Huawei Uses SMIC’s 7nm Process For The New Kirin 9020, Reveals Latest Findings, Which Also Hints That The Company Has Hit A Ceiling In Producing Advanced Chipsets

The Mate 70 series was officially announced earlier this month, with additional details showing that the more premium models were outfitted with the Kirin 9020, Huawei’s newest chipset and the direct successor to the Kirin 9010 that powers the Pura 70 family. While an earlier leak revealed that the Chinese firm’s silicon was mass produced on the 6nm process, a deeper investigation reveals that SMIC has not moved past the 7nm threshold, with Huawei left with little choice but to utilize this technology for the Kirin 9020.

Kirin 9020 is said to feature a 15 percent larger die size than the Kirin 9010, which gives Huawei more room to add cache to deliver slightly better performance on the same lithography

A detailed analysis by TechInsights highlights the unscalable obstacle that is in Huawei’s path in the form of trade sanctions placed by the U.S. that prevent the company from acquiring more advanced manufacturing processes from the likes of TSMC or even Samsung. The former Chinese giant has little choice but to rely on its local foundry partner SMIC, which is limited to the 7nm process, which is also known as ‘N+2.’ Despite the two entities working together to successfully develop the 5nm node, it appears that the latter’s yields are too low to be used commercially, which would otherwise make the Kirin 9020 highly expensive.

The report also reveals that the Mate 70 Pro+ features packaging markings similar to those of the Kirin 9000S from last year and the Kirin 9010, which includes the letters and numbers ‘Hi36C0’ and ‘GFCV110.’ Perhaps the only notable difference is that the Kirin 9020 features a 15 percent larger die size than the Kirin 9010, allowing it to sport a slightly higher cache to ensure better performance than its predecessor.

“The Kirin 9020 is hence an enhanced Kirin 9010 processor also manufactured using the same SMIC 7nm N+2 process (same minimum features, same BEOL and same critical dimensions) used to manufacture Kirin 9000S (HiSilicon Kirin 9000S ACE-2309-801 TechInsights Platform), which caused quite a stir in semiconductor industry, due to the rapid progress SMIC has been able to make despite US sanctions, to be able to manufacture 7 nm devices with full SOC implementation.”

What is surprising is that SMIC receives a nearly unlimited budget from the government, and it is still projected to remain on the 7nm process until 2026, which puts Huawei in a position where it cannot compete with other players in the industry. In the next two years, companies like Apple and Qualcomm would be mass producing 2nm SoCs whereas Huawei will be stuck on the ancient 7nm process. If there was a time for Huawei to start worrying, it would be now.