Huawei’s new flagship smartphones use South Korean memory chips, not Chinese ones

While Huawei has used Chinese memory chips in other handsets, the Mate 70 series features products from SK Hynix, a teardown analysis shows

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A visitor looks at Huawei’s latest Mate 70 smartphone series at a flagship store in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:00am, 26 Dec 2024Updated: 11:49am, 26 Dec 2024

Huawei Technologies’ latest series of flagship smartphones contains memory chips made by South Korean semiconductor supplier SK Hynix, according to research firm TechInsights, as Chinese-made options remain limited amid a US-led export ban on advanced chipmaking equipment to the mainland.

In a teardown report published last week, analysts at the Canadian firm said they found SK Hynix’s 12-gigabyte low-power mobile DRAM and 512GB NAND inside a Huawei Mate 70 Pro handset. The higher-end Mate 70 Pro Plus featured the same NAND and a 16GB DRAM from SK Hynix.

SK Hynix manufactured these mobile DRAM devices using 14-nanometre technology and advanced extreme ultraviolet lithography, according to TechInsights senior analyst Jeongdong Choe. NAND is a type of memory used for flash storage, while DRAM, short for dynamic random-access memories, is commonly used in smartphones and computers.

Huawei declined to comment. SK Hynix said on Thursday it “has been strictly complying with the relevant policies since the restrictions against Huawei were announced and has also suspended any transactions with the company since then.”

An ad featuring the Mate70 smartphone series outside the Huawei flagship store in Shanghai. Photo: Dreamstime/TNS

While Huawei surprised the world in 2023 by launching its Mate 60 Pro smartphone powered by a locally made advanced chip, most of the brand’s P and Mate series premium handsets from last year still contained DRAM and NAND chips from SK Hynix, according to TechInsights data.