After the US government emplaced new sanctions against Huawei, the Chinese tech giant lost its chip supply from TSMC. Since then, the company as invested in various local semiconductor and is reportedly also looking for other alternatives. One of the rumored alternatives was the Samsung, but now, a new report suggests that it South Korean tech giant might not be its new chip supplier.
For those unaware, Samsung already supplies Huawei with OLED panels and memory chips for its electronics products. Furthermore, the companies semiconductor department would’ve also benefitted from Huawei’s loss of chip supply, but it is being reported that Samsung might not end up supplying the Chinese company with chipsets.
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At the moment, it is unclear as to why exactly Samsung may not supply Huawei, but it does mean that the smartphone vendor will probably have to turn to other companies like MediaTek and Spreadtrum for processors. Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin processors are found in the company’s laptops and smartphones, although, HiSilicon doesn’t manufacture the processors and depends on TSMC.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker and is generally ahead of the market curve, especially in terms of process node sizes and generations. At the moment, the current flagship chips are built on a 7nm while the next generation is expected to be built on an even smaller 5nm process. Unfortunately, finding alternatives with such capabilities will be hard and even Chinese semiconductor firms that Huawei is investing in will take time to reach this stage in technological advancement. So, we may see slower and less power-efficient chips, in comparison to its rivals, in Huawei phones in the near future.
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(Via)
