A recent teardown by TechInsights revealed that Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 9006C processor used in the Qingyun L540 laptop was manufactured using 5nm-class process technology. However, it was made by TSMC in Taiwan and not the blacklisted SMIC in mainland China, Bloomberg reports. This discovery calls into question the assumption that SMIC developed its own 5nm-class production node for high-volume manufacturing (HVM).
Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 9006C system-on-chip in the Qingyun L540 laptop was manufactured by TSMC using its 5nm-class process technology and assembled around the third quarter of 2020. This was around the time when US sanctions against Huawei have started, according to TechInsights. . The analysis reveals that the SoC was packaged in the 35th week of 2020 (August 24-30, 2020), just two weeks before TSMC lost the legal ability to supply chips to Huawei.
As reported several weeks ago, the specifications of the Kirin 9006C SoC are identical to those of the original HiSilicon Kirin 9000 processor manufactured in 2020. The TechInsights team concluded that the two processors in question are identical chips manufactured by TSMC. After a detailed examination of the critical dimensions of the chip, the researchers confidently claimed that the HiSilicon Kirin 9006C SoC is produced using TSMC’s N5 process technology.
Meanwhile, the newly discovered chip is marked as “HiSilicon Hi36A0C GFCV101 JTBFB2U7Q2 2035-CN”, while the one manufactured in 2020 is marked as “HiSilicon Hi36A0 GFCV101” and the manufacturing date is followed by TW, which points to Taiwan. That said, the Kirin 9006C application processor is likely released in China.
Huawei’s purchase of the three-year-old processor raises questions about how the company obtained the silicon. The most obvious answer is that the Chinese giant is using the inventory it was stockpiling aggressively in 2019-2020 after the US government included Huawei and its subsidiaries in its Entity List in 2019 and then banned exports of all technology originating in the United States (including manufactured chips). using American manufacturing tools) to Huawei. Still, it’s unclear why Huawei didn’t use the SoC sooner and let an expensive piece of silicon sit unused for more than three years.
Domestic 5nm manufacturing technology used for high-volume production would have been a significant achievement for China. Yet it appears that SMIC’s so-called N+2 process technology belongs more in the laboratory than in the high-volume manufacturing plant. Still, many industry experts are confident that the company will develop a 5nm-class production node and a 3nm-class manufacturing process over time.
