A Huawei subsidiary has just invested in the field of lithography, which marks the company’s entry into tech related to chip production. The move from the company likely arrives to deal with the US sanctions and ‘forge a complete chip industry chain’.

Huawei

The Hubble Technology Investment, a unit of the Chinese tech giant, recently invested 82 million Yuan (12.8 million US Dollars) in Beijing RSLaser Opto-Electronics Technology Co. This makes the investment unit the seventh largest stakeholder of the company that focuses on light source systems, which is one of the three core technologies of lithograph based machines. The investment unit from the Chinese brand was established back in 2019 and has investments in about 28 semiconductor based firms.

Fu Liang, a veteran telecom industry analyst told GlobalTimes that “Huawei’s move is mainly intended to offset loopholes and shortcomings caused by US restrictions while supporting enterprises with high recognition to produce a higher level of products through investments. This is crucial for reducing China’s reliance on certain countries and enterprises in the global semiconductor industry.” For those unaware, Huawei has been forced to rely on domestic foundries that fabricate 14 to 28nm chips since it had its chip supply for the advanced TSMC 7nm chips cut off by US sanctions.

Huawei Logo MWC 2019

Furthermore, analysts added that lithography machines are key to building an ecosystem of the chip industry. This paired with the fact that RSLaser Opto-Electronics was the first to independently design and develop the first domestic high energy excimer laser, which broke the long term monopoly that was held by overseas manufacturers. Fu further added that “Lithography machines and light sources determine the degree of precision of chips, but the global supply is still dominated by certain enterprises, so Huawei’s investment in the lithography field aims to reduce its reliance on foreign companies.”

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