Huawei Technologies’ latest laptop runs on a chip made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, a teardown of the device showed, quashing rumors of another Chinese technological breakthrough.
The Qingyun L540 laptop contains a 5-nanometer chip made by the Taiwanese company in 2020, around the time U.S. sanctions cut off Huawei’s access to the chipmaker, research firm TechInsights found after disassembled the device for Bloomberg News. This contradicts speculation that Huawei’s chipmaking partner in mainland China, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, may have achieved a major leap in manufacturing technique.
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Huawei made a splash in the United States and China last August when it launched a smartphone with a 7nm processor made by Shanghai-based SMIC. A teardown conducted by the Canadian research organization for Bloomberg News showed that the Mate 60 Pro’s chip was only a few years behind the cutting edge, a feat that U.S. trade restrictions were supposed to prevent.
The revelation sparked celebration in China’s tech scene and debate in the United States over the effectiveness of sanctions.
TechInsights discovered a Kirin 9006C processor manufactured via TSMC’s 5nm method, which was assembled and packaged around Q3 2020.
