Huawei was forced to obtain a license from the US Department of Commerce that would allow it to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips to power its flagship models, the P50, Mate 50, and P60. However, these chips were tuned so that they could not work with his 5G network. The production of the Kirin 9000 has been controversial and shrouded in mystery, and now the Biden administration says SMIC may have violated US sanctions in manufacturing the Kirin 9000 for Huawei.
Until August last year, Kirin 9000 was Huawei’s last 5G chipset
At a Congressional hearing held yesterday, Representative Michael McCaul asked Commerce Secretary Alan Estevez whether SMIC violated U.S. export rules to produce the Kirin 9000. “It’s a possibility. We need to evaluate it,” said Estevez, who oversees export policy. Asked whether SMIC used American tools to manufacture chips for Huawei, he said: “I can’t speak to whether there will be an investigation. But we certainly have that concern.” I’m sharing it.”
SMIC does not have access to extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) equipment, which etches very thin circuit patterns onto silicon wafers to help position billions of transistors. The foundry owns deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV) machines used to make less advanced chips. He is the only company in the world that makes these tools, and that company, his ASML company in the Netherlands, has been banned by the US from selling his EUV equipment to his SMIC. Masu.
