In 2018, we told you that
Huawei was working on an operating system to replace Android in case he loses access to the Google Mobile Services version of the software. What concerned
Huawei At the time, ZTE, another Chinese smartphone and networking equipment company, was placed on the US Entity List for failing to comply with US sanctions after selling equipment to South Korea. North and Iran. These sales violated US sanctions.
While President Donald Trump removed ZTE from the Entity List, his administration added Huawei to the list a year later and it remains there to this day. in August 2019,
Huawei introduced HarmonyOS. The company’s main consumer, Richard Yu, said during the announcement that the operating system is designed to run on a variety of devices such as smartphones, smart speakers, automobiles, computers, smart watches and tablets.
HarmonyOS 3.0 came pre-installed on the Mate 50 series this year
HarmonyOS 3.0 came pre-installed on the Mate 50 line released earlier this year. According to
GizChina, HarmonyOS runs on over 320 million handsets. The operating system is the third largest mobile operating system in the world after Android and iOS with an annual growth rate of 113%. That’s no small feat for a company forced to compete with a hand tied behind its back.
Third-party HarmonyOS installations are also on the rise with more than 250 million units of products such as light bulbs, televisions, microwaves and refrigerators using the software. These installations are increasing at the rate of 212% on an annual basis.
Huawei’s own AppGallery app store is also growing rapidly and is now the third largest in the world after the Google Play Store and the App Store. It’s a bit light on options (only 220,000 apps compared to around 2.5 million in the Play Store) but still capable of serving over 580 million monthly users.
A year after being placed on the Entity List, Huawei was banned from receiving chips made by foundries using US technology. For its two latest flagship series (2021’s P50 line and this year’s Mate 50 series), Huawei has been given permission to use 4G versions of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipsets. For example, this year’s Mate 50 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC modified to work only with 4G signals.
China’s largest foundry, SMIC, does not have access to the state-of-the-art lithography machines used to etch circuits onto wafers thinner than the width of a human hair. The United States ensures that these extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines cannot be imported by China. But
My Drivers indicates that Huawei recently filed a patent application covering certain EUV components and the EUV lithography process. The application number is 202110524685X.
If Huawei develops its own EUV process, the company could regain access to cutting-edge 5G chips
DigiTimes Asia Note that the patent has not yet been granted to Huawei by China’s National Intellectual Property Administration, and it is not clear whether Huawei has the capability to manufacture a complete EUV machine that is approximately the size of a school bus. Each EUV machine has more than 100,000 components. Huawei’s patent would improve some of the problems inherent in the EUV process by providing a more uniform light source.
The world’s only current EUV manufacturer, Dutch company ASML, filed a similar patent in 2016. But the two patents differ in how light is used in the EUV process. Additionally, Huawei is believed to be working on a way to “bypass” lithography using chip-chips and other innovations.
Huawei’s work on lithography is extremely important to the company and to China. If Huawei can patent its own EUV technology, it can help Chinese chip foundries produce cutting-edge chips. This would help the country move closer to its goal of becoming self-sufficient in semiconductors. More importantly for fans of Huawei’s handsets, it would allow Huawei to offer 5G as a native feature on its phones while equipping them with the most powerful and power-efficient SoCs available.
While Huawei says it’s “back in the game”, it will still take some time for the patent to be issued to a Huawei-built EUV machine. If the company can find a way around the lithography process, now would be the time for Samsung and Apple to start worrying.
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