The Kirin 9000S enabled Huawei to regain its lost market in China, staging a comeback that is making rivals like Apple nervous and probably frustrating the Biden administration as their continued efforts to stifle the competition overseas have been fruitless. However, as Huawei shifts towards mass production of advanced chipsets for smartphones and PCs, it will have to take away production resources from all Kirin 9000 variants, as mentioned by one tipster.
Huawei is also focusing on its in-house HarmonyOS Next platform, which should be optimized for its next-generation Kirin chipsets
It is not just smartphones and tablets that Huawei is focused on, as earlier rumors claim that the former Chinese giant is gunning for Apple’s market share in the ARM PC category and threatening Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite before it even shows up in the first crop of machines. With the help of Huawei’s foundry partner SMIC, it will aim to launch next-generation chipsets, which will be technologically inferior compared to what TSMC and Samsung produce but better than the previous iterations.
According to tipster Digital Chat Station, by lowering the supply of all Kirin 9000 versions, their pricing has also reduced. Assuming Huawei wants to target the entry-level or mid-range segment in China, it can re-introduce the Kirin 9000S or the Kirin 9000W in more affordable products. With the Kirin 9000 variants slowly given less priority, Huawei can focus on two areas: its first 5nm chipset and the upcoming ‘Kirin PC Chip.’
An earlier report stated that SMIC has successfully developed the 5nm process on the older DUV machinery, with mass production of wafers possibly commencing later this year. Huawei is rumored to call its first 5nm chipset the Kirin 9100, and it is expected to fuel the company’s Mate 70 series in October. Additionally, the ‘Kirin PC Chip’ could be announced in late May or June, with its rumored multi-core performance said to be nearly on par with Apple’s M3. While chip development and hardware are two aspects of Huawei’s aspirations, software is another.
The company intends to sever its dependency on Google’s Android OS entirely by introducing HarmonyOS Next, a new platform that has been developed in-house and is said to run on the Mate 70 family and future PCs. To achieve this goal, its foundry partner SMIC will have to free up resources, meaning that fewer Kirin 9000 units will be produced. However, neither Huawei nor anyone else can forget the impact that these chipsets made, and they have probably carved a permanent place in semiconductor history.
News Source: Digital Chat Station
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
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