinese
the hubris (Score:2)
Imperialist USA continuing to take the chinese for fools, as demonstrated by the stupid "they're using EDA tools that they shouldn't have" sentence, coming before "they could have developped their own".
won't last long until they fall of their tree...
Re: the hubris (Score:1)
Cope
Crazy Fraud Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Informative)
This story is weeks old, and the following conspiracy theory was developed when the story was new.
he chips are not in fact new, but rather from inventory acquired before a trade blockade. Then passed off by Huawei as examples of a technology that the company simply doesn't have at all. Not really trying to fool customers, but for the benefit of the Chinese government. Huawei thereby gets investment money from their government, who gets bragging rights for internal and external propaganda. But in reality there is no chip design, not at all.
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that sounds like US propaganda...
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that sounds like US propaganda...
But the USA doesn't do propaganda! They are a democracy! Everything they say is true!
LOL
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Of course the USA does propaganda, as does every country. However people living in the USA or other democracies are free to speak against or correct any propaganda their own government puts forth.
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Of course the USA does propaganda, as does every country. However people living in the USA or other democracies are free to speak against or correct any propaganda their own government puts forth.
Except when your social media gets shut down and demonetized because they don't like what you say.
Democracies aren't actually that much more free than authoritarian regimes like fascist or communists. They just have much better ways of tricking their populations into thinking its all for their own good.
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Yep. Now if they would only use that possibility it might make a difference. Instead they squabble over which lies to accept.
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Well, the US is NUMBER 1 at some things and propaganda lies are one of those. Chinese lies are transparent and everybody knows they are just keeping up appearances.
Re:Crazy Fraud Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe an expert needs to get hold of one of these new chips (or a device containing one) and decap it to figure out what it really is and whether its what Huawei says it is or not.
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That will already have happened. And we would already have seen the pictures of it if it was the case. Or do you really think the US is not capable of getting a sample and then analyzing it for a great propaganda story?
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I'm sure it's already been done by various competitors and government agencies. If it was not original you can bet they would have made their findings public by now.
In reality it's not surprising because this isn't the first time China has produced original silicon, and Huawei is well known to have the R&D talent and funding to do it. Additionally, the Chinese government has made developing domestic designs a priority, to reduce reliance on the West, and there is funding available for companies that wor
RISC-V is coming (Score:2)
They may be the first to field an ARM-free device which further insulates them from Western leverage.
Vulkan on RISC-V (Score:2)
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RISC-V is coming along pretty quickly. I've seen some of the Chinese SBCs offer pretty surprising performance, even with their antediluvian Linux kernel and their mediocre (at best) software quality.
I'm hoping this keeps up, if only as a third party, so we have more choices than amd64/arm64 for the desktop. RISC-V has a lot of promise on all ends, from el cheapo MCUs that cost a penny each to server grade CPUs.
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uh-hunh.
And it will be green, as the plants will be powered by nuclear fusion, which is also coming soon . . .
hawk
Trying to prevent China from getting tech... (Score:2)
Is futile, pointless and will backfire
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it is backfiring right now, as they have banned gallium and germanium exports...
Re: Trying to prevent China from getting tech... (Score:2)
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Yep, obviously so. And the ones making these policies must have known that when they did. But some short-term political gains were obviously more important. The old "demonize foreign enemy to keep attention away from domestic screw-ups" strategy. Works nicely on those weak of mind, i.e. most people.
It Must Be Good. (Score:3)
Since I can go down to the local dollar store and buy approximately 150,000 diff products made in China that is mostly plastic knock-off crap, I cannot buy a Huawei phone because it is made in China.
But I can buy a phone from Apple which is known by the US government to sniff ALL data and that is OK.
I have a middle finger for all involved in the above comment.
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Since I can go down to the local dollar store and buy approximately 150,000 diff products made in China that is mostly plastic knock-off crap, I cannot buy a Huawei phone because it is made in China.
But I can buy a phone from Apple which is known by the US government to sniff ALL data and that is OK.
I have a middle finger for all involved in the above comment.
But the US government isn't allowed to spy on US citizens!
(so they get their 'friends' in 5 eyes and US corporations to do it for them).
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Since I can go down to the local dollar store and buy approximately 150,000 diff products made in China ...
Or Walmart.
