These days, just about every processor is manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or better known as TSMC. This includes the latest chips from Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and even Google. Now, TSMC has just made it so these companies can put out even more impressive chipsets.
Later this year, we will likely see multiple mobile processors launching with clock speeds past 5GHz. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro has already been rumored to be 5GHz, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro will likely be similar. This is thanks to the EUV lithography that TSMC is using.
For those who are unaware, lithography refers to the process used to print incredibly tiny circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. Light is projected through a mask to etch transistor designs onto the chip at the nanometer scale.
This is a pretty major leap for TSMC’s customers, and it’s going to make this Fall’s crop of smartphones incredibly powerful.
This puts Huawei even further behind
Since being put on the Entity List back in 2019, Huawei has pretty much been forced to rely on its own technology, even when it comes to processors. Now, before the ban Huawei was already making its own chips. But it’s not as simple as just making chips. Many foundries rely on ARM to build the cores for each chipset, as well as machines that are imported from other regions to manufacture them. Neither of which Huawei has access to.
This is why Huawei is stuck on 7nm chips right now, while all of its competitors are using 3nm chips, and soon to be 2nm.
Huawei’s latest chipset, the Kirin 9030, hasn’t even hit the 3GHz barrier yet. This really shows us how important a foundry partner like TSMC is to companies like Huawei.
Huawei has done a good job of working without all of its other partners, like Google, Qualcomm, and other American companies. But chips are where the company is really struggling. Because it’s not something one company can build from the ground up.
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