According to foreign media AndroidAuthority, Huawei’s consumer business CEO Yu Chengdong recently stated that Huawei’s Mate 40 series is likely to be the company’s last mobile phone with its own Kirin chip. This is both shocking and inevitable.
As the US trade sanctions on Huawei extend to foreign chip manufacturers that use or license US technology, this prevents TSMC or Samsung from making chips for Huawei. Without manufacturing partners, Huawei’s Kirin will be gone.
Of course, this will also have a ripple effect on Huawei’s routers, switches and other hardware, which use Kirin chips.
Huawei can seek SMIC to produce Kirin. However, SMIC also uses American-made equipment, so even as a short-term option, it will cause trouble. In addition, SMIC is significantly behind in cutting-edge lithography technology, only mass-produced 14-nanometer FinFET process, while TSMC has mass-produced 7-nanometer FinFET and will soon launch a 5-nanometer EUV process. SMIC cannot replace TSMC as a high-end manufacturing choice.
In addition, Huawei can still purchase chips from competitors, but only if they are not American. Qualcomm is obviously impossible, and Samsung has no record of selling a large number of Exynos chips to the outside world, and only MediaTek is left.
Huawei has already started using MediaTek chips for some of its lower-priced mobile phones. At the same time, industry insiders believe that, affected by the trade ban, Huawei’s purchases from MediaTek will surge up to 300% this year. Other reports pointed out that Huawei has ordered more than 120 million chips to help make up for Kirin’s shortcomings. Whether Huawei believes MediaTek’s Dimensity 1000 series is a suitable high-end alternative product remains to be seen, but the company may not have many options if it wants to maintain its sales momentum.
Even with MediaTek as a backup plan, it cannot solve the bigger problem. Without Kirin, Huawei’s future mobile phone may lose almost everything that makes it unique.
This is much worse than losing the Play Store service
Huawei’s hopes for overseas smartphones have been stifled by the Google Play Store ban. Although the company’s App Gallery alternative has improved a lot in recent months, it still cannot replace the Google ecosystem and applications familiar to smartphone users outside of China. However, overseas markets will also be hit by the loss of Kirin chips.
First, the loss of Kirin chips affects all Huawei products, including products sold in China without Google services. Chip supply problems threaten Huawei’s competitiveness in China. As Huawei’s global appeal has stagnated, the company has become increasingly dependent on the Chinese market. Secondly, what is equally destructive is that without Kirin, Huawei’s smartphones lose their most important unique selling point.
One of the major selling points of Huawei smartphones is its excellent camera quality. This is largely due to the company’s built-in image signal processor (ISP) in the Kirin chip, which uses the company’s cutting-edge BM3D noise reduction algorithm and supports its unique RYYB sensor technology, while other chips are Do not have these technologies.
Naijatechnews understands that Kirin is also leading the way in machine learning due to the customized Da Vinci architecture. This is suitable for functions such as super-resolution zoom imaging, low-power voice recognition, gesture control, and facial recognition security.
Of course, Huawei can transfer some software and algorithms to chips from other manufacturers. However, there is no guarantee that they will run as well or efficiently as on the company’s customized Kirin processors. The bottom line is that without Kirin, Huawei’s phones would be different.
Can Huawei survive without Kirin?
There is no doubt that without Kirin, Huawei’s ability to adapt and resist the pressure of the US trade embargo will be further weakened. This cuts directly into the core of Huawei’s smartphone business, and its future seems to be firmly controlled by whom (if any) can be found to work with to bypass this latest obstacle.
Huawei may have to find MediaTek to cooperate. MediaTek’s high-end 5G SoC is a reasonable untested choice, but it is not on the same level as Qualcomm’s chips. Undoubtedly, switching to MediaTek will have an impact on the performance, functions, and possible cost of Huawei’s high-end smartphones, which may further weaken its overseas appeal, but this is also true in China.
After just replacing Samsung as the leader in the mobile phone industry, it may take some time for Huawei to lose its status as a major player in smartphones. However, adapting to changing trade bans inevitably means that the company’s products will undergo major changes in 2021 and beyond. Whether these products can maintain Huawei’s current momentum remains to be seen.
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