Huawei and the US-China Chip War - #44

TP Huang is a computer scientist and analyst of global technology development. He posts often on X: / tphuang .
Steve and TP discuss:
0:00 Introduction: TP Huang and semiconductor technology
5:40 Huawei’s new phone and SoC
23:19 SMIC 7nm chip production in China: Yield and economics
28:21 Impact on Qualcomm
36:08 U.S. sanctions solved the coordination problem for China
semiconductor companies
42:48 5G modem and RF chips: impact on Qualcomm, Broadcom, Apple, etc.
47:14 5G and Huawei
52:50 Satellite capabilities of Huawei phones
56:46 Huawei vs Apple and Chinese consumers
1:01:33 Chip War and AI model training
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai., SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [e-mail] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

[@randomname931]

It's not about national security. It's a out slowing Chinese development.

[@mt643356]

You don’t throw rocks on the track trying to slow down your opponents . You run faster to keep your lead.

[@windcold4532]

Most of the people engaged in high-tech industries such as the chip industry in Taiwan are a group of people who retreated to Taiwan from China in 1949 and their descendants. For example, TSMC founder Morris Chang was born in Zhejiang Province, China. The [Executive President] who was responsible for planning Taiwan’s technology industry in 1986 was born in Shandong Province, China. [SMIC] The founder was born in Jiangsu Province, China

[@danwelterweight4137]

Most Taiwanese were rich land owners or descendants of rich land owners who used to exploit poor peasants and tenant farmers in the Mainland. They are the Chinese Kulaks and the Aristocratic class. That is why they fled with the KMT to Taiwan.

[@4KSnSLifestyle]

@@danwelterweight4137Ironically many of those Taiwanese descendants are investing billions in China together with Intel, AMD, Apple, Foxconn, SK Hynix, Micron, Qualcomm, TSMC and many others.

[@nitecatcool6541]

@@4KSnSLifestyle Money talk Bullshit walk 😎

[@davidchou1675]

Sure but they're not above being traitors at all -- the Manchus were able to breach the Great Wall only because a disgruntled Chinese general literally had the gates open for them.... Chinese history is replete with tyrants and traitors and our "Taiwan compatriots" are mostly no different.

[@Fightback2023]

When the Taiwanese traitors got beaten, they stole and took all the gold reserve from China, and ran to Taiwan. China was left with nothing...nothing. If China decides to bomb the shxt out Taiwan, most of the Mainland Chinese would be ok with it.

[@tonytan6547]

Mate 60 Pro is far better than iPhone 15

[@Kitten_Stomper]

In what way though? Camera? Screen resolution? Price?

[@niuliu6504]

@@Kitten_Stomper Yes, almost every aspect but the Camera. Sony gives the best of its CMOS to Samsung and Apple.

[@cabasadefogo9533]

Great interview! I would love to hear an chat with TP regarding Huawei's Nearlink that was just launched. Apparently, it has twice the range of wifi, 60x range of bluetooth, twice the transmission rate of wifi and 20x bluetooth's rate. Finally it has a latency of 20 microseconds vs wifi 100 MS, which is 5000 times faster.

[@tedchandran]

Jai Hinduja. No comparison. Bluetooth is one to one connection but Nearlink is one to many connections.

[@mujur9101]

Huawei is one of Wifi and Bluetooth Alliance big Contributor. And those alliances kicked Huawei out a day after Trump ban without any confirmation or defense for Huawei. What will you do for your next invention? Give it to those chicken alliances or create new alliance where you cannot being kicked out with no reason.

[@sunshinesun121]

HUAWEI ...was "Kick Out" from the Wifi Group. As such could not adopt the Wifi standards which the WORLD is using. With their OWN Nearlink ............... Wifi can be considered as " ANCIENT Tech" . NearLink performance and abilities are light years ahead of Wifi standards.

[@thomasrogers9146]

i am an american business man. the u.s is fighting a losing war.

[@blueeyes6192]

Huawei wouldn’t announce something they couldn’t deliver on. Think about it given it’s culture and leadership.

