China’s tech giant Huawei Technologies and its manufacturing partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. have made some progress in chip production, but their products still lag far behind industry leaders, according to a teardown by research firm TechInsights last Thursday. The companies’ latest achievement is the Kirin 9030 processor, which powers Huawei’s Mate 80 Pro Max smartphone released last month. It represents China’s most advanced homegrown semiconductor manufacturing to date, achieved despite years of U.S. export control that has cut off the country’s access to cutting-edge chipmaking equipment. But the chip still falls significantly short of the industry-leading manufacturing technology used by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, according to TechInsights’ teardown report. The production method is also likely struggling with yield issues, which means the vast majority of chips produced didn’t work properly, according to TechInsights. That’s because SMIC had to rely on older, less precise equipment to repeat certain chipmaking processes to create denser patterns on chips, the report showed. The development indicates that China continues to find ways to advance its domestic chip capabilities despite U.S. export restrictions, though the path forward appears increasingly difficult and costly. Huawei and SMIC can still squeeze more performance out of current technology through design innovations and engineering discipline, but the latest TechInsights analysis suggests that they’re approaching the limits of what’s possible without access to the next-generation manufacturing tools. #🇨🇳 ChinA.I. 🤖🧠🦾🤖 https://www.techinsights...