Huawei Mate 60 Pro phone (Image source: TMTPost App editing and shooting)

BEIJING, September 9 (TMTPost) -- In response to discussions about Huawei's latest release of the Mate60 Pro using SK hynix storage chip products, SK hynix responded to TMTPost App's inquiry as follows:

"Since the U.S. government imposed restrictions on Huawei, the company no longer has any business dealings with Huawei. Regarding this issue (Huawei Mate60 series using SK hynix chips), we have already started an investigation to understand more details. SK hynix strictly complies with US government export restrictions and controls."

According to a previous report by CCTV News, on August 29th, Huawei's newly developed Mate60 Pro achieved pre-sales before its official launch. In the past week, information surrounding this has been highly anticipated. Although Huawei has not disclosed many technical specifications of this phone, it has been tested to have 5G standard network speed and is equipped with a new Kirin 9000s chip, which brings unlimited imagination to people.

CCTV quoted Lv Tingjie, a professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and the executive vice chairman of the China Information Economics Society, as saying that the Kirin 9000S chip used in Huawei Mate60 Pro should achieve or come close to 7nm technology, which is 2-2.5 nodes behind the 4nm chip technology used in the latest Apple iPhone 15 series.

"This means that we still have a gap of 3 to 5 years compared to advanced 5G chips. These 3 to 5 years are judged by Western countries based on their technological progress, but China often surpasses them with Chinese speed," said Lv Tingjie. "In fact, from 7nm to 5nm, and then to 4nm, it still requires a long and difficult research and development process, so we shouldn't be too happy. But we have indeed made an important breakthrough, which is achieving domestic production of the most critical chips in smartphones, especially 5G chips."

In fact, from May 2019 to September 2020, the US government implemented multiple rounds of sanctions against Huawei, leading to a complete cut-off of Huawei's 5G smartphone chips. In the past year, the US restrictions on China in the semiconductor field have continued to escalate. According to the Export Control "Entity List" regulations issued by the US Department of Commerce BIS, it is generally required that wafer foundries and chip supply chain companies using US technology must obtain US government permission before producing chips for Huawei.

However, according to a disassembly video, the storage chip of Huawei's latest Mate60 Pro displays the "SK Hynix" logo on top, but the core information of the storage chip is not visible, and there is currently no consensus on whether the Kirin 9000s chip is 7nm or 5nm.

Tianfeng Securities analyst Guo Mingchi recently stated in an article that the demand for Huawei Mate60 Pro has been strong since its release, and the shipment plan for the second half of 2023 has been increased by about 20% to 5.5-6 million units. Based on this market trend, the cumulative shipment volume of Mate60 Pro after 12 months of release is expected to reach at least 12 million units. Benefiting from this, Huawei's smartphone shipments in 2023 are expected to increase by about 65% to 38 million units.

Guo Mingchi emphasized that Huawei's new phone using the Kirin processor has the greatest impact on US chip giant Qualcomm. It is expected that Qualcomm's processor shipments to Chinese smartphone brands in 2024 will decrease by at least 500-600 million chips compared to 2023, and it is expected to decrease year by year.

As of now, Huawei has not released any information about the new chip.

(This article was first published on the TMTPost App, Author: Lin Zhijia, Editor: Ma Jinnan)