Huawei's latest smartphone features mostly made-in-China components
- Reference: 1715271308
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/09/huaweis_latest_smartphone_features_mostly/
- Source link:
[1]
Pura 70 smartphones on sale in Shenzhen Huawei store in April - Photo by: Shutterstock / Andrew Sozinov
The smartphone disection was conducted by repair tools company iFixit, which was able to obtain one of the China-exclusive phones with the help of Reuters. iFixit performed an in-depth [2]teardown of the Pura 70 Pro, as well as conducting performance benchmarks to test the mettle of Huawei's latest Kirin 9010 SoC.
It has been known since April that the [3]Kirin 9010 is very similar to the older Kirin 9000S , both of which are produced by Huawei's chip manufacturing partner SMIC on its 7nm node (also called N+2). However, reports from last month might have underestimated how similar the new Kirin is to the old one, as iFixit discovered that both chips have the same model ID. Even the revision names are almost identical: GFCV121 for the 9010, and GFCV120 for the 9000S.
iFixit theorizes that the 9010 is a refreshed 9000S with potentially higher yields (the percentage of good chips versus defective chips) and slightly higher performance. And when we say slightly, we do mean it, because the Kirin 9010 is only about eight percent faster than the 9000S in the popular Geekbench 6 performance benchmark.
The comparison is even less favorable compared to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which was roughly 45 percent faster than the Kirin 9010.
[4]
The teardown also confirmed that Huawei's smartphone business is sourcing more parts locally. Most importantly, it's using one of its own HiSilicon NAND chips with 1 TB of storage, something that's not available in Europe. Analysis of the die implies that Huawei made the memory controller and packaged everything together, but that another Chinese manufacturer (perhaps YMTC) made the actual NAND storage.
[5]
[6]
However, neither the DRAM nor the motion sensors were made in China, with the former being produced by SK Hynix and the latter by Bosch. Huawei is likely just using up old parts, given that SK Hynix isn't allowed to sell to Huawei due to sanctions, and also because both of these components can be made in China. Future Pura 70 Pro units may switch to domestic parts once existing stocks of foreign-made parts are used up.
Production could be the biggest problem for Huawei
Domestic production of components used for smartphones and other computers won't be easy for Huawei, as the report points out. Though the company has proven that it has the technology to make at least the processor and storage on its own, being able to manufacture enough chips without spending too much money is the second step.
For more recent nodes, the usage of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines isn't exactly necessary, but it does make it easier to achieve good yields. For example, Intel might have not had its woes with its 10nm node (now called Intel 7) if EUV lithography was widely available during its development in the 2010s. Instead, the company relied on standard deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology and sophisticated patterning, which initially resulted in poor yields.
[7]America will make at least quarter of advanced chips in 2032, compared to China’s 2%
[8]US commerce department yanks back Huawei export licenses
[9]China 'the most competitive market in the world' for the iPhone says Tim Cook
[10]Huawei's woes really were just a flesh wound – profits just soared 564 percent
The problem for Huawei is that Dutch company ASML makes all of the world's EUV machines, which aren't allowed to be shipped to China due to international sanctions. Huawei and its partners will have to rely on DUV for cutting-edge nodes, which probably poses difficulties for production. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo claims this is exactly what Huawei is running into, saying [11]7nm-based Kirin chips can't be made at scale .
[12]Huawei is investing into making its own DUV and potentially EUV lithography tools, but it's unclear whether its efforts will pay off. Should China's semiconductor industry fail to make a breakthrough in production methods, the country might find itself [13]incapable of making very many modern processors , even if companies like Huawei can design them. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/05/09/shutterstock_2455996889.jpg
[2] https://www.ifixit.com/News/95646/huaweis-kirin-9010-is-a-reality-check-for-chinas-semiconductor-ambitions
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/29/teardown_confirms_huaweis_pura_70/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zj1HfrZ@8a0EFENClF99fAAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zj1HfrZ@8a0EFENClF99fAAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zj1HfrZ@8a0EFENClF99fAAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/08/us_china_sia/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/08/huawei_licenses_revoked/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/03/china_iphone/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/huawei_profits_soar_q1/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/19/huaweis_advanced_chip_sparks_us/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/11/huawei_developing_chipmaking_equipment/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/08/us_china_sia/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Shocker!
Well, yes, but the article is actually "ok, but how good is it?" if you actually read it.
Re: Shocker!
> "ok, but how good is it?
From the description given, way bigger & faster than my 'phone and, aside from screen size, leaves the tablet I'm using now (2013 vintage Nexus 7) way behind.
So this Huawei [1] would be vastly OTT for my needs. You'll have to judge for yourself if it would be good enough for you - or for the people who actually make up the bulk of the Chinese market.
[1] why is this thing trying to "correct" Huawei to Hussein? Who has been feeding the Android algorithm this week?
While the new Huawei processor maybe isn't as fast as the latest Qualcomm chips, that probably isn't a deal breaker if the prices is right.
My phone has a 6 year old Snapdragon 845 a 10nm chip and yet my phone doesn't feel slow when i compare it to friends phones which have newer SOCs.
that probably isn't a deal breaker if the prices is right
With low yields, the price is really quite high. However, the Chinese government is happy to dump money on SMIC and Huawei, keeping the sale price low, in order to hide the fact that sanctions are hurting.
The Huawei P30 Pro (2019) has a Kirin 980 processor which is significantly slower than the 9000s; however, it still out performs many current generation mobile phones ie. It can comfortably do all the stuff regular people want from their mobile. So I agree, in real world usage terms the 9000s/9010 still gives a very usable mobile phone. The only issue is do banking apps, for example, recognise and thus run on it. (Obviously this will become an issue with the P30 as the version of android it is running drops off their supported list…).
The Secret Magic in Kirin chips ..
The SMT are only in the Kirin SoC, and with Hyper Threading (SMT) in it, performance is on par with 4 nm .. A real engineering bravura, isn't it.
At the end is a score ... boost of 50%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzPbVzXR0Vs
.. if AnTuTu can measure it, what the score will be ;) .. it's indeed a hi-tech secret spice.
Re: The Secret Magic in Kirin chips ..
is that the boost from hyper threading style tech is extremely workload dependent, and a 50% boost on a synthetic benchmark isn't going to translate to general, average or worst case performance numbers.
China will be able to meet it's massive internal market if it can get the yields it needs, but it will continue to fall behind the global market without access to either foreign chip supply or the ability to participate in the global semiconductor process technologies. Much like their existing 7 node, which appears to have been jacked from TSMCs old process, they will probably do just about anything to get their hands on the technology to keep up. That said, other than the optics, Huawei and the rest of china can make a perfectly usable phone off older process technology. Less sexy maybe, but this isn't the sort of move that will cause instant shock waves across china's tech and industrial centers.
But it will have an increasing impact in the long term, potentially casting a decadal shadow on china's tech sector. That is enough time for other players to begin to emerge to challenge the position of china as the sole axis of technology manufacturing at scale. And as Intel found out the hard way, nobody can out engineer the rest of the world on their own. Bowing out on many of the joint engineering projects helped it slip out of the forefront of process technology. Intel is lucky it is getting a massive bailout it scarcely deserves. If the chinese government can't bail out Huawei adn SMIC, and they are blocked from global participation in collaborative engineering and advanced process nodes, who can or will?
Shocker!
Chinese phone made by a Chinese company recently banned from doing business with the West, uses Chinese components ...
Stop the presses!