China’s Huawei took the wraps off a new laptop with a 5-nm application processor (AP). This came three months after the company unveiled a new smartphone with a 7-nm chip of its own development.
According to sources in the information technology (IT) industry on Dec. 13, Huawei recently unveiled a new laptop, the Qingyun L540, on its website. The laptop is powered by the Kirin 9006C AP chip made through a 5-nm process. It has an eight-core architecture and a clock speed of up to 3.13 gigahertz (GHz).
Huawei stunned the semiconductor industry in late August when its fifth-generation (5G) smartphone Mate 60 Pro featured a Kirin 9000S chip made by China’s largest foundry, SMIC, using 7-nm technology. The U.S. government has been blocking China’s access to semiconductors, which are 14-nm or more advanced chips since last year. “It is very concerning but we’re going to take the strongest action to protect the United States,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo told Bloomberg on Dec. 11 (local time), referring to Huawei’s launch of the smartphone with a 7-nm chip. She implied that U.S. sanctions on China may become even stronger. But as if to scoff at the idea of such sanctions, Huawei came up with the technology more advanced than 7 nanometers.
This raises the possibility that the 5-nm chip in the Qingyun L540 laptop came from inventories that China had held onto. “Based on my conversations with people working in Huawei’s supply chain, I conclude that 5-nm chips were stockpiled for use in new laptops before Huawei became subject to export restrictions,” Gregory Allen said in an interview with Politico. Allen is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Huawei had previously used TSMC’s Kirin 9006C in laptops released in 2021. This suggests that leftover inventory went into this new model.
However, some analysts believe that China is very close to securing 5-nm process technology, or that the chip was made by Chinese companies. “The new laptop models are also a sign of Huawei’s strong trust in Chinese companies’ excellent manufacturing capabilities,” Allen said. “New 5-nm chips can be supplied in the near future as inventory runs out.” While Huawei did not disclose process technology details for the Kirin 9006C, Chinese media outlets reported that SMIC may have been responsible for production of the chip.
The United States believes that even if Huawei succeeds in developing semiconductors via an ultra-fabrication process, it is not yet capable of mass-producing them in a stable manner. “The semiconductor for the Huawei Mate 60 Pro is inferior to what Huawei had a few years ago,” a U.S. government official said during testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 12 (local time). “Both the performances and yields of chips of China’s own development will not meet the demands of the smartphone market.”
Against this backdrop, Huawei CEO Richard Yu held the company’s annual conference in China last week, saying, “Huawei will launch very leading and disruptive new products in 2024. We will continue to exceed everyone’s expectations.”