China’s Huawei Technologies is set to launch its Mate70 premier smartphone on November 26, a breakthrough in its sanctions-induced desire for self-sufficiency from US cards and technology.
During a Huawei vehicle launch event on November 15th, Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, revealed the Mate70’s start date.  , Chinese internet said Huawei may build four models together: the Mate70, Mate70 Pro, Mate70 Pro and Mate70 RS.  ,
Only the premium models, according to the reports, would use a brand-new 7-nanometer processor called the Kirin 9100, which is said to be comparable to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 1 for central processing units ( CPU) and graphic processing units ( GPU), respectively.  ,
The reports said another Mate 70 smartphone will use the Kirin 9010 computer, which was used in the Mate 40 launched in 2021 and the P70 launched earlier this year.
The Kirin 9100 chip is reportedly made by Chinese chipmaker Shanghai Manufacturing International Corp ( SMIC ) using its deep ultraviolet ( DUV) lithography machines and , N 3 process,  , while the Kirin 9000S chip used in last year’s Mate60 is made using SMIC’s N 2 process.
Both the 9100 and 9000S are 7nm chips, but the N 3 approach does have 130 million transistors per square meter, compared with 89 million transistors per sq meter of the N 2 procedure. Some press refer to the 9100 computer as a 6nm device because it performs similarly to a 5nm microprocessor.
The US government sanctioned Huawei and SMIC, and they had planned to produce 2.5 million cards before releasing the Mate70 for a September product release, according to an early September report from The Information. However, they were unable to meet their goal due to limited production capacity and unnamed productivity concerns.
The Mate70 will also use Huawei’s self-developed HarmonyOS Next operating program, known as “pure blood”, which does not include Linux standards or help Android programs. The Android Open Source Project ( AOSP) and the Linux kernel served as the foundation for the earlier versions.  ,
Sanctions goal
Huawei and its 70 members were added to the US Commerce Department’s sanctioned Entity List in May 2019. Google stopped allowing Huawei phones to use its Android OS in August of that year.  ,
In September 2020, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co ( TSMC), the world’s leading high-end chipmaker, stopped producing Kirin chips, resulting in an inventory countdown for Huawei’s HiSilicon, the tech giant’s wholly-owned fabless chipmaker.  ,
Yu said in 2019 that the company had a” Plan B” entailing a self-developed chipset and operating system, which after 5.5 years has apparently been accomplished.
A Hunan-based journalist blared in an essay in early November that” we can then consider that the US has failed to stop Huawei from making advances in cards, operating methods, and 5G systems” because almost all of the Mate70’s key components are made in China.  ,
” The US has fully miscalculated the condition. It thought that Huawei may be severely hurt by its punishment”, he said. ” But genuinely Huawei has become stronger”.
HarmonyOS Next, according to a columnist for 36Kr.com, a website for Chinese business and IT news, could improve Huawei smartphones ‘ overall performance by 30 % and significantly lower their power consumption.
Nevertheless, he opined in terms of technology Huawei perhaps been lagging behind its rivals, such as Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and Honor, which have tremendously improved their materials by using high-end US chips and parts in the past few years.  ,
Moreover, the writer said the Mate70’s design is not unique as it looks similar to the Mate50 launched in 2022.
Sensitive time
The Mate70’s launch is contentious because it took place three weeks after Donald Trump, a Republican nominee for president, won the US election. Trump has previously pledged to increase tariffs on all Chinese goods to 60 % and strengthen America’s technology blockade against China.  ,
In a fitting end note, the Biden administration put an end to restrictions on US investments in China’s semiconductor, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence ( AI ) sectors in October.  ,
The US Commerce Department earlier this month mandated that Samsung and TSMC stop sending 7nm or lower semiconductors to Chinese companies that produce AI chips or GPUs.
Some analysts predicted that Huawei’s upcoming Mate70 release would encourage China to increase its technology restraints.  ,
In response to China’s persistent attempts to evade the restraints, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated in December that the country should continue to impose stricter export controls and take greater responsibility for implementing them with allies.
Yong Jian is a regular contributor to Asia Times and a Chinese journalist with a focus on Chinese politics, technology, and politics.