Commentary
Comment
iniewski
Huawei was buying many telecom and datacom ASICs and ASSPs more than 10 years ...
dylan.mcgrath
Indeed. It was my mistake to post the blog last week. I hope that this sets the ...
Huawei drives battle between FPGAs and ASICs
Handel Jones
10/30/2012 12:30 PM EDT
Editor's note: This opinion piece, written by analyst Handel Jones of IBS, was written in response to a recent EE Times blog that, quoting another analyst, proclaimed that Huawei recently converted a design from an FPGA to an ASIC for the first time. In the paragraphs below, Jones outlines Huawei's business, including the firm's use of ASICs over several years. Jones expects Huawei to use 35 ASICs in 2012, up from 24 last year.
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., the China-based multinational telecommunications equipment vendor, is expected to have 2012 revenues of about $32 billion. Huawei and Ericsson are the two largest communications companies globally.
Huawei is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, and while there are strong relationships with the Chinese carriers, such as China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, 70 percent of the company's revenues were from outside China in 2011.
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
There is, however, the perspective that incentives are provided to Chinese companies to export their equipment, i.e., some similarities to the Export-Import Bank that is based in Washington, D.C. The result is that the equipment of Chinese communications infrastructure is sold into multiple countries.
Huawei is the global market share leader in LTE base stations, with approximately 45 percent market share. With China ramping up the installations of its TD-LTE infrastructure, Huawei is well-positioned to continue to experience strong performance in 4G base stations. In addition to the high-capacity base stations, Huawei is also developing technologies for pico and femtocells. The high growth of equipment sales and installations will give strong growth in semiconductor consumption.
A potential key vendor to Huawei in pico and femtocells applications could be Qualcomm with its recent acquisition of DesignArt. Mindspeed, with its PicoChip acquisition, can also be a key IC vendor to Huawei in pico and femtocells.
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., the China-based multinational telecommunications equipment vendor, is expected to have 2012 revenues of about $32 billion. Huawei and Ericsson are the two largest communications companies globally.
Huawei is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, and while there are strong relationships with the Chinese carriers, such as China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, 70 percent of the company's revenues were from outside China in 2011.
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
There is, however, the perspective that incentives are provided to Chinese companies to export their equipment, i.e., some similarities to the Export-Import Bank that is based in Washington, D.C. The result is that the equipment of Chinese communications infrastructure is sold into multiple countries.
Huawei is the global market share leader in LTE base stations, with approximately 45 percent market share. With China ramping up the installations of its TD-LTE infrastructure, Huawei is well-positioned to continue to experience strong performance in 4G base stations. In addition to the high-capacity base stations, Huawei is also developing technologies for pico and femtocells. The high growth of equipment sales and installations will give strong growth in semiconductor consumption.
A potential key vendor to Huawei in pico and femtocells applications could be Qualcomm with its recent acquisition of DesignArt. Mindspeed, with its PicoChip acquisition, can also be a key IC vendor to Huawei in pico and femtocells.
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
junko.yoshida
10/30/2012 1:05 PM EDT
Actually, EE Times knew about Huawei's great focus on custom chips for a while.
We had a story on "Focus on Chip Engineering Rewrites Huawei's Story" at our EE Times Confidential site more than a year ago.
http://confidential.eetimes.com/company-analysis/4217592/Focus-on-Chip-Engineering-Rewarites-Huawei-s-Story
Rick Merrit interviewed Bill Lynch, a veteran microprocessor architect (ex Cisco), who is now working at Huawei in that story.
Sign in to Reply
dylan.mcgrath
10/30/2012 4:56 PM EDT
Indeed. It was my mistake to post the blog last week. I hope that this sets the record straight.
Sign in to Reply
iniewski
11/1/2012 1:16 PM EDT
Huawei was buying many telecom and datacom ASICs and ASSPs more than 10 years ago...influencing their spec in some cases
Sign in to Reply