Since the rise of Huawei's 5G, the era of "lying and earning" of American companies such as Apple and Qualcomm has been completely broken, and the United States, which claims to be the hegemon of science and technology, has also deeply felt the competitive pressure from the eastern powers for the first time.
According to normal logic, if the United States wants to regain the right to speak in communications, it should increase investment in research and development, and compete with us in core technologies. However, it does not pay attention to martial arts and uses rogue methods to suppress Huawei through non-commercial means such as long-arm jurisdiction and cutting off the supply of chips.
You must know that chips are the food of the industrial age, and although Huawei can design the world's top high-end Kirin chips, it is highly dependent on TSMC's manufacturing process. With the promulgation of a ban in the United States, TSMC immediately terminated its foundry service to Huawei, which led to Huawei falling into a situation where there was no core available for three years, and many businesses such as mobile phones in the outbreak stage were greatly damaged.
But what the United States never expected was that Huawei is by no means comparable to ordinary enterprises, and it would rather bend than bend! The most important thing is that after experiencing the pain of "stuck neck" brought by Meixin, the domestic market has completely recognized the face of the West, began to vigorously support the development of local semiconductors, and set the goal of achieving a 70% chip self-sufficiency rate by 2025.
Thanks to the efforts of the whole country over the past three years, the self-sufficiency rate of domestic chips in the field of mature technology has been significantly improved, and the dependence on foreign countries has been greatly reduced. According to public information, from 2022 to the present, the number of imported chips that Chinese enterprises have cut orders has reached about 207 billion.
As the saying goes, some people are happy and some people are worried, compared with the rapid progress of China's chips, the US semiconductor market is a mournful. You must know that the United States semiconductor is mainly exported, but it can be trapped by chip rules, Qualcomm, Intel and other giants are unable to ship freely to the mainland market, which leads to its sales and profits continue to be the first, heavy losses, and has to reduce the pressure by laying off employees and reducing business scale.
What makes Lao Mei feel even more heartbroken is that he spared no effort to block Huawei, even at the expense of the interests of his own company, but in the end it ended in failure. More than four months ago, Huawei released the high-end flagship Mate60 Pro, which instantly detonated the market, because Huawei mobile phones have 5G functions again after three years, and even Kirin chips have come out again.
Although the process of the Kirin 9000S chip may only be 7nm, it is produced by the domestic market, which can be said to be a "milestone" breakthrough. According to the data released by the Japanese dismantling agency, the proportion of American accessories and technologies for Huawei Mate60 Pro is as low as 1%!
This means that Huawei has finally broken through the blockade after three years of dormancy, and has worked with domestic first-class companies to create an unbreakable "de-beautification" chain, and China's chip industry chain has also completed a major upgrade. After more than 100 days of "core war" between China and the United States, it seems that it is about to usher in the final chapter.
Up to now, Huawei Mate60 sales have exceeded 5 million units, and according to the industry**, its life cycle sales may be between 60 million and 70 million units. At that time, not only Apple's iPhone sales will be impacted, but Qualcomm, which is already unable to ship freely, may also be in a worse situation.
Qualcomm, Intel, etc. called on the US executives to relax shipment restrictions and issued a warning, saying that if they continue to "decouple" from the Chinese market, American chips will rot in the warehouse forever. In addition, South Korean semiconductors, Dutch ASML, etc., have also communicated with the United States and made it clear that the Chinese market is irreplaceable.
In the face of pressure from all sides, coupled with Huawei's breakthrough, the United States is no longer blindly insisting, not only issuing shipment licenses to Qualcomm and other American companies, but even ASML's low-end DUV lithography machines can be shipped to the mainland, and even giving Samsung and SK hynix "indefinite immunity" to no longer hinder the introduction of core manufacturing equipment in their factories in China. Judging from the performance, Lao Mei seems to have compromised, so does this mean that Chinese companies can also breathe a sigh of relief?
First of all, we need to understand that the restrictions relaxed by the United States are only within the scope of mature chip manufacturing processes. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Raimondo made it clear during his recent visit to China that the United States is willing to provide long-term chips to the mainland market, but it does not contain the top chips. The implication: we only want to ** the chips that you have been able to produce, as for the technology that has not yet broken through, it will still be strictly limited.
Obviously, the so-called "letting go" of the United States is not only to make a "favor" for its own enterprises and allies, but also to use the advantages of basic technology to fight a "first-class war" with Chinese enterprises, which is undoubtedly another form of suppression, and its purpose is very clear, that is, to completely disrupt the rhythm of self-sufficiency in domestic semiconductors by means of large-scale dumping, so as to curb our ice-breaking speed.
Now it seems that the people are right, there is no shortcut to the rise of China's core, we can no longer have any illusions about the outside world, only by insisting on independent research and development, and mastering the core technology in their own hands, can we fundamentally get rid of the situation of being controlled by others.
Therefore, no matter how the external environmental factors change, Chinese technology companies must remain vigilant, as the so-called "father and mother are not as good as their own", and hope that Huawei and other Chinese enterprises will make persistent efforts to draw an end to the "core war" between China and the United States as soon as possible.