In 1991, Huawei established its own ASIC design center, specifically responsible for designing “Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).”
At that time, Huawei had only been founded for four years, with only a few dozen employees, and was financially strapped, nearly on the brink of bankruptcy. The foundational C&C08 digital program-controlled switch was still three years away.
The establishment of this ASIC design center marked the beginning of Huawei’s long journey in IC design.
In 1993, the ASIC design center successfully developed Huawei’s first digital ASIC.
Subsequently, in 1996, 2000, and 2003, it successfully developed ASICs with 100,000 gates, 1 million gates, and 10 million gates respectively. Overall, each step was steady and robust.
By October 2004, Huawei’s strength had dramatically improved, with sales reaching 46.2 billion yuan and the number of employees exceeding tens of thousands. With a certain level of confidence, Huawei established Shenzhen HiSilicon Semiconductor Co., Ltd., commonly referred to as “Huawei HiSilicon”.
HiSilicon’s English name is HI-SILICON, which is actually an abbreviation for HUAWEI-SILICON. SILICON refers to silicon, a key material for manufacturing semiconductor chips, which has become synonymous with semiconductors.
For a long time, Huawei HiSilicon has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huawei. According to a statement from a leader within HiSilicon, Huawei is HiSilicon, and HiSilicon is Huawei.
HiSilicon’s president, He Tingbo, is also one of Huawei’s 17 directors.
Since Huawei HiSilicon, like Huawei, is not publicly listed, much information is not publicly disclosed, and its consistent low-profile approach adds a layer of mystery, leading to many misunderstandings about HiSilicon.
When mentioning Huawei HiSilicon, many people will first think of the Kirin processors widely used in Huawei phones, such as the Kirin 970 chip in the Huawei P20.
In fact, while Huawei HiSilicon is engaged in chip research and development, it is not limited to mobile phone chips. To be precise, Huawei HiSilicon provides chip solutions for digital home, communication, and wireless terminal fields. In simpler terms, they develop chips for mobile phone devices, mobile communication system equipment, transmission network equipment, and home digital devices.
Some of the solution areas listed on the HiSilicon official website
It is worth mentioning the security monitoring field. In this area, Huawei HiSilicon has achieved a global market share of up to 90% after more than a decade of deep cultivation, which indeed surprised many.
HiSilicon security chips
Moreover, the chips for Huawei’s high-end routers are also quite competitive. In November 2013, Huawei launched a 400G backbone router product (NE5000E-X16A) that used the HiSilicon chip SD58XX, which was released a year earlier than similar products from Cisco.
Huawei 400G backbone router
Now, let’s specifically talk about the mobile terminal chips that everyone is most familiar with and concerned about.
First, please take a look at this table organized by me:
This is a list of major models of Huawei HiSilicon Kirin series chips, detailing the key parameters and release dates of each major model.
Let me briefly introduce it.
In 2009, Huawei HiSilicon launched its first mobile terminal processor, the K3.
This processor was not used in Huawei’s own phones but was intended for the shanzhai (counterfeit) phone market, competing with chip manufacturers like MediaTek. Due to the product being immature, it did not achieve success.
In 2010, Apple’s self-developed A4 processor achieved great success on the iPhone 4, which also stimulated Huawei HiSilicon to some extent.
Thus, in 2012, Huawei HiSilicon launched the K3V2 processor.
This time, Huawei used it in its own phones, specifically targeting flagship models like the Mate 1 and P6.
However, this processor used TSMC’s 40nm process technology, resulting in high overall power consumption and very poor compatibility, leading to incompatibility with many games. Consequently, users did not accept it, and the overall sales of the phone were poor.
Despite this, the K3V2 was a brave attempt that laid a certain foundation for subsequent models.
At the end of 2013, Huawei HiSilicon launched the Kirin 910, which was their first SoC.
We have previously mentioned SoC, so what exactly is SoC?
SoC stands for System-on-a-Chip, which means “system on a chip.”
From a communication perspective, our smartphones usually consist of two major parts of circuitry: one part is responsible for the high-level processing, known as the application chip AP, similar to the computer we use; the other part is the baseband chip BP.
The baseband chip is similar to the modem we use, determining what network standards (GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, LTE, etc.) the phone supports. For example, the baseband chip acts like a language translator, converting the information we want to send (such as voice, video) according to predetermined rules (such as WCDMA, CDMA2000) before sending it out.
The baseband chip does not only include the baseband portion; it also encompasses the RF portion (RF). The baseband part is responsible for signal processing and protocol handling, while the RF part is responsible for signal transmission and reception. Manufacturers usually integrate the RF chip and baseband chip into one chip, physically unified, collectively referred to as the baseband chip.
The baseband chip
Then, the baseband chip is usually integrated into the main processing chip of the phone, becoming part of it.
The highly integrated SoC chip
This highly integrated main processing chip of the phone is an SoC chip.The SoC chip serves as the control center, including not only the baseband chip but also the CPU (central processing unit chip), GPU (graphics processing unit chip), and other chips (such as power management chips).
SoC chip
Taking the Kirin 910 as an example, its CPU is an ARM 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex-A9, its GPU is an ARM Mali-450, and its baseband chip is the self-developed Balong710.
Having explained this in detail, everyone should understand it, right? 
Although the 910 was the first mobile SoC chip from Huawei HiSilicon, it did not gain market recognition due to performance and compatibility issues. It wasn’t until the launch of the Kirin 925 chip in September 2014 that Kirin chips gradually gained acceptance.
