Because of the ban, for the P50, Mate 50, and P60 flagship traces, Huawei had to make use of particular variations of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoCs that have been tweaked to stop them from working with 5G networks. Since 2020’s Mate 40 collection, which featured the Kirin 9000 chipset, no Huawei flagship had been powered by a chip that helps 5G. So when the Mate 60 line was introduced by Huawei final 12 months, most have been shocked to see that it was powered by the 5G supporting Kirin 9000s which was produced by China’s largest foundry, SMIC, utilizing its 7nm node.
U.S. lawmakers have been up in arms regardless that the Kirin 9000s, manufactured on a 7nm course of node as we simply talked about, is 2 generations behind the 3nm course of node presently utilized by TSMC and Samsung Foundry. And it’s all due to 5G.
The Huawei Pura 70 Professional makes use of extra parts sourced from China
Whereas the Pura 70’s DRAM chip additionally got here from SK Hynix, the South Korean agency says that it’s “strictly complying with the related insurance policies for the reason that restrictions towards Huawei have been introduced and has additionally suspended any transactions with the corporate since then.” The corporate denies that it nonetheless does enterprise with Huawei which signifies that Huawei was dipping into its stock of older parts.
Apart from the HiSilicon NAND flash reminiscence chip, the teardown additionally famous that a number of different parts got here from Chinese language suppliers. The appliance processor (AP) was mentioned to be the successor to the Kirin 9000s, the Kirin 9010. Designed by Huawei’s HiSilicon unit, the Kirin 9010 is a barely improved model of the earlier chip, and can also be manufactured by SMIC utilizing its 7nm course of node.
Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown technician, mentioned, “Whereas we can’t present an actual share, we would say the home element utilization is excessive, and undoubtedly greater than within the Mate 60. That is about self-sufficiency, all of this, all the pieces you see whenever you open up a smartphone and see no matter are made by Chinese language producers, that is all about self-sufficiency.”