Huawei’s latest smartphone offering, the Mate 60 Pro, has been generating intrigue not only for its impressive features but also for the unexpected origin of its memory and storage components. While the phone is powered by the Kirin 9000s SoC, widely believed to be manufactured by SMIC, it’s the memory and storage elements that have sparked curiosity.
In a recent teardown video of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, viewers were surprised to discover that the device incorporates SK Hynix’s 4D 176-layer NAND flash memory, renowned for its generous capacity and high-performance capabilities aligned with UFS 3.1 standards. With a storage capacity of 512GB and sequential read and write speeds reaching up to 2,050 MB/s and 1,700 MB/s, respectively, the Mate 60 Pro boasts impressive storage capabilities.
What makes this revelation even more intriguing is that SK Hynix, the South Korean semiconductor giant, has publicly denied any collaboration with Huawei for this product. This denial raises questions about how components from a company that halted sales to Huawei in 2020, due to US sanctions, found their way into the Mate 60 Pro.
The mystery deepens as the source of the LPDDR5 memory used in the Mate 60 Pro remains undisclosed. It’s unclear how Huawei managed to secure these memory components for their latest flagship smartphone. Speculations suggest that Huawei might have stockpiled SK Hynix NAND or LPDDR5 memory before the US export restrictions came into effect. However, the quantity of these components available to Huawei remains uncertain. Previously, Huawei accounted for 10% of SK Hynix’s memory sales.
Both Huawei and SMIC, the producer of the Kirin 9000s chip, have yet to provide clarity on the origins of these components. Meanwhile, the United States is actively investigating SMIC’s role in supplying chips to Huawei and whether it violates the sanctions imposed on the Chinese tech giant. The unexpected source of memory and storage in the Mate 60 Pro continues to be a subject of speculation and inquiry in the tech industry.
