Huawei’s Journey from Switch Vendor to 5G Baseband Chip Leader

Early reports indicated that Apple’s attempt to develop its own 5G modem failed, forcing the company to continue using Qualcomm baseband chips, highlighting how critical modem technology is for smartphone manufacturers.

Over the past decade many mobile‑chip giants have withdrawn from the market because they could not overcome the baseband challenge; Qualcomm’s modem has become an unavoidable component for most smartphones.

Against this backdrop, Chinese company Huawei managed to achieve baseband autonomy, breaking Qualcomm’s dominance.

Huawei was founded in 1984, roughly the same year as Qualcomm, but its development path differed dramatically. While Qualcomm grew from a pure communications firm, Huawei started as a small reseller of Ethernet switches.

In 1991 Huawei established an integrated‑circuit division and began designing its own switch ASICs, led by circuit‑design expert Xu Wenwei.

Despite severe cash constraints that even forced founder Ren Zhengfei to take high‑interest loans, Huawei successfully taped‑out its first ASIC, the SD509 switch chip, in 1993.

Huawei’s first mobile‑application chip, the K3V1 (Hi3611), appeared in 2009 as a low‑end “2.5G” solution based on its own GSM base‑station technology, but it could not compete with MediaTek and Spreadtrum.

Undeterred, Huawei continued investing in chip R&D. In 2004 it created wholly‑owned subsidiary HiSilicon, initially focusing on SIM, set‑top‑box, video codec, and security chips, which later gave the company valuable experience for application processors.

In 2006 Huawei began developing its own baseband chips. The first major breakthrough came in 2009 with the Balong 700, the industry’s first multi‑mode TD‑LTE modem, showcased at the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

Subsequent generations – Balong 710 (LTE Cat.4, 150 Mbps, integrated into Kirin 910), Balong 720 (LTE Cat.6, 300 Mbps, integrated into Kirin 920), Balong 750/765 (LTE Cat.12/13, up to 600 Mbps, and later Cat.19 with 1.6 Gbps, the world’s first TD‑LTE Gbit solution) – kept Huawei ahead of Qualcomm in modem performance.

In 2019 the Kirin 990 5G SoC was launched, built on TSMC’s 7 nm EUV process and integrating the Balong 5000 modem, delivering up to 4.6 Gbps on Sub‑6 GHz and 6.5 Gbps on mmWave, and supporting both SA and NSA 5G networks.

The integrated approach gave Huawei a performance‑power advantage that Qualcomm only matched with its Snapdragon 888 in late 2020.

Huawei’s flagship Mate 30 series, powered by the Kirin 990 and Balong 5000, sold over 7 million units in the first 60 days and more than 12 million in three months, marking a high point for Chinese high‑end smartphones.

However, a U.S. export ban in 2020 forced TSMC to stop manufacturing chips for Huawei, ending production of the Kirin 9000 series and Balong 5000, and leaving Huawei dependent on Qualcomm’s 4G “special‑supply” chips for continued phone shipments.

Today the 5G baseband market is dominated by Qualcomm, with Samsung and MediaTek as the next largest players, while Huawei’s HiSilicon has slipped to a minor position.

The story illustrates how patents, early start‑up timing, and relentless R&D enabled Huawei to rise from a modest switch reseller to a global 5G baseband leader, and how geopolitical constraints can abruptly reverse such gains.