According to @digitalchatstation, Huawei is currently developing new HiSilicon Kirin chips, including the mid-range 8xx series and the high-end 9xx series, and the latter uses SMIC’s more mature chips. N+2 process, but the new phones released this year may be difficult to apply to the above-mentioned new platforms.
After the return of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro series phones equipped with Kirin 9000S, it attracted various disassembly tests. According to the laboratory analysis conclusion released by the authoritative third-party information platform TechInsights: Huawei’s Kirin 9000S chip is manufactured based on SMIC’s 7nm N+2 process.
After inquiring about the corresponding information it is found that the electron microscope scanning results showed that Kirin 9000S has approximately 980,000 transistors per square millimeter, with a density between TSMC N7P and N6.
On September 5, CCTV’s “News One Plus One” column also conducted an interview and reported that the Vice Chairman of TechInsights analyzed that the chip equipped with Huawei Mate 60 Pro is still 2-2.5 nodes away from the most advanced technology.
In this regard, Lu Tingjie, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and executive vice chairman of the China Information Economics Society, explained: “2 to 2.5 nodes means that we are still 3 to 5 years behind 5G chips with advanced processes. These 3 to 5 years are the limit of Western countries. Judging by the speed of their technological progress, we in China can often surpass them at China’s speed. But this time we have made progress from 0 to 1. We have finally solved the problem of advanced 5G chips in 5G smartphones, but we must admit that It is still far from the most advanced technology. For example, the upcoming iPhone 15 series has actually used 4-nanometer chips. Our current Huawei Kirin 9000S chip should reach or be close to 7-nanometer technology. But in fact, from 7 nanometers to Going from 5 nanometers to 4 nanometers still requires a long and difficult R&D process, so we can’t be too happy yet. But we did make a very important breakthrough, which is to integrate the most critical chips for smartphones, especially 5G chips. Some of them can be domestically produced.”
In addition, the Vice Chairman of TechInsights used words such as “amazing” and “unexpected” when evaluating Huawei Mate 60 Pro. Lu Tingjie explained: “We have basically achieved localization of 14nm chips before, but we need to Upgrading to 7nm, or even more integrated chips, is not a linear problem, and its complexity will become higher and higher. So they think that China has suddenly conquered 7nm technology in such a short period of time. There must be some very unique technological advancements or solutions. We are also surprised, I feel like this is happening much faster than we thought.”
