Many believed that Huawei was dead. That the sanctions approved by the United States against China’s main manufacturer of telecommunications equipment and mobile phones had killed him. But the truth is that she is still very much alive. What’s more, it has just shaken up the chip sector with the silent launch of its latest mobile phone: the Huawei Mate 60 Pro. And it’s not because it has the best camera, the longest lasting battery, or the most innovative design. No, the surprising thing about the terminal is not seen at first glance. It is the processor that makes it work.
Because it shows that the United States sanctions have achieved the opposite of what they were looking for: that China opts for self-sufficiency in the strategic semiconductor sector and develops chips that are close in performance to those of a competition led by Asian companies – especially Taiwanese – that do have the approval of the North American government. Because, against all odds, the latest flagship of the company founded by former military man Ren Zhengfei has a HiSilicon Kirin chip – manufactured by the main Chinese semiconductor producer, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), exclusively for Huawei – with capacity for 5G networks and 7 nanometer technology.
The smaller the chips, the more power and energy efficiency they offer. They are not very relevant variables in large devices, such as a vehicle, but vital in smartphones. For this reason, leading companies in the sector are working tirelessly to continue reducing size. The new Pro range of the iPhone 15, for example, has released the first 3-nanometer chip this year and IBM already has a two-nanometer chip that integrates 50,000 million transistors of a size similar to that of five atoms in a processor the size of one one. This means that Huawei is still behind, yes, but not as much as was thought.
A geopolitical challenge
And the Chinese population has responded forcefully. The long queues that previously formed in front of Apple stores have now moved to Huawei stores, where the Mate 60 Pro have been sold out. «It may not be a mobile phone as fast or advanced as the iPhone or those from Samsung, but I am proud that the brand has been able to survive the American attacks and has managed to develop such an important chip of its own. For this reason, I want to support Huawei with my purchase,” says Liao Shufei, a young woman from Shanghai who did not mind paying 7,000 yuan (910 euros) for a smartphone that is causing a silent earthquake in the industry.
The Canadian Tech Insights, specialized in the analysis of semiconductors, has gutted the Huawei terminal to discover what is inside, since the brand has not made any comments about its exploit and does not respond to the insistent questions from the press about the processor. “Discovering a Kirin chip manufactured by SMIC with 7 nanometer (N+2) technology demonstrates the technological progress that the Chinese semiconductor industry has achieved without extreme ultraviolet lithography tools,” highlights Dan Hutcheson, vice president of Tech Insights, in reference to the machinery produced by the Dutch ASML and which Washington also prohibited from selling to China. «What happened should not be a surprise. “The restrictions have forced China to double down on innovation,” said ASML CEO Peter Wennink, who has repeatedly opposed sanctions against China.
“The difficulty of what has been achieved also reflects the resilience of the country’s technological capabilities in terms of chips, and is a great geopolitical challenge for countries that have tried to restrict their access to vital technologies for manufacturing,” adds Hutcheson. Not in vain, Tech Insights has also calculated that the Mate 60 Pro uses more Chinese-made components than any other Huawei device. According to Bloomberg, the radio communications component belongs to Beijing OnMicro Electronics and the satellite communication module bears the Hwa Create seal. The terminal also uses the Chinese Beidou system – equivalent to GPS – for its geolocation.
«More than half, perhaps even two-thirds of the silicon used is local. Two or three years ago, that percentage was a third,” says Hutcheson. Claudio Feijóo, delegate of the rector of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and director of the Center for Support of Technological Innovation, agrees in pointing out that this advance is more than relevant. “It’s a milestone,” he says, surprised that it hasn’t received more attention.
Inefficient manufacturing
Of course, all that glitters is not gold. «It seems that less than half of the chips produced work. Some sources put this ratio at around 30%,” explains the professor. This means that most of the processors are discarded in quality control, which would reduce the number of units it can produce annually to a maximum of four million. Very far from other manufacturers whose performance reaches 90%. «It is very inefficient. But if you can afford it or as long as you can afford it…” says Feijóo, convinced that Huawei is already working on the next generation. In addition, different analysts point out that the characteristics of the Kirin chip are closer to those that Samsung produces with 10 nanometer technology.
