Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) have built an advanced 7-nanometer processor to power its latest smartphone, a teardown report by analysis firm TechInsights showed.
Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro is powered by a new Kirin 9000s chip that was made in China by SMIC, TechInsights said in the report shared with Reuters on Monday.
Huawei started selling its Mate 60 Pro phone last week. The specifications provided advertised its ability to make satellite calls, but offered no information on the power of the chipset inside.
Photo: Bloomberg
The processor is the first to utilize SMIC’s most advanced 7-nanometer technology and suggests that the Chinese government is making some headway in attempts to build a domestic chip ecosystem, the research firm said.
Buyers of the phone in China have been posting tear-down videos and sharing speed tests on social media that suggest the Mate 60 Pro is capable of download speeds exceeding those of top line 5G phones.
The cellphone’s launch sent Chinese social media users and state media into a frenzy, with some saying it coincided with a visit by US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
From 2019, the US has restricted Huawei’s access to chipmaking tools essential for producing the most advanced handset models, with the company only able to launch limited batches of 5G models using stockpiled chips.
Research firms in July said that they believed Huawei was planning a return to the 5G smartphone industry by the end of this year, using its own advances in semiconductor design tools along with chipmaking from SMIC.
The Huawei breakthrough comes as China is seeking to raise a US$40 billion fund to bankroll investments in domestic chipmaking and research, people familiar with the matter said.
The state-backed China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund is establishing its third and largest investment pool of about 300 billion yuan (US$41.1 billion), the people said.
The Chinese Ministry of Finance might contribute 60 billion yuan to the fund, which won approval to operate in the past few months, they added.
Known locally as “the Big Fund,” it has backed some of China’s biggest chip enterprises including SMIC.
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