Where can Huawei get chips for Mate 60 Pro?

On August 29, Huawei suddenly announced the Mate 60 Pro phone model.

Technology sites believe that it could be the Kirin 9000s 5G, an improved version of the Kirin 9000 – Huawei’s last high-end chip before the US imposed a series of bans in 2020. Even though it designed the chip itself, the company could not place an order.

Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone.

When asked, Huawei only answered generally that the Mate 60 Pro is `the most powerful Mate model ever`.

According to SCMP, the chips in the new Mate 60 series come from three places.

SMIC produces chips for Huawei

This is considered the most reasonable explanation, although SMIC, China’s largest semiconductor manufacturing group, declined to comment.

According to a blog post by research company TechInsights (USA), SMIC may have taken advantage of existing chip manufacturing equipment and applied the second generation 7 nm (N+2) process to create chips for Huawei.

Manufactured using a secret supply chain

This information comes from a Bloomberg report, citing information from the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association that Huawei is building a secret chip manufacturing supply chain and that the processor in the Mate 60 is

Experts say this scenario is unlikely, but not impossible.

Goods stored in warehouse

Some believe that Huawei has still saved a large amount of Kirin 9000 chips over the years.

Before that time, Huawei was said to have aggressively ordered production and stockpiled a lot of Kirin 9000 chips. If true, it means the company has not yet been able to find a way to be self-sufficient in advanced chip sources.

However, according to Global Times, the appearance of Mate 60 shows that US policies targeting Huawei in particular and Chinese technology in general have not been successful.