Huawei Building Vast Chip Equipment R&D Center In Shanghai

AmiMoJo writes: Huawei Technologies is building a massive semiconductor equipment research and development center in Shanghai as the Chinese tech titan continues to beef up its chip supply chain to counter a U.S. crackdown. The centre's mission includes building lithography machines, vital equipment for producing cutting-edge chips. To staff the new center, Huawei is offering salary packages worth up to twice as much as local chipmakers, industry executives and sources briefed on the matter told Nikkei Asia. The company has already hired numerous engineers who have worked with top global chip tool builders like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA and ASML, they said, adding that chip industry veterans with more than 15 years of experience at leading chipmakers like TSMC, Intel and Micron are also among recent and potential hires. The report says Huawei is investing about 12 billion yuan ($1.66 billion) for this R&D chip plant, making it one of Shanghai's top projects for 2024.

Working for the company is no easy task, says one chip engineering: "Working with them is brutal. It's not 996 -- meaning working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. ... It will literally be 007 -- from midnight to midnight, seven days a week. No days off at all. The contract will be for three years, [but] the majority of people can't survive till renewal."

The plan

[locater16]

Spend a decade+ replicating existing equipment from around the world. Pay yourself and your buddies an enormous salary + bonuses for the "patriotic effort" all the billions of government funding is "going towards". See how much money you can cash out before Winnie Boy dies and the $$$ stops coming.

Re:

[sit1963nz]

Is that the USA plan ? How many US$Billions is the USA giving in subsidies ?

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[alvinrod]

The US plan is to just pay the people who would already do it of their own accord because it's how they stay in business some money to maybe do some of that business in the US. China is trying to roll some of their own technology and that's a lot harder.

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[sit1963nz]

No, its the USA getting technology/skills/etc from overseas because the USA has fallen so far behind. They are already selling the Chips to the USA because the USA can not make them themselves. US fabrication accounts for 13% of the worlds output, and they can not do the latest generation of semiconductors.

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[AmiMoJo]

I wouldn't bank on it taking a decade.

And even if it did, the returns are already coming in as Chinese supply chains replace Western parts with domestic ones.

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[arglebargle_xiv]

Since China is busy buddying up to Russia, maybe they're trying to replicate the Russian Sleep Experiment [fandom.com]?

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[AmiMoJo]

I was going to say, "007" seems to be a new low with the propaganda. Human beings can't go without sleep, they can't work 24/7. Especially when your job is high skill, cutting edge R&D work that requires high levels of cognitive ability, the thing that rapidly falls off with lack of rest.

I keep hoping that we can have a sensible debate about this stuff, so it's disappointing that the editor added that bit of obvious nonsense.

Remember seeing their phones at MetroPCS

[Powercntrl]

My headcanon is always going to be that the real reason we banned them was because most Americans couldn't figure out how to pronounce the name.

"Huey"? "Hawaii"? "Hue-aw-eye"? "Screw it, the one that's free when you port your number!"

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[fahrbot-bot]

... the real reason we banned them was because most Americans couldn't figure out how to pronounce the name.

Google says it's pronounced "waa way" [google.com] which I also learned watching the following, very interesting, NOVA episode on PBS Inside China's Tech Boom [pbs.org] (s50e16) which dives into China's 5G boom and the heavy role Huawei plays in that.

Working for the company is no easy task, says one chip engineering: ... It will literally be 007 -- from midnight to midnight, seven days a week. No days off at all. The contract will be for three years, [but] the majority of people can't survive till renewal."

The NOVA episode pretty much confirms that.

According to my fingers

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... from midnight to midnight, seven days a week ...

That means, never going home, never sleeping: The arithmetic doesn't make sense. Since one can't sell badly-made computer chips, it's surprising that a business wants exhausted people around expensive equipment.

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[znrt]

it's surprising that a business wants exhausted people around expensive equipment.

nikkei asia (or the financial times for that matter) publishing such obvious bullshit is hardly surprising.

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[EreIamJH]

Exactly. It's obviously bullshit and yet the claim makes in to the main stream media (oh, and Slashdot where it became the dominant take away from an otherwise interesting tech article).

I guess that's how you go around embargoes

[lamer01]

If you can't buy the equipment, hire the people that know how to make such equipment. Interesting development. Let's see what the west's answer to this will be. Can they forbid people to work for chinese firms? That sounds dystopian to me but with this move, China can basically circumvent any tech embargoes.