HiSilicon No Longer Huawei's Captive Chipmaker

HiSilicon launched 4G communication chips on an open market, making it official that Huawei’s internal IC division is now externally supplying a host of chips to the industry.

By Steve Gu, EETimes
January 1, 2020

While Huawei HiSilicon is the largest chip design company in China, it has always had just one customer: Huawei.

Huawei’s strategy to keep HiSilicon as an internal unit — tasked to design and supply its chips only to Huawei — has worked well for the global telecom giant. Especially, since HiSilicon’s Kirin series of chips, capable of AI processing, has given Huawei a huge advantage over competitors.

It turns out, however, that HiSilicon has been quietly spreading its wings, supplying chips in some sub-sectors, a move Huawei and HiSilicon had not acknowledged before

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