When experts from the Canadian company TechInsights disassembled the Mate 60 family of smartphones recently presented by Huawei, they found inside not only a HiSilicon processor, advanced by the standards of this Chinese manufacturer, but also memory of the SK Hynix brand, designed according to the conditions of the USA Export control regulations should not have gone to Huawei. Now researchers know more about the origins of this memory.
Image source: Bloomberg
Accordingly BloombergRepresentatives of TechInsights managed to find out that SK Hynix memory chips of this batch have been supplied to customers of the Korean manufacturer for quite some time, since 2021. In addition to Huawei itself, which this year in the smartphones Mate
Although this alone does not explain who supplied SK Hynix memory bypassing American sanctions, since the company itself denies involvement in this, this information suggests that chips of this batch have been on the market for quite some time. and could therefore be related to “legacy” created by Huawei during the “transition period”, when the sanctions had already been announced and expanded but had not yet taken full effect. Recall that since 2019, US authorities have restricted the right of electronics and device manufacturers around the world to supply Huawei Technologies with products manufactured using technologies of American origin.
For example, unlike the same central processors, memory chips do not lose the relevance of their characteristics for much longer, so with proper management Huawei could easily get by with stocks of such SK-Hynix chips previously purchased through official channels. SK hynix itself is also conducting research on this topic, but is not yet ready to announce its results. In addition, US authorities are trying to figure out how Huawei managed to develop a brand-standard advanced mobile processor that it incorporates into its latest smartphone models.
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