[@EbuzzNYC]

They just delivered a crxppy phone and didn't even bother to talk about it at their big show. It's melting and iPhones are selling like hotcakes in China. No thanks for culture and leadership. 🇹🇼

[@fongponto]

Its very hot on the internet reviews, by non chinese vloggers

[@waynewan9894]

@@EbuzzNYChave you ever used it yourself? you have no idea what you’re talking about

[@EbuzzNYC]

I haven't used dildos either, but I know it's not my thing. They're not even sold in the US, nor would I want a phone that's spying for the CCP@@waynewan9894

[@Bawdale]

​@@EbuzzNYCPeople like you are the reason the USA are following and not leading in the world today.

[@antoniobenamer8681]

Im buying huawei mate 60 pro.

[@qake2021]

👍👍👍🇨🇳Huawei🇨🇳👏👏👏

[@tofuyam7361]

Talk about waking up the sleeping dragon ... lol

[@davidchou1675]

One can only hope -- Zhonggua jia yu!!

[@patbyrneme007]

A key aspect missing from this discussion along with all the other discussions on this subject is the future of Chinese semiconductor exports. It is not just the growing ability of China to produce chips for its own use and the effect this will have on foreign chip sales in China. Just as important is the capacity this will then provide Chinese companies to produce cheaper semiconductors for export to the rest of the world. This will surely bankrupt most non Chinese chip and associated software companies.

[@olderchin1558]

It is important to note that China uses 50%+ of the world's chips production and imports 80% of what it uses. China does export low cost low end chips and probably some power management chips. With so much of the local market available to local chips manufacturers, concerns for the export market would be some years away. And based on recent news about new fab development in EU, US and Japan, I expect a huge chips glut in 2026 and beyond. I think TP mentioned twice the consequences of an independent Chinese chips industry to the US. Decoupling of the global chips industry is going to hurt the US but only inconvenient the Chinese manufacturers.

[@yiyue23]

Yeah, killing Qualcomm and Micron is good. Can't wait.

[@kooisengchng5283]

China has the ability to make anything better and cheaper and bring it to market faster. Once China masters chip making down to 1nm, it will stop importing chips and start exporting them. It will dominate the chip universe and this will make US, Japan, SK vomit blood.

[@4KSnSLifestyle]

China just announced a project to build particle accelerator to generate high resolution laser that can make chips up to one Nm. This is to bypass the sanction of EUV machines. It's estimated China would be able to reach one Nm within ten years.

[@Waverlyduli]

Announcements, like dreams, are free. But whose pockets do you think the seed capital will disappear into? Besides, in 10 years China's competitors'll still be ten years ahead and Pooh's command economy and surveilence dystopia will only keep China a lame duck. The CCP authoritarian system and Pooh's personal power is the priority there, not Chinese at the individual or even collective level. Why do you think only 4% of GDP is spent on education in China, a tiny fraction of the spending by they're competitors. You never figured these things out?

[@4KSnSLifestyle]

@@Waverlyduli Only time will tell.

[@ganboonmeng5370]

​@@WaverlyduliOnly 4% GDP on education...yet...China produce...better students...then USA...Already...China leading in many new tech...you are still 10 years behind....better catch up...

[@Waverlyduli]

@@ganboonmeng5370 The low intellectual ceiling manifests in Chinese people's incapacity to evolve beyond an unmandated, outlandishly corrupt, inept and oppressive autocracy. (Just saying).

[@kooisengchng5283]

Sooner or later, we will reach the limit of silicon chips, probably in 5 to 8 years. After that it remains to be seen what China has up its sleeve. It has many times more scientists working in R and D than what US or Japan can come up with.

[@user-ok6re8gv1q]

Thank you to Manifold for bringing this guest and the host's insights about chip industry in China. Once China knows the basics to do 7nm at scale, it is only a matter of time to accomplish smaller chips. The suppressive and unjustified geopolitics emanating from America, just means the developing nations need to de-risk from America and its allies: in choosing China and Huawei these nations will leap frog the antiquated systems and infrastructure of the west, bringing greater equality and goodness to mankind's development - REGARDLESS of race. Add oil China!

[@EbuzzNYC]

The rush to decouple is AWAY from China, at all costs. China hasn't shown to be a land of innovation, something about the polluted corrupt air of the CCP.

[@EbuzzNYC]

I'd like to see "the global south" decouple from US and EU, please. They'll be selling coconuts to each other, the world's engines are in EU+US, no other country can sustain global trade. That's why CHina is so scared of the decoupling happening in the US now, Mexico is our biggest trading partner now. Adios, China.

