The Huawei Mate 40 could be the last phone to be powered by Kirin chipsets
The Huawei Mate 40 could be the last phone to be powered by Kirin chipsets
Note: This article was first published on 8 August 2020.
Huawei's upcoming Mate 40 flagship phones could be the company's last devices to be powered by its own Kirin processors.
Yu Chengdong, Huawei's consumer business CEO, confirmed during the China Information Technology Summit 2020 that the company cannot manufacture Kirin processors beyond 15 September when the U.S export ban takes effect. Huawei will still go ahead with plans to launch the Mate40 phones in September with the next-gen Kirin 9000 chipset, but it has stocks of the processors for up to 15 million units.
TSMC, which helps Huawei manufacture its Kirin processors, stopped taking new orders from Huawei in May after the U.S government amended the export ban to block Huawei's access to overseas chip manufacturers. While Huawei is reportedly sourcing mobile chips from MediaTek and UNISOC, it remains to be seen whether other chip manufacturers can scale up their production capacity to meet Huawei's needs.