Huawei’s new phone shows China’s strength in chip technology

China’s largest chip maker Huawei and CMIC have developed an advanced 7-nm processor to power the latest Huawei smartphones, according to a report prepared by analytics firm Tech Insights.

Reuters cited a report by Tech Insights confirming that the Huawei Mate 60 Pro phone is powered by a new Kirin 9000S chip made by CMIC Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in China.

Huawei started selling its phone last week. It announced that it was capable of making satellite calls, but did not provide any information about the power of the internal chip.

The processor used in the phone is the first to use CMIC’s cutting-edge “7nm” technology, the research firm said, indicating that the Chinese government is making some progress in efforts to develop a local chip system.

Buyers of the Mate 60 Pro in China have been posting videos of its capabilities and sharing its speed on social media, indicating that it surpasses fifth-generation (5G) phones.

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The phone’s launch led to a frenzy among users of social media and government media in China, which some pointed out coincided with the visit of US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Since 2019, the US has blocked Huawei’s access to basic chipmaking equipment to make more advanced phone models.

CMIC, China’s largest microchip manufacturer, was placed on a US “block list” in 2020 due to the “unacceptable risk” that its products could be used for military purposes.

CMIC, whose shares rose 10% on the Hong Kong stock market, says it will not work with the Chinese military.

Huawei’s phone raised concerns that it had made advances in UV technology when China filed a patent related to the technology last year.

The Kirin 9000S chip in the new Huawei phone uses a so-called “7nm” processing node, which shows how small the chip’s circuits are and its power.

Current U.S. sanctions prohibit China from importing manufacturing equipment for processing nodes below 14 nanometers, which were considered state-of-the-art in 2015.

Bloomberg quoted Dan Hutchison, vice president of Tech Insights, as saying that Chinese company SMIC’s technological progress is “on an accelerating trajectory.”

Earlier last July, Reuters quoted research firms as saying they believed the company was planning to enter the fifth-generation smartphone industry by the end of the year, using its own technologies.