Huawei Drifts from US Chip Manufacturers, Welcomes Self-Reliance

Huawei’s latest smartphone has more Chinese-made parts than previous phones, signaling a move away from American semiconductor companies.

• iFixit and TechSearch International’s analysis for Reuters revealed a significant presence of Chinese-made parts in the Pura 70 Pro.
• The Pura 70 Pro features the Kirin 9010 chipset and the HiSilicon 1TB NAND flash.

The Pura 70 Pro, Huawei’s latest high-end smartphone, features several Chinese-made components, signaling the Chinese company’s increasing self-sufficiency.

Huawei released its newest high-end smartphone, the Pura 70 Pro, last month with an international retail price of around $1,400.  

Online tech repair company iFixit and consultancy TechSearch International conducted a thorough analysis of the phone, exclusively for Reuters, revealing that Huawei’s Pura 70 Pro incorporates many Chinese-made parts, including a new flash memory storage chip and an enhanced chip processor. It has more domestically manufactured parts compared to any of its predecessors.

The advanced processing chipset is the Kirin 9010, likely an iterative improvement over its predecessor, the Kirin 9000s. Huawei’s in-house chip unit, HiSilicon manufactures the chip following the 7-nanometer manufacturing process by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC).

Out of all the U.S. chips, the Kirin 9010 rivals American semiconductor company Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. They are both high-end mobile processors designed for top-of-the-line performance. While the American chip uses a more advanced 5nm manufacturing process—possibly offering better efficiency—Huawei’s is still competitive in terms of raw power.

Other than that, there’s also the flash memory chip, which holds stored data even when the device is powered off, with the Pura 70 Pro’s HiSilicon 1TB NAND flash has a 1 terabyte storage capacity. Huawei used to rely on the South Korean supplier SK Hynix for this, but HiSilicon is now responsible for its assembly.

Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown technician, said, “This is about self-sufficiency, all of this, everything you see when you open up a smartphone and see whatever are made by Chinese manufacturers, this is all about self-sufficiency.”

The U.S. recently revoked some of their chip manufacturers’ licenses to sell chips to the Chinese tech giant, which most likely could have hindered the progress had it not been for their in-house ingenuity.

In the case that Huawei becomes fully self-sufficient in terms of components and talents, its products will decrease in cost. Beyond that, the company even invests in its own research and development department to improve existing chips on the market or even create something new. The biggest loser may not be the consumer after all.

Huawei may not sit at the top of the food chain just yet, but it’s giving the major players a run for their money.

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