But Huawei chips still lag behind Qualcomm solutions
An analysis of the single-chip system of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone shows that Huawei was able to create a modern platform for smartphones. Four of the eight cores in the Mate 60 Pro SoC are entirely based on Arm designs, while the remaining four cores are custom and contain Huawei’s designs.
Dylan Patel, chief analyst at consulting firm SemiAnalysis, said Huawei had made a breakthrough that made this possible: “Make your design and don’t rely too much on foreign countries.”
Other advantages for Huawei include lower patent licensing costs and the ability to differentiate its products in the market by using off-the-shelf chips.
Huawei made a breakthrough by creating a modern custom chip for a smartphone
Experts believe Huawei was able to produce its phone processors by adapting the design of CPU cores originally intended for use in data center servers.
Experts have found that Huawei’s semiconductor capabilities lag one to two years behind those of the US-based Qualcomm, a leading mobile chip maker. Huawei chips are still less power efficient and can cause the phone to heat up.
“Huawei was able to replace the most critical and risky elements that were subject to or vulnerable to export controls with products of its production or even design,” said one of the company’s chip researchers. “These efforts deserve applause, but are not enough to qualify for victory.”
The United States has no evidence that Chinese manufacturer Huawei can mass produce smartphones with advanced chips, as stated by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
