Reuters: Huawei to launch smartphone with 5G connectivity later this year

Huawei has been dealing with US government sanctions for over four years now since the US Department of Commerce put Huawei on the entity list back in May 2019. That decision essentially banned US companies from selling hardware and software to Huawei and cut off the Chinese brand’s access to 5G chipsets. According to a new report from Reuters, Huawei may finally get back to using 5G chipsets that have been co-developed with China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

Reports from three third-party research firms covering the Chinese smartphone market suggest Huawei and SMIC are developing 5G chipsets using SMIC’s N+1 manufacturing process and Huawei’s electronic design automation (EDA) software tools. Based on past reports, SMIC’s manufacturing process is comparable to 7nm process technologies from competitors in terms of power and stability though it is not actually fabbed on a 7nm process.

Expected yield rates for Huawei’s upcoming 5G chipsets are below 50%. The forecasts also suggest 2 to 4 million 5G chipset units with a possibility of reaching 10 million units down the line. The first Huawei phone to launch with the newly developed 5G chipset is expected to launch later this year.

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