Huawei rumoured to be building secret fab stable

Huawei is alleged to be building up a fab stable in China to try and evade US restrictions on tools and technology

The company has acquired two existing fabs and is currently building “at least three others,” the SIA has told Bloomberg.

One of these could be PengXinWei IC Manufacturing which started building a fab close to Huawei’s HQ in Shenzhen last year and is said to be planning on starting processing wafers in 2025.

The similarly named PengXinXu Technology also plans to build a fab in Shenzhen.

Also building a fab in Shenzhen is the 2022 DRAM startup SwaySure Technology.

All three companies – PengXinWei, PengXinXu and SwaySure – are owned by the Shenzhen government

Construction at the shuttered DRAM fab Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. (JHICC) in Quanzhou has resumed.

Across the way from JHICC, packaging specialist Quliang Electronics is said to be building a second site the size of 20 soccer fields.

There have also been reports that SMIC is fabbing 7nm chips for Huawei to go into smartphones next year. SMIC is known to have made limited quantities of 7nm gaming chips but it seems doubtful it could make cost-effective volume production of 7nm devices.

Presumably, if the SIA knows the names of these Huawei-related fabs, they can be denied Western technology.