The US trade ban may have affected Huawei's business, but it is apparently fueling the Chinese vendor's bid to wean itself off reliance on US technology. Its handset IC design arm, HiSilicon, is accelerating its chip development, and reportedly has become the top client of TSMC for its advanced manufacturing node. Fellow IC design house, Unisoc, under China's Tsinghua Unigroup, has also stepped up its deployments, seeking new investments to support its 5G and IoT chips development.
HiSilicon now top TSMC customer for advanced process node: Huawei's HiSilicon has unseated Apple as the largest customer of TSMC in terms of advanced process node capacity share, according to industry sources.
Unisoc set to raise new funds to support 5G, IoT chips development: Tsinghua Unigroup's chipmaking arm Unisoc will enforce a capital increment of CNY5 billion (US$707.44 million) to support its development of core 5G and IoT chipsets, according to a statement posted by China Beijing Equity Exchange.