Currently, after several iterations, the Kirin series chips have developed to Kirin970, which is used in flagship models like the P20.
Main technical parameters of Kirin 970
Huawei has always adopted a strategy of binding Kirin chips to its flagship phones. For instance, P7 and Kirin 910T, Mate7 and Kirin 925, P8 high-end version and Kirin 935, Mate 9 and Kirin 960, and up to the latest Mate 10, Honor 10 and Kirin 970.
There are many considerations behind this approach.
On one hand, in the early days, aside from Huawei itself, no one dared to use Kirin chips. Without the shipping volumes brought by its own orders, Kirin chips would have long been abandoned.
On the other hand, directly binding to its flagship phones puts significant pressure on Kirin chips. This forced pressure would inevitably compel HiSilicon to strive to enhance chip performance and quality.
However, this binding approach does carry significant risks, potentially leading to failure (as mentioned earlier, the K3V2 led to the failure of the P6). Nevertheless, with unwavering determination, Huawei ultimately won this gamble.
Huawei’s mobile phone president Yu Chengdong (design dialogue)
Huawei’s all-in commitment to HiSilicon is not a rash decision. In hindsight, this approach has proven to be very visionary. Given the recent developments, I believe everyone would agree, right?
What does it mean to have its own chips? Lower R&D and manufacturing costs, stronger bargaining power, and more reliable supply guarantees. Each of these aspects makes countless mobile phone manufacturers envious.
It can be said that Huawei HiSilicon chips have become a “game-changing tool” for Huawei to seize the competitive initiative.
The words spoken by Master Ren six years ago have become a remarkable prophecy:
“… (Chips) may not be useful for now, but we must continue to pursue them. If the company has a strategic gap, we are not talking about a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars, but thousands of billions of dollars. The wealth we have accumulated could be the very point that someone else seizes, leading to our downfall. … This is the strategic banner of the company, and it cannot be moved.”
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei
Regarding whether Huawei’s chips are truly independent intellectual property, I have explained this in my previous article about ARM (link). Today, let me explain it to everyone again.
The chip industry is a highly vertically integrated industry, with related companies responsible for each link, from design and manufacturing to packaging and testing.
Chip industry chain
Aside from Intel, very few integrated circuit manufacturers can independently complete the full process of chip design and manufacturing.
Clearly, Huawei HiSilicon does not possess all chip capabilities. Strictly speaking, Huawei HiSilicon is merely a chip design company. After completing chip design, it also needs to hand over the production to foundry companies like TSMC.
TSMC’s Huawei chip production line
I wonder if you have noticed that when industry rankings of chip companies are conducted, they are usually categorized. Companies like Huawei HiSilicon are referred to as “fabless semiconductor design companies,” classified under the Fabless category.
In the semiconductor chip industry, the business models are mainly divided into three types: IDM, Fabless, Foundry.
1. Some companies handle everything from design to manufacturing, packaging, testing, and marketing, known as IDM (Integrated Design and Manufacture) companies, such as Intel.
2. Some companies only focus on design and do not have fabs (factories), typically referred to as Fabless (fabless), such as ARM, AMD, Qualcomm, and Huawei HiSilicon.
3. There are also companies that only do foundry work, having fab but not design, known as Foundry (foundry), like TSMC.
The following chart shows the top ten Fabless companies globally ranked in 2017. Among them are China’s Huawei HiSilicon and Unisoc. Huawei HiSilicon’s revenue was $4.715 billion, a growth of 21%, ranking seventh. The top rank went to Qualcomm.
Even from a design perspective, Huawei HiSilicon cannot be completely independent and start from scratch.
Huawei HiSilicon has purchased ARM’s design licenses.
In my previous article explaining ARM, I mentioned that ARM specializes in chip design. Its business model is to sell IP (Intellectual Property) licenses, charging one-time technical licensing fees and royalties. (Due to space constraints, I won’t elaborate further)
Many companies worldwide purchase ARM licenses and design based on them.
To put it simply, ARM provides a bare shell, and everyone decorates it according to their needs. Most manufacturers do not have the ability to modify the bare shell. Only companies with strong capabilities, like Qualcomm and Apple, have this ability.
Modifying the bare shell can improve performance but may also lead to worse outcomes than ARM’s original design. Moreover, if a company wants to modify the bare shell, they need to pay ARM more money.
Initially, Huawei HiSilicon certainly did not have the ability to modify the bare shell, but does it have that capability now? Some say it does, while others say it does not, and I have not found a definitive answer. Personally, I believe that with the enhancement of capabilities, even if they do not possess it now, they will in the future.
Furthermore, beyond the ability to “modify the bare shell,” one should not underestimate the ability to “decorate” it. This already represents a high barrier, requiring very strong technical prowess, long-term accumulation, and substantial financial investment.
Everyone should also understand that completely abandoning ARM, even if feasible in the current market landscape, holds no commercial value. This is because a lot of software in the industry is based on the ARM instruction set, forming an ecosystem. If one creates a unique chip outside of this ecosystem, there will be no software available. A phone using such a chip would merely be a brick.
Alright, that’s about it for Huawei HiSilicon.
In summary, for Huawei, establishing HiSilicon and self-developing chips is undoubtedly the right move. However, for the country and the industry, having just one or two HiSilicons is definitely not enough. We need more chip companies and a more complete chip ecosystem.
Even so, we must be cautious and not act impulsively. The path of chips is destined to be long and arduous; compared to short-term emotional impulses, we need sustained rationality and patience.
After all, only those who successfully reach the finish line are the ultimate winners.
