Huawei expands home-grown chip strategy with Mate 90 launch
Huawei says it is extending its Tau Scaling Law chip design across the new Mate 90 smartphone range as it seeks to reduce reliance on technology affected by US export restrictions. The company also expects its Mate XT 2 trifold handset to exceed one million sales, while warning that rising memory costs are sharply reducing profitability.
Huawei is expanding the use of its self-developed Tau Scaling Law chip design, placing processors based on the technology across its newly launched Mate 90 smartphone series. The move is part of the Chinese technology company’s effort to build its smartphone business around domestic technology while operating under stringent US export restrictions. Huawei consumer business chief Richard Yu Chengdong said the company had developed the approach because China lacked access to extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment used to produce advanced semiconductors.
Huawei said its LogicFolding architecture, based on the Tau design principle, shortens signal paths and reduces critical path latency by 30 per cent. The company says this allows it to increase computing power and data transfer without relying on the most advanced lithography machines. Yu said Huawei had shipped about 100,000 Mate XT 2 trifold phones since the device was released on September 12.
The phone, which is the first to use a mobile processor adopting the LogicFolding architecture, is expected to exceed one million sales. Huawei plans to introduce it in Asia-Pacific and Middle Eastern markets, with a possible European launch. The Mate 90 range uses Kirin processors based on the Tau design.
The Kirin 9050 Pro, also used in the Mate XT 2, will power the highest-end models, while the Kirin 9050 will be used in the Mate 90 Pro Max. The Mate 90 Pro and standard Mate 90 will use less advanced Tau-based chips. Yu said semiconductor capacity was sufficient for current shipments, but warned that higher memory prices had increased production costs by more than $200 per phone.
He said profitability was falling sharply and that further, though probably limited, price rises would be unavoidable.
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