[@trfgshdtg4577]

@@EbuzzNYC Don't worry, the global south is working to decouple from you freaks and dedollarize. You will experience an avalanche of inflation like you have never seen before.

[@Post-it2363]

Looks to me that non-chinese producers (ASML, TSMC) is doing what they are supposed to do, but US design companies (Apple, Nvidia, AMD etc) cannot keep up with Chinese counterparts, and don’t get the max out of 5nm and 3 nm.

[@olderchin1558]

It is refreshing to get an intelligent discussion in English on the chips industry from people who actually understands it. I spend 30 years in systems R&D and telecommunications (protocol development and deployment), and I agree with you guys that the US think tank/intelligence org are clueless if not dangerously misleading their politicians. There is too much group think and politicalisation/lying that would be good for strategy decision making.

[@xsu-is7vq]

I don’t think it’s think tank/intelligence org misleading the politicians, but the politicians ordering those orgs to come with analysis reports that justify the positions they took.

[@davidlai399]

@@xsu-is7vqthink tanks are cesspools of ex politicians and pseudo academics funded by the military industrial complex

[@missyxixi]

USA is dependent on their experience during the Cold War. That’s what they know, and sadly seems all they know.

[@Arielscheinermann]

tp is one of those people i have on alert when he posts on X.

[@SwazzerProductions]

Fantastic episode and genuinely interesting insights. Chinese EV developments and ‘financial war’ would be good topics for future episodes with this guest.

[@teddyhoukamau8516]

There is no chip war, only jealously and spite from the US, because of China's achievements, the US really needs to get pass this!

[@siberiantiger1585]

Outstanding interview! Very helpful in understanding these technical issues.

[@jasonl3254]

Hey Steve, great content as usual.

[@donjasjit]

I learned a lot in this interview. Thanks a lot.

[@ZenLH]

Excellent interview

[@Lost_Johnny]

Thanks for this informative discussion.

[@aslampervez2294]

Thanks

[@beginnerquant6261]

The key is not one technology. The key is the resources to create those techs. Compare how many engineers China and US has, and how many our those engineers work per week.

[@fannyalbi9040]

talk about duv or euv, the “spare parts” r vital, in the production, things will breakdown, and apparently china is able to produce it, such as the light source etc. in case of breakdown, china is able to get the replacement locally 😅

[@felipefrutoramirezsj5342]

China has mature chip technology which is what is needed most in the industries. So, China will continue to dominate manufacturing goods that don't need 3 or 5 nanometer chips. China is massively investing on semiconductors research and is succeeding. Not only that, China has a huge market within itself. Despite the U.S. sanctions, Chinese mobile phones like Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor, Redmi, etc. are ubiquitous, very popular in many countries, and in many ways even superior to Samsung and Iphone. / By the way, China leads in EV, drone technology, AI, high-speed trains, small modular reactors, robotics, 5G connectivity, batteries, renewable energy, digital payments, etc. Because it has first-class infrastructure, China's economic development will continue to outstrip the U.S. and E.U.

[@philipwong895]

It was cheaper for China to buy reliable Western chips, benefiting both sides. China spends more on chip imports than on oil. The sanctions prompted China to invest in its own supply chain. Local manufacturers are now more willing to use the perceived less reliable local chips. When self-sufficient, China can provide the world with cheaper chips, while the West and its allies lose access to both the Chinese and global markets. The US is developing its own supply chain, but without access to a large market, it cannot be competitive. The Chinese government had little success in being self-sufficient in technology; they are very grateful to the US for pushing them towards self-sufficiency. Thanks to the US, China now has its own GPS system and space program.

[@TunFrank]

Pppppppppppppp} pp} p) ppl ppppppppppp) pp)) p} p}} p

[@bertobertoberto3]

Very good pod

[@seanwong8479]

Sounds like you were going into talk about DUV and EUV development in China, but somehow never got to it. Would be nice if make another episode about it. The history is fascinating and the challenges are exactly what you said about start ups. China invested a lot into EUVs in the late 90s, then stopped for about about decade only to restart again recently. Similar story on DUVs with Project 02 etc. The main problems is the machine would require domestic EDA software, domestics process since non-Chinese cendor will not go out of their way in add Chinese specific things into their stackup and fab houses will not being up a special line that require lot of tuning to get everything working. So at end of the day, they build a one off product, write some nano scale Chiese character or drawing tiny logos, publish a few papers mint a lab worth of Ph.Ds and call it day. It has called a giant waste of money for years, however, the US sanctions only make made those effort only seemingly good decisions, but now it can finally move to be a real product producing semiconductor rather than fancy toys for researcher.