Where is their SoC going to be fabbed? (Score:2)
I read a lot about SoCs here, SoCs there, and every company having one, either with some new earth shattering RTL, floorplan or some other Verilog miracle, with the CPU doing really awesome things in a Palladium simulator.
However, none of that means anything until the chip is fabbed. I'm curious who is doing Huawei's fabbing. The mainland is definitely a few generations behind in process nodes, and won't be nearing 5nm, much less 3nm for a number of years. Zaoxhin has an x86 design which is awesome, but
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They say SMIC is doing the manufacturing for that Kirin 9000S soc at 7nm right now
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Well, think "all the way back" to 2014 [imore.com]. The iPhone 6's chip was made on a 20nm process - and yet the phone was very thin and light.
Being a few years behind in terms of fab capability is likely not a huge deal for consumer products.
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Being a few years behind in terms of fab capability is likely not a huge deal for consumer products.
Indeed. That "always must have the newest" is pure marketing. This is about phones, not desktop-replacement mobile computers that play the latest games in 8k at 200FPS.
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Using a more modern process in a phone SoC means more battery life, or a smaller battery with the same life, so it means more profit. You don't need the latest tech to make a phone, but you do need the latest tech to make a better phone.
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As the owner of a Fairphone 4, I can say that I do not need that "better" phone and most other people do not need it either. Oh, and I get 2 days battery life with my usage.
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I get four to five days of using my Moto G Power 2021 for at least an hour or two a day, including some flashlight use. This Snapdragon 662 is an absolute champ. The GPU is kind of limp, but I didn't get it to play games on it. I have the 64GB 4GB RAM and it still sells new for more than what I paid for it — it was on sale when I bought mine. The lack of updates is slightly irritating, but what I've come to expect from Moto. The last OS security update was in February, although there's been Play updat
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Indeed. Some of this tech is just really "good enough" and all missing for long-term use is software support.
Re:Where is their SoC going to be fabbed? China (Score:4, Interesting)
I read a lot about SoCs here, SoCs there, and every company having one, either with some new earth shattering RTL, floorplan or some other Verilog miracle, with the CPU doing really awesome things in a Palladium simulator.
However, none of that means anything until the chip is fabbed. I'm curious who is doing Huawei's fabbing. The mainland is definitely a few generations behind in process nodes, and won't be nearing 5nm, much less 3nm for a number of years. Zaoxhin has an x86 design which is awesome, but depends on TSMC to be made.
The real missing link is what is being fabbed. For phone CPUs, the smaller the nm, the better, because of heat dissipation. One of the reasons phones have gotten bigger and bigger is because the CPUs need more surface area to dump heat, and there is only so far a phone can go, even with passive liquid heating.
The manufacturer is SMIC in a 7nm equivalent process (meaning that the transistore density per mm2 is similar to other 7nm processes from TSMC, SAMSUN or intel).
At the start of sanctions against Huawei, SMIC was reluctant to Fab Huawei chips, lest they be sanctioned too. Then SMIC got some sactions (unrelated to Huawei), then more sanctions for SMIC (again, unrelated to Huawei)... after a few cycles of this, SMIC got so many sanctions, that they did not care anymore if they worked with Huawei or not .
About that process node: The SMIC 7N is said to have low yields, but improving. It debuted with a Mining chip, since those chips are very regular, they are a good candidates for early chips to help perfect the node (other semiconductor manufacturers do this with FPGAs makers as their first customers). The process and yields (still low, but "less low" now) were refined enough to tackle a SoC. SMIC is pormissing an improved node in the comming years. If the improvement is only on the yields, it should be named 7n++, if it is an improvement in density, it should be 6n or even 5n. But that will depend on what the SMIC marketing folk want.
About the SoC. HiSilicon (a wholy owned subsidiary of Huawei) has been desigining all sorts of chips for a good while now, from ASICs that go into Huawei Telco and Datacom gear, all the way to SoCs for mobile, and processors for datacenters. When Huawei had access to TSMC Smasung or Glofo fabs, all was nice and dandy, and then sanctions hit. Now, with SMIC back in the picture for Huawei, the status Quo is slowly comming back for HiSilicon. After all, the power restrictions for a mobile SoC are hardly a problem when a SoC or ASIC is powering a 400Gbps Eth switch, or a 4G/5G eNodeB or NR, or core NFV
And, to top it off, these mobile SoCs have some datacenter DNA in them, while the efficiency cores are stanndard ARM designs, the Performance cores are the first mobile SoCs that can do SMT (after all, if you can not cram more transistors into the same size SoC, then maybe you can make the existing transistors work more ;-) ). Not even mighty apple does that (and they do not need to, because they have access to TSMC's N3).
