With the US-China trade ban tensions rising between the two countries, Huawei has faced a massive implication of finding a suitable replacement for Google services to accompany its smartphones. Now, next year, the company will face an even bigger challenge of finding chipset alternatives. As of September, TSMC can no longer manufacture SoCs for HiSilicon. So the company will have to find other options very soon if it wants to stay in the market. Among the Huawei options, the one that sounds louder is Mediatek.
Huawei flagship phones of 2021 would not use Kirin chips
An industry insider has revealed that Huawei’s flagship phones of the year 2021 could make use of a 5nm chip from a third-party vendor. No more in-depth details are provided as of yet. However, the most likely option for the supply of chips would be none other than MediaTek.
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It should be noted that Huawei, for its part, will have no problem producing the Kirin 1000 and Kirin 1020 chipsets that have been in the rumor mill for quite some time. The latter will also be manufactured in a 5nm process. The source of the leak is talking about Huawei’s flagship phones for the next year, 2021. The Huawei Mate 40, which is expected to debut with the Kirin 1000/1020 SoC, will arrive in October this year.
In May 2020, the United States government extended its trade ban to Huawei. They added a new rule prohibiting foreign companies from supplying components to Huawei. Since American partners play an essential role in chip making. This technically prevents companies like TSMC or SMIC (of Chinese origin) from making chips for Huawei.
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However, the United States has granted a 120-day grace period before the rule takes effect. With this, TSMC can continue supplying chips to HiSilicon until September 15, 2020. During this time, they will have their new Kirin 5nm chipsets ready for this year.
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