Ren Zhengfei
The founder of Huawei is in the target for his past as a former military man and his connections with the Government
In any case, the Mate 60 Pro also includes key elements manufactured in other countries. For example, the memory cards belong to the South Korean SK Hynix, something that would show that Huawei is bypassing the sanctions. But the company from capitalist Korea has come forward to ensure that it is not true. «Since the approval by the United States of export restrictions we have not done business with Huawei. “We are investigating the case,” the multinational stated in a statement. Some analysts consider it possible that Huawei had stockpiled when the tensions with Donald Trump’s Executive began, since the DRAM memory debuted in 2021, but others consider it more feasible that it acquired them through a third company.
In any case, one of the most surprising aspects of the Mate 60 Pro is its competitive price. Because, theoretically, with the inefficiencies that Feijóo points out, the terminal should be extremely expensive compared to others with similar characteristics from local competitors such as Oppo or Xiaomi, which do have free access to processors from the American Qualcomm or the Taiwanese TSMC that still They are one or two steps ahead of the Kirin. In this regard, perhaps the fact that the economic margin is secondary and that patriotism drives sales in China are Huawei’s best allies.
It is estimated that the brand can sell up to 20 million units and take a bite of up to 38% on sales of the new iPhones, which, for the moment, it already surpasses in the Asian giant. It is an achievement as unexpected and surprising in the West as it is praised in the national press. “The resurrection of the brand’s mobile phones after three years of silence is enough to demonstrate that the US strategy of suppressing Chinese development has failed,” wrote the nationalist newspaper Global Times, spokesperson for the Communist Party, highlighting that the Mate 60 Pro It is, in itself, a reflection of the commercial and technological war that confronts the two superpowers of the 21st century.
The shot backfires on the West
In May 2019, the United States fired on Huawei for the first time. The Chinese technology company was about to dethrone Samsung as the main mobile phone manufacturer and had won numerous contracts to deploy 5G networks around the world. In Donald Trump’s view, this was a dangerous boom. Although no evidence has ever been shown in this regard, Washington determined that the company – peculiar because it operates almost like a cooperative – operated in collusion with the Chinese Communist Party and that this posed a threat to the national security of the American superpower.
So it decided to prohibit it from using American technology in its products. In this way, their successful mobile phones were left without Google services, a fact that immediately made them less attractive among Western customers. Other countries in the Anglosphere joined the barriers and many then predicted the death of Huawei.
They believed that it would be unable to get ahead without Western technology, as had happened to ZTE, the first Chinese technology company to be targeted by the Stars and Stripes empire. And the first data seemed to prove them right: although it ended 2019 as the best-selling brand in the world, it then began a rapid decline from which it has not recovered.
From the beginning, China accused the United States of hindering its development under false pretexts. And now history repeats itself with electric vehicles and the research that the European Union has announced, the third pillar of this power triangle. «China and the United States have been fighting a trade war for a long time in which it seemed that Europe was not involved. But globalization creates tremendous interdependence. The United States depends on China, China depends on the European market, and Europe depends on China and the United States,” explains the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, Carme Artigas.
It is impossible to create economic autarky
Carmen Artigas
Secretary of State for Digitalization
Interrelated chains
«On a global scale, raw materials, chip design and production capabilities, logistics value chain and distribution are completely interrelated. “It is impossible to create economic autarky, regardless of the size of the market,” he adds. That does not mean that globalization has to be governed by the law of the jungle. “We have to persuade China to abide by shared ethical codes,” adds Artigas.
China plays with the cards marked and the West has to protect itself
Spanish businessman in China
Reciprocity
For others, the key word is reciprocity. «It is not fair that Huawei can do business around the world when the telecommunications sector in China is closed to foreign companies. That is playing with the cards marked and the West has to protect itself,” says a Spanish businessman based in Tianjin who prefers to remain anonymous. «However, if China is prevented from accessing key components for development, it will end up developing them on its own and that can be dangerous for everyone. This is what has happened with Huawei,” he says.
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