Photo = Yonhap news

 

[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] Huawei’s recently unveiled foldable laptop, the MateBook Fold, was initially announced to feature the new Kirin X90 chipset fabricated using a 5nm (nanometer) process. However, new reports suggest the chip was actually manufactured using an older 7nm process node.



On June 23, IT news outlet PhoneArena reported that the Kirin X90 chipset was built using SMIC’s 7nm N+2 process—the same technology used for the Kirin 9020 Application Processor (AP) in Huawei’s Mate 70 smartphone series released last year.



While Chinese media previously claimed that Huawei had adopted SMIC’s latest N+3 5nm process technology, industry analysis indicates that the manufacturing remains at the 7nm level. SMIC, China’s largest foundry, and Huawei have been striving to advance their chip fabrication capabilities under U.S. sanctions, which block access to EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography equipment from Dutch supplier ASML.



To circumvent this, the two companies have reportedly been using multiple passes of DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) lithography to approximate advanced nodes. However, sources say this workaround results in significantly lower production yields and higher manufacturing costs, casting doubt on its economic viability.

 

 

 

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