Huawei's new 7nm chip is a blow to US sanctions
Huawei's latest Mate 60 Pro smartphone is rumored to be powered by a 5G-capable Kirin 9000S system-on-chip (SoC), a potential breakthrough for China's high-tech industry. The chipset, reportedly made by China-based SMIC using its second-generation 7nm-class fabrication process and stacking, features in-house developed CPU and GPU microarchitectures. This development is crucial. It implies that Huawei has been successful in developing its own 7nm chip, bypassing the US sanctions.
Kirin 9000S is a fairly popular chip
The HiSilicon Kirin 9000S is a complex SoC with four high-performance cores and four energy-efficient cores based on Huawei's own TaiShan microarchitecture. The Maleoon 910 graphics processing unit operates at up to 750MHz. The CPU and GPU cores run at relatively low clocks compared to previous generations of HiSilicon's SoCs, due to SMIC's unannounced second-generation 7nm fabrication process.
Stacking technology elevates Kirin 9000S capabilities
The Kirin 9000S reportedly uses stacking technology, though details remain unclear. It could stack the modem IC on top of the CPU+GPU IC to save space on the motherboard or disaggregate some logic to simplify production. Advanced packaging technology is also a breakthrough for SMIC and Huawei's HiSilicon, further enhancing the capabilities of the Kirin 9000S. A test conducted by Bloomberg showed the handset reach 5G-level mobile internet speed, at par with the latest flagships from Samsung, Apple, and Google.
SMIC's 5nm fabrication process faces challenges
While SMIC's Twinscan NXT:2000i DUV lithography scanners can make chips on 7nm and 5nm technologies, the company may face challenges in developing a 5nm-class fabrication process. To print outstanding features on a 5nm-class node or a refined 7nm-class process, SMIC has to heavily use multi-patterning, an expensive technology that affects yields and costs. This could result in lower economic efficiency compared to market leaders Intel, TSMC, and Samsung Foundry.
