A new report has revealed that Huawei is increasing its efforts to become more self sufficient. While the US sanctions had cut off its chip supply from TSMC in the past, the company is now apparently seeking to set up its first chip production factory in China to offset the sanctions.

According to a DigiTimes report (Via AsiaTimes), the Chinese tech giant is planning on building its first wafer fabrication manufacturing company in Wuhan, Hubei Province. This new ‘HiSilicon Factory’ is expected to begin the production in stages from next year.  Furthermore, the report claimed that the factory will be used to produce optical communication chips and modules to gain self sufficiency and to manufacture microcircuit designs as well.

For those unaware, HiSilicon is Huawei’s chip designing subsidiary and is a fabless chip maker. In other words, while it has the capability to design advanced chips it used to contract TSMC for chip production. As per sources close to the matter, Huawei is set to invest 1.9 billion Yuan (roughly 278 billion US Dollars) in the Wuhan HiSilicon chip factory project, which will have it develop its own chipsets for smartphones and other IoT (internet of things) devices as well.

With the various US sanctions that have crippled its operations, Huawei and even China has been placing an emphasis on accelerating the development of domestic fabrication plants to localize the supply chain for its local tech firms. This would even have it reduce its reliance on foreign chipmakers as well. Although, keep in mind that this is just an unconfirmed report at the moment, so take it with a pinch of salt for now and stay tuned for more updates regarding this matter.

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As China is gearing up to become self-reliant in the chipset manufacturing sector and reduce its reliance on other countries, Chinese giant Huawei Technologies has reached a milestone in that direction.

A report reveals that Huawei’s first domestic chip manufacturing factory, called Wuhan Huawei Optical Factory Project (Phase II), has officially completed construction. The project is said to be spread across 208,900 sq. mt. and is located in Wuhan Optics Vallery Center.

This is also Huawei’s largest Research & Development base in China’s central region. It includes FAB Production Plant, CUB Power Station, PMD Software Factory, and some other supporting facilities. It will also sever as the company’s internal optical capability center, smart terminal R&D center, and some other cutting-edge technologies.

Once the project is completed, it will start the production work as Huawei’s first chip manufacturing factory in China. This will enable the Chinese giant to have a complete semiconductor industrial chain — from chip design to manufacturing, to testing and packaging, which is a rare feat.

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But it seems that this won’t be the only such facility from Huawei. As per another report, the company is planning to have another chipset factory in Shanghai and will be managed by a Shanghai-based R&D company on behalf of Huawei.

Although the chipset factory is being set up, it won’t be able to compete with the current leaders. Huawei will start making 45nm chips next year and will progress to 28nm chipsets by 2022. This is nowhere near 5nm chipsets being launched nowadays that powers the premium flagship smartphones.

The development comes after the United States government imposed sanctions on Huawei and barred the company from procuring chipset or any technology that is made in the US. With the supply of necessary components halted, Huawei decided to focus on becoming self-reliant to keep the business afloat.

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City of Wuhan in Central China’s Hubei Province remains under quarantine because of the coronavirus outbreak. Despite this, chipmakers Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and its 12-inch foundry subsidiary Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (XMC) claims to have been unaffected in terms of production and shipments.

The companies say that the deliveries of their chip remains normal despite coronavirus outbreak in their locality. The company’s spokesperson has said that it is maintaining normal production and operations, and its raw material supplies and shipments are also running smoothly.

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YMTC says that it has undertaken a number of scientific preventive measures to ensure that its employees remain safe. The measures taken by the company include publicising quarantine procedures, offering medical masks, temperature checks, enhanced disinfecting, and remote meetings.

There are numerous reports claiming that the production and supply chain of several smartphones in the China could get hit amid coronavirus outbreak. Recently, it was reported that supply chain of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S20 lineup could be affected. Prior to that, it was said that production of the upcoming Apple iPhone 9 as well as AirPods might face issues but Foxconn claimed that everything is working smoothly.

