Today, Chinese phone maker Huawei officially confirmed that the Huawei Mate 40 series is on the way (via IT Home). While this isn’t too surprising, the company did surprise us with another confirmation: the Mate 40 series will be the last to feature its homegrown Kirin chipset.
During China Information Technology Summit 2020, Huawei consumer business CEO Yu Chengdong said that its line of Kirin chipsets “cannot be manufactured” after September 15, 2020. That is when the United States ban on Huawei working with US-based firms will take permanent effect. Huawei’s chipsets are manufactured by TSMC which uses equipment sourced from the US. The rules related to the so-called Entity List instituted by the Trump administration state that any foreign chipset manufacturer needs to get a license to sell to Huawei. Recently, TSMC confirmed, “it will no longer sell chips to Huawei, which must mean it could not get a license.” It will be a shame to see the company’s massive progress in that arena cut short. It will also be interesting to see how the company moves forward. With the Huawei Mate 40 now the last to feature a Kirin chipset, Huawei will need to source processors from other companies. With the US ban in place, that list will be quite short.
As for the upcoming Mate 40 flagship phones, four models are expected (Mate 40, Mate 40 Pro, Mate 40 Pro+, and Mate 40 Porsche Design). All devices will have curved screens and under-display fingerprint sensors. The cameras will get major upgrades as well. In addition, Yu Chengdong also referenced Harmony OS during his speech. He confirmed that all Huawei IoT products — including PCs, tablets, and yes, even mobile phones — will be based on Harmony OS rather than Android.