[@Post-it2363]

I agree with the beginning of your post (then got lost); kudos for SMIC re the 7nm chip, but there is a limit to multi-patterning. But what is the way forward without EUV??

[@Post-it2363]

I don’t believe that the yield on DUV multi-patterning is high, why would they spend billions on buying truckloads of DUV’s from ASML?

[@seanwong8479]

@@Post-it2363 China did a lot of research in the late 90s and 2000s in DPP based EUV light source, but stopped due to cost and appearance of advanced techniques such multi-patterning and later immersion that made EUV much less of an immediate need. In the mid-2010 research in EUV equipment was started again with more funding on internationally proven LPP techniques (though DPP was not completely given up), however progress was slow, with a low power simplified demonstrator in 2016. However, since the trade war 2018 the entire project went radio silent and no one knows it's actual progress. The only thing that is certain is 长光机 (mainly a remote sensing satellite maker seem to lead this project rather than usual suspects like SMEE and rest just in deep rumor territory with optimists think practical EUV is just 3 years away (so 10 year since project restart) while pessimist thinking it is 10 years away (so 17 years since project restart). Western media tend to take the pessimist view, partially based on how long Project 02 (China's DVU effort) took, however, Project 02 ended with just a single product, and fab houses cast it aside after finishing validation because machine from ASML, Nikon etc are not only cheaper (due to higher quantity), but you don't need to tune your progress for it. And that is not counting reliability and uptime issue with a brand new machine from a relatively green company, also no western EDA software will tune their software for it either, so they have use entirely new domestic software that practically no one has training in and is effectively in beta state for the first few years. It is a project that exists just to get government grants and check government boxes, thus little enthusiasm for the project and no one was surprised at the result. (Before the trade war, even government officials expressed that the project was a waste of money.) However, the new EUV project already has a captive market and Chinese fab houses can't use western EDA software anyways. So the commercial viability, priority and event non-government funding should be factored in before the timeline on the Chinese EUV is estimated. However, I don't see any serious analysis on this in the English language. Hell, I rarely see any discussion on project 02 let alone drawing any lesson from it.

[@lagrangewei]

@@Post-it2363they buy truckload of DUV because China produce 20% of all the chip in the world. people underestimate how many chip China produces. China makes more chip than the US does... that's why US is panicking and trying to block China.

[@kumbackquatsta]

you guys should be embedding these videos on your website too

[@sewnsew6770]

Very informative

[@billhammett174]

Refreshing to hear a "outside the Valley" viewpoint. Go Michigan State EE/CE guys...

[@ajohny8954]

I’m on the road, can’t turn blade runner on :/

[@lunchik2689]

single digit nm processes are marketing and don't have any direct relationship to physical feature sizes. The unknown process Kirin 9000s at 107mm2 die is only fractionally larger than the 105mm2 TSMC manufactured 5nm Kirin 9000! So if it is using the SMIC 7nm process those HiSilicon boys have spent the last couple of years really upping their game because by rights all things been equal the 9000s should be a lot bigger than the 2% die size difference. Alternatively, all the conjecture its a 7nm SMIC chip is wrong and the actual process and manufacturer remains a mystery. At a macro level despite US sanctions/restrictions of everything from EDA tools to manufacturing equipment Huawei was able to rebuild a whole new domestic supply chain, design and mass produce a mobile phone that is equivalent to the latest and greatest from Apple, so does it matter whether its SoC is Xnm or X-1nm? The so called chip war like the so called trade war is fast becoming a non-event. The real issue is the US policy is dictated by idelogues who are drunk on its own koolade that 'capitalism, free dumb and demon-cracy' are some how magic ingredients to technological success and so China will never succeed because all the people are repressed, the CPC don't have any idea about how to effectively channel capital and XI Jinping he's way too busy with genocides! Meanwhile in the land of black and white cats the mice just keep getting caught!

[@warrenwang4795]

Just wait and see.

[@ecrush5080]

IMHO, judging from publicly available data, based on apple's A17 soc (3nm) vs A16 (5nm). 3nm fabrication seem not bring much improvement in term of power efficiency, at least not as big as we (I) imagine to be. And I can only imagine how much more difficult & expensive those 3nm chips to be produced (vs 5nm) even w/ all the best tools available for TSMC.

