The telecom giant’s new Mate 60 phone is a sign Washington’s chip tech restrictions are not working
Recently, Huawei’s Mate 60 smartphone rolled out to great acclaim with no advertising campaign or advance notice. On August 30, Reuters reported that China’s chip companies’ stocks rallied due to the surprise drop of the phone and speculation that it may be using locally-sourced semiconductors.
The company, however, has not commented on its technical specifications. It did not specify whether the phone is 5G enabled, though users have confirmed that it is. It merely stated that it had made breakthroughs in satellite communications, which has also been demonstrated. But the major question is about the phone’s chipsets. With a sweeping US sanctions campaign having cut off China’s access to foreign-made chip technology, the US government said it would be looking into the key question: How did China pull this off?
The South China Morning Post, for instance, has grappled with Huawei’s hush-up over the phone’s obviously powerful chipset. One theory is that China’s domestic Semiconductor International Manufacturing Corp (SMIC), which declined to comment, provided the tech. All things being equal, this seems to be the most likely case and a Bloomberg teardown appears to confirm this.
Chinese benchmarking website AnTuTu conducted tests that suggest the central processing unit (CPU) of the Mate 60 could be the domestically-produced Kirin 9000, which “would mark a ‘breakthrough’ for China’s semiconductor industry and a major win for Huawei’s chip smartphone business.” .......more below
