We may never know how Huawei was able to achieve this given the sanctions and the company's placement on the Entity List alongside SMIC. This prevents both companies from accessing their U.S. supply chain without obtaining a license. But various benchmark tests performed on the 7nm Kirin 9000 and the previous chip used by Huawei for the Mate 40
series, the 5nm Kirin 9000 (which is also a 5G chip), reveal that the older chipset is a better component overall than the most recent chipset. .
The Kirin 9000 2020 SoC offers much better graphics than the Kirin 9000 2023
Nanoreview.net (via
Tom'sMaterial) recently put devices powered by both chips through different benchmark tests and found that while CPU performance was slightly improved on the new Kirin 9000s, the Kirin 9000 had higher scores in other tests. On Geekbench 6, the new SoC had a single-core score of 1,315 and a multi-core score of 4,078, compared to 1,259 single-core and 3,486 multi-core scores recorded by the 2020 Kirin 9000.
On AnTuTu 10, both application processors performed similarly, with the Kirin 9000 barely beating the Kirin 9000 by a score of 897,496 to 894,530. But one area where the new chip failed quite significantly Important is the GPU count, where the new chip scored 200,982, compared to the older chip's higher 315,801. The Kirin 9000's GPU, the highest performing, was the 24-core Mali-G78. The new Kirin 9000 uses a quad-core Maleoon-910 and offers GPU performance in line with 2020's Snapdragon 888 which used the Adreno 660 GPU.
Speaking of graphics, on 3DMark Wild Life, the 2020 chip was 20% faster than the 2023 chip. And without hesitation, the older chip was more power efficient than the newer one. This could be largely due to the process node used to build the two SoCs with the Kirin 9000 manufactured by TSMC using its 5nm node and the Kirin 9000 produced by SMIC using its second generation 7nm node.
Huawei and SMIC cannot do much with the deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machine they are allowed to import. To get below 7nm, the two may need to test Cannon's nanoimprint lithography (NIL) technology announced in October. This technology can be used to make 5nm and possibly 2nm chips in the future. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines used on current cutting-edge chips are not allowed to ship to Chinese companies.
A more worrying development could take place soon based on patent applications filed last year by Huawei.
Lithography machines are used to etch circuit patterns onto silicon wafers which are then cut into individual chips. With billions of transistors inside the chips, EUV machines are vital because they can etch lines thinner than a human hair on the wafers, making it possible to build more powerful and energy-efficient chips. One possible concern for U.S. officials is that about a year ago, Huawei reportedly filed patent applications covering EUV components and the process of using the technology.
There is no indication that any of the technologies mentioned in the patent application were used by SMIC to manufacture the Kirin 9000. But if Huawei manages to develop its own cutting-edge lithography technology that evades US sanctions, it will be much more surprising and worrying for American legislators.
In addition to the smaller transistors used on the 2020 Kirin 9000 compared to the Kirin 9000s, the older chip's CPU cores have up to 19% faster clock speed (3.13 GHz vs. 2.62 GHz) and better instruction set architecture.
