華為手機內部結構揭示中國晶片進步如何陷入停滯

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

A Look Inside Huawei’s Phone Shows How China’s Chip Advance Has Stalled

An analysis of Huawei’s latest series of smartphones, the Mate 70, found chips that showed little progress from those used in last year’s devices.

By Meaghan Tobin

Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

Dec. 17, 2024, 11:03 a.m. ET

In the tense geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States for control of advanced technology, Huawei is often in the middle.

The Chinese telecommunications giant is a main target of a U.S. trade blacklist and other controls intended to keep Chinese companies from buying or making advanced computer chips. Officials in Washington say these tiny chips, used to power chatbots and smartphones, are also essential for China’s efforts to build its military might.

Huawei is determined to prove that Washington’s trade barriers cannot hold it back. Last year, the company released a line of smartphones, the Mate 60, with chips more advanced than any previously made in China.

But Huawei’s new series of phones, the Mate 70, released last month, indicates that the company has made little progress toward more advanced chips in the past year, according to a new analysis. The chips inside Huawei’s latest devices appear to have been made using the same manufacturing processes as the ones in last year’s phones, said Alexandra Noguera, an analyst at TechInsights, a Canadian research firm.

Ms. Noguera and her colleagues examined the chips inside two models of the Mate 70 series and concluded that they were made by China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, known as SMIC.

The analysts compared the chips with others made by SMIC, including those in Huawei’s breakthrough Mate 60 phone. “Every dimension fits exactly what we have seen for the past two years,” Ms. Noguera said.

That is not a surprise: SMIC is the only company in China that can make such chips. The finding is notable, however, because it suggests that U.S. restrictions are at least stalling the country’s advances in chip technology.

“The primary impact of the export controls has not been reversing China’s progress, it has been making it very difficult for SMIC to increase production capacity,” said Gregory C. Allen, a technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

SMIC did not respond to a request for comment. Huawei declined to comment.

The Chinese government has made the manufacturing of computer chips and other advanced technology a major policy priority. China has poured billions of dollars into its chip industry, helping to fund a major expansion of factories.

SMIC, which has close ties to the government, has built factories at a blistering pace. It has grown into one of the largest contract chipmakers in the world, making products that are designed by its clients, including Huawei.

U.S. officials have progressively tightened restrictions to slow SMIC’s progress by limiting the kinds of chip-making tools it can buy from other countries. They have pushed Dutch and Japanese officials to stop their companies from supplying crucial machinery and equipment to SMIC’s most advanced factories.

That means SMIC depends on dated machinery. It is making even its most advanced chips using a manufacturing process that the world’s leading chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, had perfected by 2018.

The latest Huawei devices do not contain more advanced chips because SMIC is probably unable to make them at a large enough scale, Ms. Noguera said.

“If they could, they would have,” she said.

Huawei’s devices are hugely popular in China. Its sales have grown faster than any other brand in China during the past year, according to Counterpoint Research, which analyzes the smartphone market.

But widespread commercial success for Huawei’s latest devices will depend in part on its ability to secure a steady supply of chips from SMIC.

And experts say SMIC is already pushing the limits of its outdated tools and factory processes to make enough chips for Huawei’s existing phones — a costly strategy that results in a high number of faulty chips.

In part to further slow SMIC’s advances, the Biden administration this month announced broader restrictions on advanced technology that can be sent to China. The updated rules add more than 100 Chinese companies, many of which make the tools and machinery needed to manufacture chips, to a restricted trade list.

Since the Mate 60 Pro was launched last year, Huawei has been eating into Apple’s yearslong dominance in China. In 2022, three-quarters of high-end smartphones sold in China were iPhones. This year, the portion was about half, as Huawei’s share more than doubled, according to Canalys, a market research firm.

“SMIC, like Huawei, has obviously suffered from U.S. restrictions,” said Dan Wang, a fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. “But what matters for Beijing is not its yield rate or profitability as much as whether it is able to deliver the technology that China needs.”

