Huawei Pura 70 Pro teardown reveals even more China-made parts

Huawei recently launched the Pura 70 series in China, opening the next chapter of its development after the US sanctions.

A new teardown by Reuters, in partnership with iFixit and TechSearch International, shed light on the internals of the Huawei Pura 70 Pro with an extensive teardown of the phone.

According to the report, the new phones contain more locally-sourced components than any of the company"s previous phones. However, the Pura 70 series still falls short of current flagship models, particularly in terms of chipset performance.

The Kirin 9010 chip is manufactured using the SMIC 7nm node, known as N+2. Although it shares similar identifiers with the Kirin 9000S, it is a newer revision. Industry experts note that while the new chip performs slightly better, it remains a 7nm process SoC, well behind the best currently in the market.

SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) is expected to transition to 5nm technology by the end of the year, leveraging its existing technology and expertise. However, they need time to achieve commercial production volumes.

It"s important to note that the Chinese semiconductor industry currently lags behind TSMC, Samsung, Qualcomm, and other companies with access to EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography) machines manufactured by ASML, a Dutch company. TSMC is already working on 2nm nodes, which represents a gap of three nodes or six years of process refinement.

Geekbench results indicate a performance improvement of just under 10% for the chipset, but it still lags behind by over 30% compared to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, as seen in the latest Android flagships.

Kirin 9000S vs Kirin 9010 • Kirin 9010 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

One of the most notable integrated circuits (IC) changes inside the Pura 70 Pro is the 1TB NAND flash memory, manufactured by Huawei"s HiSilicon. While it is possible that Huawei produced the NAND dies itself, it is more likely that they were designed and manufactured by another local company, with HiSilicon handling the memory controller and packaging of the NAND chip.

It"s worth mentioning that Huawei only offers Pura 70 phones with 1TB storage in China, while variants with 256GB or 512GB are available in overseas markets.

The 12GB RAM is supplied by SK Hynix, a South Korean company that is also affected by trade restrictions imposed by the United States. Huawei likely stockpiled memory chips before the sanctions, but the high demand for the Mate 60 and Pura 70 phones is depleting these stocks.

Huawei may be relying on CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies), a Chinese DRAM fab that recently produced the first fully domestic LPDDR5 module. However, DRAM production also heavily relies on EUV-made chips for performance and power efficiency, presenting another challenge for Huawei and its domestic partners in their quest to become competitive in the smartphone market.

Surprisingly, the 6-axis gyroscope and accelerometer MEMS sensor is likely provided by Bosch, a German engineering company, despite the presence of Chinese companies capable of producing these sensors locally.

The report suggests that the Pura 70 is close to becoming a symbol of China"s self-sufficiency. However, the United States and its allies closely monitor Huawei"s resurgence in device and chip manufacturing, and this could lead to harsher sanctions.

For instance, there are concerns that the US government may revoke Qualcomm"s and Intel"s licenses to sell chips to Huawei.

Source | Via