Huawei designs smartphones without the need for US chips

For the largest smartphone manufacturer in China, the function of suppliers from the United States has become a luxury, as Huawei has reached to make smart phones without the use of chips made in the United States.

Asa Fitch and Dan Strampf wrote in their Wall Street Journal report that US technology companies are on track to get the green light to resume their work with the Chinese smartphone giant.

In contrast, it may be too late, as the Chinese company is able to make smart phones without the need to use US chips.

Mate 30 and Y Prime 9
Huawei unveiled its new phone "Mate 30" last September, it turns out that its new product, which features a curved screen and wide-angle cameras and competes with the phone "iPhone 11" from Apple, does not contain US-made parts, according to an analysis conducted by "Fumalholt Techno Solutions" , A Japanese technological laboratory that examined the internal parts of the device.

In May, the Trump administration banned US shipments to Huawei as the trade war with Beijing escalated. The decision prevented companies such as Qualcomm and Intel from exporting chips to the Chinese company.

In the meantime, Huawei has made great strides to end its dependence on parts manufactured by US companies. The Chinese technology giant has long relied on US suppliers such as chip maker Corfu to connect smartphones to cell towers, as well as SkyWorks Solutions. It was also importing parts from Broadcom, a manufacturer of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chips, and Cirrus Logic, a manufacturer of audio chips.

Although Huawei has not ceased to use US chips altogether, it has reduced its dependence on US suppliers or dispensed with the use of US chips in its phones launched since May, including its smartphones "Y9" Prime and Mate. When the Mate 30 was built, Cyrus Logic supplied it with chipset.

In the latest models of the phone "Mate 30", the Dutch company "NXP" semiconductor Huawei Huawei chipsets in this phone. In addition, the speakers that Corfu and SkyWorks provided to Huawei have been replaced by chips from HiSilicon, an internal chip design company of Huawei.

"Enabling Huawei to make such a sophisticated phone - its flagship product - without the use of US-made parts is a tremendous achievement," said Christopher Rowland, a semiconductor analyst at CSI.

During recent meetings, Huawei executives told him that the company was trying to dispense with the use of US parts, but how quickly this happened was surprising to him, Roland said.

In fact, the United States considers Huawei telecommunications equipment as a security threat, citing concerns that its equipment could be used to spy on Americans, a claim refuted by the company.

Huawei smartphones, which are popular in Europe and China, have been barred from US markets. More recently, the company has become a bargaining chip in the US-China trade war, with Beijing insisting on easing sanctions on Huawei as a prerequisite for a trade deal.

Despite this progress, Huawei still suffers from a fundamental problem is the fragility of the supply chain, where its smartphones running on Android operating system from Google, and benefit from a number of applications provided by the American company Google. Although Android is open source and can be used freely, apps - including YouTube, Google Maps, and the Play Store - are not.

When it was launched last September, the Mate 30 was the first major phone from Huawei to be launched without Google's own applications.

Analysts said the booming smartphone industry of the Chinese giant could suffer obstacles - especially in overseas markets - if it could not access these applications. Huawei unveiled a self-developed operating system called 'Hong Meng', replacing Android. But the operating system was not originally designed for smartphones. Huawei executives said they prefer to use the Android system.