Huawei Mate 40 Is Probably The Last Smartphone With Kirin Chip

The Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei will no longer have the opportunity to work with TSMC from mid-September. Therefore, there will be no more powerful Kirin chips in the upcoming flagship models. The Mate 40 is excluded from this.

US sanctions are responsible for the discontinuation of the cooperation between Huawei and TSMC. Although the CPU manufacturer HiSilicon is a subsidiary of Huawei, the group is dependent on the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce the processors. Since TSMC also uses US technologies, the manufacturer is now prohibited from concluding further contracts with Huawei.

Mate 40 possibly in a limited edition

The current contracts between Huawei and TSMC expire on September 15th. This makes the upcoming flagship model Mate 40 (Pro) the last device to have a Kirin processor from the high-end segment. As Engadget reports, Huawei boss Richard Yu officially confirmed this in a speech. Due to the difficult situation, it is also conceivable that the Mate 40 can only be made available in limited numbers. How much the edition of the smartphone will be limited, however, remains fairly unclear.

Of course, not only Huawei but also its subsidiary Honor is affected by the imposed trade restrictions. As early as May it was announced that there will be no Honor devices with an integrated Kirin CPU in the future. Instead, chips developed and manufactured by MediaTek will soon be built into smartphones.