Huawei’s latest handset uses improved China-made chip, report shows

Dec 12 (Reuters) – Canadian research firm TechInsights said the Kirin 9030, the chip powering Huawei Technologies’ latest flagship Mate ‌80 series mobile phone, is produced with an improved 7-nanometer version by China’s top foundry SMIC, which still lags behind TSMC and Samsung.

The Kirin 9030 is manufactured using SMIC’s ‍N+3 process, which is a “scaled extension” of the previous 7-nanometer (N+2) node, TechInsights said in a report published on December 8.

“But in absolute terms, N+3 remains significantly less scale than TSMC and Samsung’s industry 5 (nanometer) processes,” he said.

Huawei and SMIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours.

In October, China added TechInsights, which regularly reports on Huawei and SMIC’s chip progress, to its list of untrustworthy entities.

(Reporting by Che Pan, Brenda ‌Goh and Gursimran Kaur; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)