Is the US shooting itself in the foot by banning Huawei?

Ok, I just did a quick look up on the FPGA.

The only Chinese FPGA vendor I can found is Gowin. It's web site is as follows:


Quickly looking through its product list, the most powerful chip they have is the Arora GW2A-55 device.


Let's compare to what the best Xilinx can offer: the Virtex VU29P.


Let's do some quick comparison:
China's Gowin: 55 nm technology, LUT = 54k, Flip-Flop = 41k, etc.
USA's Xilinx: 16 nm techology, LUT = 1728k, Flip-Flop = 3456k, etc.

We are talking about 50 to 100 times performance difference. There is no way Huawei can source Chinese FPGA.

Bltizo said:

Very interesting, do you know where a copy of this letter can be found?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Hope you can understand Chinese, it's a very well-scripted public letter, or should I say "declaration of war".

Faithlock said:

Ok, I just did a quick look up on the FPGA.

The only Chinese FPGA vendor I can found is Gowin. It's web site is as follows:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Quickly looking through its product list, the most powerful chip they have is the Arora GW2A-55 device.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Let's compare to what the best Xilinx can offer: the Virtex VU29P.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Let's do some quick comparison:
China's Gowin: 55 nm technology, LUT = 54k, Flip-Flop = 41k, etc.
USA's Xilinx: 16 nm techology, LUT = 1728k, Flip-Flop = 3456k, etc.

We are talking about 50 to 100 times performance difference. There is no way Huawei can source Chinese FPGA.

Click to expand...

What does Huawei currently use? Is it the maximum performance Xilinx? Some technologies are over-engineered or provide far more than needed (for example, a nano-second reflex when people cannot tell the difference between a nano-second and a milli-second even though the former is technologically 1000x superior). What is the result if Gowin's best product were used? It's not going to be 50-100x slowdown in the final device, is it?

What non-US companies are there that can supply a competitive chip?

I believe 何庭波 is the chairwoman of HiSilicon.



尊敬的海思全体同事们:

此刻，估计您已得知华为被列入美国商务部工业和安全局(BIS)的实体名单(entity list)。

多年前，还是云淡风轻的季节，公司做出了极限生存的假设，预计有一天，所有美国的先进芯片和技术将不可获得，而华为仍将持续为客户服务。为了这个以为永远不会发生的假设，数千海思儿女，走上了科技史上最为悲壮的长征，为公司的生存打造“备胎”。数千个日夜中，我们星夜兼程，艰苦前行。华为的产品领域是如此广阔，所用技术与器件是如此多元，面对数以千计的科技难题，我们无数次失败过，困惑过，但是从来没有放弃过。

后来的年头里，当我们逐步走出迷茫，看到希望，又难免一丝丝失落和不甘，担心许多芯片永远不会被启用，成为一直压在保密柜里面的备胎。

今天，命运的年轮转到这个极限而黑暗的时刻，超级大国毫不留情地中断全球合作的技术与产业体系，做出了最疯狂的决定，在毫无依据的条件下，把华为公司放入了实体名单。

今天，是历史的选择，所有我们曾经打造的备胎，一夜之间全部转“正”!多年心血，在一夜之间兑现为公司对于客户持续服务的承诺。是的，这些努力，已经连成一片，挽狂澜于既倒，确保了公司大部分产品的战略安全,大部分产品的连续供应!今天，这个至暗的日子，是每一位海思的平凡儿女成为时代英雄的日子!

华为立志，将数字世界带给每个人、每个家庭、每个组织，构建万物互联的智能世界，我们仍将如此。今后，为实现这一理想，我们不仅要保持开放创新，更要实现科技自立!今后的路，不会再有另一个十年来打造备胎然后再换胎了，缓冲区已经消失，每一个新产品一出生，将必须同步“科技自立"的方案。

前路更为艰辛，我们将以勇气、智慧和毅力，在极限施压下挺直脊梁，奋力前行!滔天巨浪方显英雄本色，艰难困苦铸造诺亚方舟。

何庭波

2019年5月17日凌晨

As well as Shanghai Anlogic, there are other Chinese FPGA companies pursuing this strategy – Shenzhen Pango Microsystems, Gowin Semiconductor, Xian Intelligence Silicon Tech and AGM Microelectronics.




Anlogic shipped 500,000 FPGA ICs last year, says Chen, and plans to ship 1.5 million this year and six million next year. It has started its 28nm development.

Pango is on 40nm with its Titan series FPGAs and Gowin’s chips are on 55nm.