Translation

華為手機內部結構揭示中國晶片進步如何陷入停滯

對華為最新系列智慧型手機 Mate 70 的分析發現，與去年設備中使用的晶片相比，進步不大。

在中美爭奪先進技術控制權的緊張地緣政治競爭中，華為常常處於两者隙縫之間。

在旨在阻止中國公司購買或製造先進電腦晶片的美國貿易黑名單和其他控制措施中, 這家中國電信巨頭是主要目標。華盛頓官員表示，那些用於為聊天機械人, 和智慧型手機提供動力的微型晶片對於中國增強軍事實力的努力也至關重要。

華為決心證明華盛頓的貿易壁壘無法阻止它。去年，該公司發布了一系列智慧型手機 Mate 60，其晶片比之前中國製造的任何產品都更先進。

但根據一項新的分析，華為上個月發布的新系列手機 Mate 70 表明，該公司過去一年在更先進晶片方面幾乎沒有任何進展。加拿大研究公司 TechInsights 的分析師 Alexandra Noguera 表示，華為最新設備中的晶片似乎是採用與去年手機相同的製造流程製造的。

Noguera女士和她的同事檢查了 Mate 70 系列兩款機型中的晶片，得出的結論是它們是由中國頂級晶片製造商中芯國際 (SMIC)製造的。

分析師將這些晶片與中芯國際生產的其他晶片進行了比較，包括華為突破性的 Mate 60 手機中的晶片。Noguera女士說 :「在每個方面都完全吻合我們過去兩年所看到的」。

這並不奇怪：中芯國際是中國唯一一家能夠製造此類晶片的公司。然而，這項發現值得注意，因為它表明美國的限制至少阻礙了該國晶片技術的進步。

華盛頓智庫戰略與國際研究中心的技術專家Gregory C. Allen表示： “出口管制的主要影響並不是逆轉中國的進步，而是讓中芯國際很難提高產能。”

中芯國際沒有回應置評請求。華為拒絕置評。

中國政府已將電腦晶片和其他先進技術的製造作為主要政策重點。中國已向其晶片產業投入數十億美元，為工廠的大規模擴建提供資金。

與政府關係密切的中芯國際以驚人的速度建廠。它已發展成為全球最大的合約晶片製造商之一，生產包括華為在內, 由客戶所設計的產品。

美國官員逐步收緊限制，限制中芯國際可以從其他國家購買晶片製造工具的種類，減緩中芯國際的進展。美國敦促荷蘭和日本官員阻止其公司向中芯國際最先進的工廠供應關鍵機械和設備。

這意味著中芯國際依賴過時的機器。它甚至正在使用世界領先晶片製造商台積電於 2018 年完善的製造流程來製造最先進的晶片。

Noguera女士表示，最新的華為設備不包含更先進的晶片，因為中芯國際可能無法大規模生產這些晶片。

她說:「如果可以生產更先進的晶片的話，他們已會這麼做」。

華為的出品在中國非常受歡迎。根據分析智慧型手機市場的 Counterpoint Research 的數據，在過去一年裡，其銷售成長速度超過中國其他品牌。

但華為最新手機的廣泛商業成功, 將部分取決於其能否獲得中芯國際穩定的晶片供應。

專家表示，中芯國際已經突破其過時工具和工廠流程的極限，為華為現有手機生產足夠的晶片 - 這是一種成本高昂的策略，會導致大量有缺陷的晶片。

拜登政府本月宣佈對可輸往中國的先進技術實施更廣泛的限制，部分原因是為了進一步減緩中芯國際的進步。更新後的規則將 100 多家中國公司列入限制貿易名單，其中許多公司是生產製造晶片所需的工具和機械。

自去年Mate 60 Pro推出以來，華為一直在蠶食蘋果在中國多年的主導地位。 2022年，中國銷售的高階智慧型手機中有四分之三是iPhone。市場研究公司 Canalys 的數據顯示，今年這一比例約為一半，華為的份額增加了一倍以上。

耶魯大學法學院 Paul Tsai中國中心研的究員Dan Wang表示：“中芯國際, 和華為一樣，顯然也受到了美國的限制” ; “但對北京來說，重要的不是它的成品率或獲利能力，而是它否能夠提供中國所需的技術。”

So, in the tense geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States for control of advanced technology, Huawei is often in the middle. This Chinese telecommunications giant is a main target of a U.S. trade blacklist and other controls intended to slow down Chinese companies from making advanced computer chips. My observation is that after China has showed its ability to produce solar panels and electric cars that can overwhelm the global market, computer chip making will be the next production battle ground for China to knock down its competitors.