Wed August, 2020, Age: 3 years
At a recent industry conference, Huawei’s leadership announced that the company will no longer be able to procure its Kirin 9000 smartphone chips beginning September 15, when U.S. export controls on Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are due to go into effect. The 5G-enabled Kirin 9000 chips are used in some of Huawei’s flagship smartphones, including the to-be-released Huawei Mate 40 series. No foundries besides Samsung and TSMC currently have the 7nm manufacturing capacities necessary to produce the chips, and analysts estimate that the China-based Shanghai Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is at least 18 months away from developing this capability.
