Rumor: Huawei P50 series may not use Kirin chipset, could feature third party 5nm chip

Huawei’s chip designing semiconductor arm, HiSilicon has made substantial growth in the past few years. However, the company doesn’t sell its products to the other manufacturers and solely used them for in-house productions.

Still, HiSilicon required to manufacture its chip design through a chipmaker such as TSMC, of which Huawei is one of the biggest clients. But the recent restriction from the U.S. on the TSMC doesn’t allow it to continue its business with Huawei.

Huawei P40 Pro+

Meanwhile, being one of the early customers of 5nm chips, Huawei has secured the first batch of 5nm Kirin 1000, which will debut with Huawei Mate 40 series. But a source hints that the next year’s P50 series might not get the in-house Kirin processors.

According to a supply chain source from Weibo, the next year’s Huawei 5nm chipset will not be designed by HiSilicon. Instead, Huawei may have to look for a third party chip provider to use this new chipset technology.

Huawei kicks off its year flagship launch with Huawei P-series devices and the company’s next device will be the P50 series.

Lack of Kirin processors may lead the Chinese tech giant to MediaTek, which Huawei has started using massively in its smartphones. MediaTek has also opted for the early purchase of a 5nm chipset.

Huawei also has other options such as Qualcomm but since it comes under the U.S. technology regulations, the possibility for the business between the two companies is hard to imagine.

Currently, there’s no official confirmation on this news but we can wait for further inputs on the matter.

Earlier in June, Huawei P Series product manager – Wang Yonggang confirmed that Huawei P50 series has entered in the development. It’ll also bring some new camera technologies.

(Source)