35%
Questionable
The Mate 80 series will be Huawei’s top-tier offering as the company plans to put a stop to Apple’s growing momentum in China by announcing its flagship smartphone family. While the company has developed an expertise in camera upgrades, the new Kirin 9030 will also be a part of the innards, and unsurprisingly, the chipset is going through its usual hype. One tipster has even made remarks that Huawei’s next SoC will be made on an equivalent 3nm process, but that is nothing but hot air.
China currently doesn’t have advanced equipment to develop a chipset equivalent to 3nm ones; Kirin 9030 will likely stick with SMIC ‘s 7nm manufacturing process
On Weibo, ‘Momentary Digital,’ who is also known as ‘Setsuna Digital,’ made wild claims about the Kirin 9030, saying that it will arrive in a gaming-focused smartphone in early 2026. While there is nothing wrong with Huawei pursuing a device that sports aesthetics similar to the REDMAGIC 11 Pro, it becomes a problem when rumors exceed what reality dictates. We say this because both Huawei and SMIC have been unable to develop any process beyond the 7nm one, and here we have rumors suggesting that the Kirin 9030 will be manufactured on a process equivalent to TSMC’s 3nm node.
Sure, there have been countless reports on how Huawei and SMIC have successfully developed the 5nm process, but there’s a massive difference between development and mass production. The biggest obstacle for China’s semiconductor firms is that they lack access to next-generation EUV machinery, which is mandatory for full-scale manufacturing of wafers on the 5nm node or below, as this paraphernalia enables a higher yield output. China was earlier said to have in-house EUV equipment that was supposed to enter trial production in Q3 2025, but we have heard little to no progress on this front.
At the very least, the tipster’s claims suggest that the Kirin 9030 can compete with Google’s Tensor G5, which is fabricated on TSMC’s latest 3nm ‘N3P’ node. Other than that, there’s not even a sliver of a chance for Huawei to compete with the likes of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Dimensity 9500, the A19 Pro, or even the upcoming Exynos 2600. We do, however, expect the Kirin 9030 to perform between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so let us keep our fingers crossed for future performance and efficiency comparisons.
News Source: Momentary Digital
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