Faithlock said:

Ok, I just did a quick look up on the FPGA.

The only Chinese FPGA vendor I can found is Gowin. It's web site is as follows:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Quickly looking through its product list, the most powerful chip they have is the Arora GW2A-55 device.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Let's compare to what the best Xilinx can offer: the Virtex VU29P.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Let's do some quick comparison:
China's Gowin: 55 nm technology, LUT = 54k, Flip-Flop = 41k, etc.
USA's Xilinx: 16 nm techology, LUT = 1728k, Flip-Flop = 3456k, etc.

We are talking about 50 to 100 times performance difference. There is no way Huawei can source Chinese FPGA.

Click to expand...

55 nm is not that best that China can offer these days. The reason why this Gowin chip is so much behind the Xilinx chip at least partially due to cost and demand. The high-end market is basically all occupied by Xilinx and Intel, so the most viable way to enter the market was fighting for the low-end first. With this recent ban, I can foresee a lot more demand and investment in high-end domestic FPGA development which in the long term might actually be a good thing for China.

manqiangrexue said:

What does Huawei currently use? Is it the maximum performance Xilinx? Some technologies are over-engineered or provide far more than needed (for example, a nano-second reflex when people cannot tell the difference between a nano-second and a milli-second even though the former is technologically 1000x superior). What is the result if Gowin's best product were used? It's not going to be 50-100x slowdown in the final device, is it?

What non-US companies are there that can supply a competitive chip?

Click to expand...

No, you always want more numbers of flip-flops and Look-Up-Tables. It tells you how many functions you can put into a chip. In terms of speed, one is built on a 16 nm chip while another is build on a 55 nm chip, so Xilinx will have a lot more speed over the Chinese one.

5G are one of the most complex design one can found, you want to jam as many functions as you can into as few chips as you can.

In terms of non-Chinese and non-USA ones, I honestly don't have any ideas. I know Altera and Xilinx had about 90% of world market. The following link list the top 5. But all 5 are American companies.

manqiangrexue said:

What does Huawei currently use? Is it the maximum performance Xilinx? Some technologies are over-engineered or provide far more than needed (for example, a nano-second reflex when people cannot tell the difference between a nano-second and a milli-second even though the former is technologically 1000x superior). What is the result if Gowin's best product were used? It's not going to be 50-100x slowdown in the final device, is it?

What non-US companies are there that can supply a competitive chip?

Click to expand...

all FPGA are dominated by USA, SoC or FPGA. its not just resource but high speed serial which is critical in data center, telecom etc etc

Faithlock said:

No, you always want more numbers of flip-flops and Look-Up-Tables. It tells you how many functions you can put into a chip. In terms of speed, one is built on a 16 nm chip while another is build on a 55 nm chip, so Xilinx will have a lot more speed over the Chinese one.

5G are one of the most complex design one can found, you want to jam as many functions as you can into as few chips as you can.

In terms of non-Chinese and non-USA ones, I honestly don't have any ideas. I know Altera and Xilinx had about 90% of world market. The following link list the top 5. But all 5 are American companies.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Well, I know more is better, but how much better? Is Gowin's solution going to make the phone basically a brick, 50% as good, 90% as good, or 99% as good? In terms of speed, switching from Xilinx, will there be a 1 second delay after input, or 0.5 second delay or 0.1 second delay? That all makes a difference because a phone that takes 1 second to respond to input feels like it's an iphone 1 you got on Craigslist for $10 but one that delays by 0.1 seconds is not an issue that most people will notice even if Xilinx can drop it to 0.01 seconds.

Does Huawei use Xilinx's top chip now or does it use a lower power chip because such a powerful chip is unnecessary for a cellphone?

manqiangrexue said:

Well, I know more is better, but how much better? Is Gowin's solution going to make the phone basically a brick, 50% as good, 90% as good, or 99% as good? In terms of speed, switching from Xilinx, will there be a 1 second delay after input, or 0.5 second delay or 0.1 second delay? That all makes a difference because a phone that takes 1 second to respond to input feels like it's an iphone 1 you got on Craigslist for $10 but one that delays by 0.1 seconds is not an issue that most people will notice even if Xilinx can drop it to 0.01 seconds.

Does Huawei use Xilinx's top chip now or does it use a lower power chip because such a powerful chip is unnecessary for a cellphone?

Click to expand...

put it this way do you want samsung galaxy 3 or latest samsung cell phone. for the poor sure samsung 3, but if you got $$ you want the best, latest 5g etc require top end products.

the irony is almost all xilinx employees are from india or china.