Apart from coronavirus outbreak and the extended Chinese New Year holidays, the Chinese government has officially extended the holiday season as a way to battle the spread of infection. Thus, a lot of factories have already suspended operations and will stay out-of-business for a while.

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(Via)

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Huawei is now using its expertise in the networking field to combat the outbreak of the Coronavirus. The Chinese electronics giant is currently helping in improving the infrastructure of hospitals through 5G networking.

For those unaware, China has recently been suffering from a new virus outbreak, dubbed Coronavirus, which is known to cause pneumonia and has already infected a couple of hundred people with a few dozen already succumbing to the disease. It has devastated the Wuhan region in the country, prompting the Government to put it on lockdown. This also means that about 11 million residents of the region are also at risk.

Huawei, the known tech company from China, has already set up a Coronavirus outbreak protection team on 23rd January 2020, which comprises about 150 people. In the span of just three days, the dedicated team has aided in the construction of network planning, survey, design, fiber laying, and erection of base stations. Furthermore, the company has even established 5G base stations at the Wuhan Vulcan Mountain Hospital, in partnership with Hubei Mobile and Hubei Unicom.

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The Wuhan Vulcan Mountain Hospital is currently under rapid construction with another electronics giant like Xiaomi also lending a hand. It is expected to be completed by the end of this week and, though Huawei’s efforts, will be capable of receiving ultra-high-speed network connectivity. In other words, a fast and reliable data connection is ensured, making remote consultation, remote monitoring and other services more easily accessible.

The news was shared on Huawei’s official Weibo account, a Chinese microblogging website, that also contained images that showcased a few members of the special team that is currently working to set up the necessary infrastructure around the hospital and other key areas.

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(Source)

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In a bid to expand the offline presence, Xiaomi has opened up another Mi Home store in Wuhan China. It is the largest Mi Home store that is present in China. It features smart home demo zone of its wide range technology products. Xiaomi’s senior vice president Wang Xiang made a formal announcement about it via his official twitter handle. He even shared some pictures of the newly opened largest Mi Home store in Wuhan.

A couple of months ago, Xiaomi has accomplished its plan to open 100 Mi Home stores across China. Now, they have initiated a new program to bring 1000 Mi stores in China by the year 2020. As per Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, the company is slated to open over 200 Mi retail stores by the end of this year. At present, there are stores all over in major cities of China like Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Zhuzhai, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Wuxi, Dongguan, Jinan, Dalian, Xiamen, Qingdao, Shenyang, and others.

The Mi stores allow customers to experience the Xioami products in the native environments. It gives you an overall high-end experience of the Xiaomi products such as Speakers, Home Cleaning products, mobile devices, etc. They offer a rich portfolio and allow customers to experience products in stores. Along with the experience zone, there’s also a sales counter which will enable users to buy the Xiaomi devices on the go. In some stores, there is a dedicated wall allowing customers to get the information about the product instantly.

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Xiaomi shop assistants also help users to know about the devices and help them to process payments without any waiting in line.

It’s a good practice by Xiaomi that they are opening Offline stores to tackle the competition from other brands such as Vivo and Oppo.

(Source)

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ZUK Z2 is one of the cheapest Snapdragon 820 powered smartphones in the market right now, which also makes it one of our favorite phones of the year. The phone is highly popular in China, and it got over 6 million registrations for the first flash sale a few weeks back. However, if you are someone who wanted to purchase the device online in China, you might have to wait for a couple of days for your order to be shipped.

The Senior Vice President of the Lenovo Group, Chen Xudong has just confirmed that Lenovo’s plant in Wuhan, China has been shut down due to floods and more than 2000 employees in this factory were transported to a safer location on Wednesday morning. What this also means is that the ZUK Z2 will face temporary shortages in supply, at least on the online stores in the country.

But the phone seems to be available at some offline Suning and Lenovo outlets. Hence Mr. Xudong has asked customers to check out these stores for purchasing the device.

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We hope this doesn’t affect the supply of the ZUK Z2 smartphones being sold by online retailers internationally.

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