A teardown of Huawei’s lately launched Mate 60 Professional smartphone revealed the utilization of the Kirin 9000s, a mysterious 7nm chip manufactured at SMIC. And now a brand new unknown has arisen – how did Huawei procure SK hynix-branded reminiscence and flash storage amidst the U.S. export restrictions?
SK hynix has launched a proper investigation into how the corporate’s LPDDR5 and NAND flash received into the Huawei Mate 60 Professional. The Korean chipmaker reiterated that it hasn’t offered any of its merchandise to Huawei for the reason that U.S. blacklisted Huawei in 2020. It wasn’t a major hit to SK hynix since Huawei solely represented roughly 10% of the chipmaker’s gross sales.
“SK hynix not does enterprise with Huawei for the reason that introduction of the U.S. restrictions towards the corporate and with regard to the problem we began an investigation to search out out extra particulars,” an SK hynix consultant informed Bloomberg. The spokesperson added, “SK hynix is strictly abiding by the U.S. authorities’s export restrictions.”
The Mate 60 Professional teardown video exhibits SK hynix’s UD310 176-layer 4D NAND flash. UD310 is a high-capacity and high-performance NAND that conforms to the united states3.1 normal. The HN8T25DEHKX077 variant, which is 512GB in capability, delivers sequential learn and write speeds as much as 2,050 MB/s and 1,700 MB/s, respectively. The LPPDR5 reminiscence, colloquially dubbed “ghost RAM,” stays a thriller.
Huawei could have constructed up a sizeable stock of SK hynix NAND or LPDDR5 earlier than the export restrictions. SK hynix introduced the UD310 in 2020, which was across the timeframe when the U.S. added Huawei to the commerce blacklist. If that narrative is correct, then Huawei solely has a restricted quantity of NAND, elevating the query of what number of models the corporate can carry to the market. The Mate 60 Professional is one among Huawei’s flagship smartphones, so it would not look good if the corporate may present a semi-decent provide of the units.
It could take away all of the guesswork if Huawei disclosed the place the corporate received the LPDDR5 and NAND from or how the Kirin 9000s was made. Nonetheless, Huawei has been silent on the problem, and so has SMIC concerning the Kirin 9000s. In the meantime, the U.S. is wanting into the entire scenario with SMIC and whether or not it has violated any sanctions for producing and promoting the Kirin 9000s to Huawei.