Huawei obtains unfinished products, such as wafers, from TSMC just before the sanctions take effect. They are then able to complete the remaining processes in China. However, there is a possibility that a very small percentage of chips packaged in China may not be suitable for mobile phone use (e.g. with defeat in the baseband part), but would still work for laptops. Since the market for ARM laptops is small, the quantity of these chips might be sufficient, generating some additional profit for Huawei.
Huawei reports 5nm Kirin 9006C processor for laptop
- Thread starter Fred Chen
- Start date
No problem to keep the original name (Kirin 9000).
Experts Have Determined That Huawei's 5nm Laptop Chip Was Launched In Taiwan, Not China. - Tech News Space
At the beginning of December, the Chinese company Huawei Technologies is said to have once again demonstrated its ability to gain access to advanced
technewsspace.com
TechInsights has apparently taken a look at this chip. It looks like it was packaged in 2020, so it's an old chip that has been around. 2020 is too early for any domestic 5nm, but it looks very much like a TSMC 5nm chip. In fact, it's likely one of the last orders to TSMC: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/05/19/2003736638 If we believe the Kirin 9000 for Huawei Mate 40 got sold out already, this could be a similarly designed chip for laptops.
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Unless TechInsights got the package marking year wrong.
(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co.’s newest laptop runs on a chip made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a teardown of the device showed, quashing talk of another Chinese technological breakthrough.
The Qingyun L540 notebook contains a 5-nanometer chip made by the Taiwanese company in 2020, around the time US sanctions cut off Huawei’s access to the chipmaker, research firm TechInsights found after dismantling the device for Bloomberg News. That counters speculation that Huawei’s domestic chipmaking partner, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., may have achieved a major leap in fabrication technique.
Huawei caused a stir in the US and China last August when it released a smartphone with a 7nm processor made by Shanghai-based SMIC. A teardown by the Canada-based research outfit for Bloomberg News showed the Mate 60 Pro’s chip was only a few years behind the cutting edge, a feat that US trade curbs were meant to prevent. That revelation spurred celebration across the Chinese tech scene, and a debate in the US about the effectiveness of sanctions.
In the latest teardown, TechInsights discovered a Kirin 9006C processor fabricated via TSMC’s 5nm method, which was assembled and packaged around the third quarter of 2020. Industry experts had previously speculated that SMIC achieved that milestone by developing workarounds to US sanctions, which would have marked a second technological triumph for the Chinese national champion in the span of months.
Representatives for Huawei and TSMC did not provide immediate comment when reached by Bloomberg News.
The advances encapsulated in the Mate 60 smartphone in 2023 cemented Huawei’s role as the standard-bearer for Chinese efforts to wean itself off Western technologies and create domestic alternatives. Chinese consumers snapped up the smartphone in the final quarter, helping the company regain the symbolically important $100 billion revenue threshold — eroding Apple Inc.’s iPhone dominance along the way.
A foray into 5nm territory would have represented a big leap for the Shenzhen conglomerate, bringing it closer to the most-advanced processes currently in use, mostly centered around 3nm nodes. Before TSMC cut off ties with Huawei, it was supplying chips as advanced as 5nm to the Chinese firm.
It’s unclear how Huawei managed to procure a three-year-old processor, though the Chinese company has been stockpiling vital semiconductors since the US began cutting off its access to components and gear globally. While Huawei has been on Washington’s Entity List since 2019, it was only in 2020 that TSMC stopped taking orders from Huawei in order to comply with elevated US trade restrictions.
Huawei has since sunk billions into chip research and stockpiling in past years, while also building a domestic network of suppliers and manufacturing partners, in some cases with government backing.
Huawei Teardown Shows 5nm Chip Made in Taiwan, Not China
(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co.’s newest laptop runs on a chip made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a teardown of the device showed, quashing talk of another Chinese technological breakthrough.Most Read from BloombergSEC X Account Compromised to Falsely Say Bitcoin ETFs...
My guess is that，Huawei didn't have enough peripheral chips such as (PMIC or RF) in stock，and couldn't secure them from domestic source either few years ago. After all，you cannot make a product with just SOC only. Now they are able to secure these peripheral chips from domestic suppliers，so they integrate them with stockpile SOC from TSMC，and release the product
hist78
Well-known member
It's a common practice in mainland China that the profitability, competitiveness, and real world business justification are irrelevant once a project is associated with the "national" or CCP's priorities. Anything that can make Chairman Xi or CCP happier will make your business be more favorable in getting subsidies. The product itself doesn't have to make money at all.