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And, to top it off, these mobile SoCs have some datacenter DNA in them, while the efficiency cores are stanndard ARM designs, the Performance cores are the first mobile SoCs that can do SMT (after all, if you can not cram more transistors into the same size SoC, then maybe you can make the existing transistors work more ;-) ).
So what is this SMT thing you talk about? As far as I know, all smartphones use surface mount technology. Huawei's must be a different SMT. Please explain!
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And, to top it off, these mobile SoCs have some datacenter DNA in them, while the efficiency cores are stanndard ARM designs, the Performance cores are the first mobile SoCs that can do SMT (after all, if you can not cram more transistors into the same size SoC, then maybe you can make the existing transistors work more ;-) ).
So what is this SMT thing you talk about? As far as I know, all smartphones use surface mount technology. Huawei's must be a different SMT. Please explain!
Simetrical Multi-Threading.
The capability to run Two (or more) threads simultaneusly on the same physical core. Intel calls their implementation Hyperthreading.
Huwaei + SMIC making chps? Completely Expected! (Score:4, Informative)
HiSilicon (a wholy owned subsidiary of Huawei) has been desigining all sorts of chips for a good while now, from ASICs that go into Huawei Telco and Datacom gear, all the way to SoCs for mobile, and processors for datacenters. When Huawei had access to TSMC, Samsung or Glofo fabs, all was nice and dandy... and then sanctions hit.
The manufacturer of this SoC is SMIC in a 7nm equivalent process (meaning that the transistore density per mm2 is similar to other 7nm processes from TSMC, Samsung or intel). And better than what GloFo (the fab that had a 7nm process ready and dropped out of the race) can offer
Now, with SMIC back in the picture for Huawei, the status Quo is slowly comming back for HiSilicon. After all, the power restrictions for a mobile SoC are hardly a problem when a SoC or ASIC is powering a 400Gbps Eth switch, or a 4G/5G eNodeB or NR, or core NFV. Yes, 7nm is nmot the most advanced node in the world, but is good enough for mid-range phones, or (as I just said) ASICs for telco or processors for telco and Datacenter.
At the start of sanctions against Huawei, SMIC was reluctant to Fab Huawei chips, lest they be sanctioned too. Then SMIC got some sactions (unrelated to Huawei), then more sanctions for SMIC (again, unrelated to Huawei)... after a few cycles of sanctions, SMIC got so many sanctions, that they did not care anymore if they worked with Huawei or not .
And here we are, sanctioned HiSilicon/Huawei making chips again, on a semi-advanced process node (at least more advanced than GloFo) on chinese mainland, by SMIC, a sanctioned chinese company.
This should have been completely expected.
About that process node: The SMIC 7N is said to have low yields, but improving. It debuted with a Cryptocurrency Mining chip. Since those chips are very regular, they are a good candidates for early chips to help perfect the node (other semiconductor manufacturers do this with FPGAs makers as their first customers). The process and yields (still low, but "less low" now) were refined enough to tackle a SoC. SMIC is promissing an improved node in the comming years. If the improvement is only on the yields, it should be named 7n++, if it is an improvement in density, it should be 6n or even 5n. But in the end that will depend on what the SMIC marketing folk want.
About this SoC. It has some datacenter DNA in it, while the efficiency cores are stanndard ARM designs, the Performance cores are the first mobile SoCs that can do SMT (after all, if you can not cram more transistors into the same size SoC, then maybe you can make the existing transistors work more ;-) ). Not even mighty apple does that (and they do not need to, because they have access to TSMC's N3).
Sorry merkins but if I have to have some one (Score:2)
Designed from independant research--HA! HA! HA! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Does anyone really believe they developed it?
One of the headline features of this chip is that these are the first mobile SoCs that can do SMT on the performance cores.
Mighty Apple does not do that on either their mobile nor the ProMax (stationary) cores. Qualcomm does not do that on their mobile SoCs. ARM does not do that on their mobile SoCs. Mediatek does not do that on their mobile SoCs. Broadcom does not do that on their mobile SoCs...
BrendaEM, please, care to venture a guess as to where they stole the design of the headline feature of this SoC?