[@VL-inquisitor]

You blocked China from accessing GPS signals when they were doing a military drill in the Taiwan Strait. Then China established their own global positioning system (Beidou). You are now blocking China from accessing the latest semiconductor, do you expect something different to play out this time? What is worst this time is that China is the single largest electronic market that can't be replaced for years to come, and you are forcing it to become self-reliant on chips. Let me tell you, this is a paradigm shift that is irreversible in nature - China remains the single largest market for electronics and it will not buy chips from the West. It can be rest assured that Huawei will spearhead the breakthrough of all chokepoints and constrictions on chips set by the West.

[@mithrandirthegrey7644]

I sell RF chips for the largest IoT module manufacturer in the world - a Chinese company. Traditionally we sold mostly Qualcomm based stuff in the west but in Europe you're seeing more and more UNISOC and ASR based modules sold because when China shut down the old telecom networks it drove down the price of newer chipsets. The sunset for 2G/3G is 2025 in many places in Europe and there are millions of devices being replaced and re-designed for the sunset with Chinese modems. On the other hand Huawei is being pushed out of the European base-station market. Everything is being replaced with Nokia and Ericson.

[@mysystem32]

Why the surprise that Huawei has re-released 5G chip? Huawei had the Balong 5000 5G chip before sanctions.

[@clintonchao3794]

MEMS or micro-electromechanical systems

[@joem0088]

Chip War = Cheap War

[@modelmark]

Of course with all this economic warfare, why would Chinese government hold dollar reserves? And how else than borrowing from the printing press are these enormous deficits going to be funded?

[@yttean98]

@33.35 Interviewer said: Clearly the Huawei engineers are not Idiots. What a condescending statement. Mind your language.

[@hanfucolorful9656]

12:48 5 nm

[@billhammett174]

If Irwin Jacobs could create Qualcomm back in the salad days of cellular - without running to Washington every week (like Pat Gelsinger) - why can't Huawei create the tech today?

[@billhammett174]

Do Chinese execs and engineers check their stock prices every 10 minutes?

[@davidchou1675]

So how can Huawei be such a leader in 5G networking infrastructure but at the mercy of U.S. sanctions when it comes to 5G smartphones???

[@rap3208]

C-H-I-P-S reasons

[@cxbmtx7120]

Huawei is stragetic. They are prepared for 5 nm so they unleashed the. 7nm

[@aslampervez2294]

Also do a video with asianometry Jon y. Thanks

[@blueeyes6192]

Jon didn’t even predict the Huawei shocker . His usual commentary is “Yields are poor “ 😂

[@mistman5640]

He did one last year. You can look it up.

[@accountantthe3394]

Guy's a scam artist selling to english speaking audiences what they want to hear 😂

[@aslampervez2294]

​@@mistman5640I have already seen that. Thanks

[@hurrikkkanes2533]

that niqqa is a taiwanese fraud working with idiots like jordan schneider from (cia front) rhodium group 😂 basically same bunch of bozos that direct the us tech & commerce policies who don’t know what they’re dealing with 😅

[@user-ok6re8gv1q]

China Huawei should launch a "Meng" phone: the campaign "Free a Meng" buy a Huawei.

[@urimtefiki226]

Watching from my window, waiting since to 2019 now we are 2023. Make money with my tables, and fame too.

[@johngordon1175]

You are talking too much and allow yourself to be led by an American who doesn’t have your interest uppermost.

[@magnaviator]

I live in the US and would buy a Huawei phone too if I could. US cheating and acting like a thug and a gangster. sad.

[@mattgriffiths6488]

Look at the CCP spam machine go!

[@user-if1ur5td1x]

White boi crying your eyes out ..dun worry .. Mommy still loves you

[@mattgriffiths6488]

@@user-if1ur5td1x I think you need to retrain your bots

[@arthurhuang8978]

This is the modern day version of David vs Goliath :)

[@chopinmack5418]

Huawei has shifted their business focus into EV car controls , Container Ports unmanned systems , Efficient / Safe mining systems and 5.5G / 6G , on top of Semiconductor / Smartphones alone . US may need to consider how to spend up on Innovations internally , instead of blocking Huawei only .