Huawei Technologies and China’s top chipmaker SMIC have built a complicated 7-nanometer processor to power its latest smartphone, in line with a teardown report by evaluation firm TechInsights.
Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro is powered by a recent Kirin 9000s chip that was made in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), TechInsights said within the report shared with Reuters on Monday.
Huawei began selling its Mate 60 Pro phone last week. The specifications provided advertised its ability to make satellite calls, but offered no information on the ability of the chipset inside.
The processor is the primary to utilize SMIC’s most advanced 7nm technology and suggests the Chinese government is making some headway in attempts to construct a domestic chip ecosystem, the research firm said.
The firm’s findings were first reported by Bloomberg News.
Huawei and SMIC didn’t immediately reply to Reuters’ request for comment.
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 able to download speeds exceeding those of top line 5G phones.
The phone’s launch sent Chinese social media users and state media right into a frenzy, with some noting it coincided with a visit by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
From 2019, the U.S. has restricted Huawei’s access to chipmaking tools essential for producing essentially the most advanced handset models, with the corporate only in a position to launch limited batches of 5G models using stockpiled chips.
But research firms told Reuters in July that they believed Huawei was planning a return to the 5G smartphone industry by the tip of this yr, using its own advances in semiconductor design tools together with chipmaking from SMIC.
Dan Hutcheson, an analyst with TechInsights, told Reuters the event comes as a “slap within the face” to the U.S.
“Raimondo comes searching for to chill things down, and this chip is ‘look what we will do, we don’t need you,’” he said.
