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We’ve seen Huawei’s surprising strides with its recent smartphones — especially the in-house 7nm 5G processor within, but apparently the company has been working on something far more significant to bypass the US import ban. According to a new Bloomberg investigation, a Shenzhen city government investment fund created in 2019 has been helping Huawei build “a self-sufficient chip network.”
Such a network would give the tech giant access to enterprises — most notably, the three subsidiaries under a firm called SiCarrier — that are key to developing lithography machines. Lithography, especially the high-end extreme ultraviolet flavor, would usually have to be imported into China, but it’s currently restricted by US, Netherlands and Japan sanctions. Huawei apparently went as far as transferring “about a dozen patents to SiCarrier,” as well as letting SiCarrier’s elite engineers work directly on its sites, which suggests the two firms have a close symbiotic relationship.
Bloomberg’s source claims that Huawei has hired several former employees of Dutch lithography specialist, ASML, to work on this breakthrough. The result so far is allegedly the 7nm HiSilicon Kirin 9000S processor fabricated locally by SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), which is said to be about five years behind the leading competition (say, Apple Silicon’s 3nm process) — as opposed to an eight-year gap intended by the Biden administration’s export ban.
Huawei’s Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro, Mate 60 Pro+ and Mate X5 foldable all feature this HiSilicon chip, as well as other Chinese components like display panels (BOE), camera modules (OFILM) and batteries (Sunwoda). Huawei having its own network of local enterprises would eventually allow it to rely less on imported components, and potentially even become the halo of the Chinese chip industry — especially in the age of electric vehicles and AI, where more chips are needed than ever (as much as NVIDIA would like to deal with China). That said, Huawei apparently denied that it had been receiving government help to achieve this goal.
Given Huawei’s seeming progress, and the fact that China has been pumping billions into its chip industry, the US government will just have to try harder.
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When you read that subtitle you should read it as “THE” spade because as far as I’m concerned this is the end of the spade discussion. Another discussion is about how you should be using a spade and not a shovel for most of what you’re doing in the garden, but I’ll save that for another time. 
For as much as I love that spade, I probably use the Great Dixter Planting Spade even more. This is another Sneeboer tool and forgive me for raving about them, but they are just that good. These Dutch-made tools are hand-forged and meant to last. To know them is to love them. This little tool is like a mini spade, or maybe it’s a big trowel. It’s that in-between tool that turns out to be just right.
For gardeners who want to feel like a true badass in the garden, you can’t really beat a soil knife (aka hori hori). These are big blades that can do a lot: weed, plant, open bags, cut twine and fight of ninjas. I’ve tried a lot of hori horis and my favorite is the Deluxe Soil Knife. I find the plastic handle comfortable and the orange handle helpful for when you set it down and can’t find it. I think soil knives are much more useful than trowels, so to me this is a tool that should be one of the first in a new gardener’s kit.
