Huawei Technologies' new Mate 70 smartphones feature an in-house designed processor that does not show major improvements, indicating the Chinese tech champion's ongoing struggles over US sanctions that restrict its access to advanced semiconductors,

The Huawei Mate 70 chip is not what you think. A recent teardown has revealed it's not a 5nm chip that was rumored.

Huawei's new Mate 70 smartphone contains a chip whose design shows only an "incremental improvement" over its predecessor and, contrary to some expectations, was made using the 7 nanometer (nm) process node,

"The Kirin 9020 processor is not a dramatic redesign but rather an incremental improvement over its predecessor, the Kirin 9010. This approach suggests HiSilicon's focus on refining its existing designs while leveraging SMIC's capabilities in advanced semiconductor manufacturing,"-TechInsights

Huawei's new Mate 70 smartphone contains a chip whose design shows only an "incremental improvement" over its predecessor and, contrary to some expectations, was made using the 7 nanometer (nm) process node, consultancy TechInsights said on Wednesday.

We were expecting to find the Kirin 9100 chipset in the Mate 70 line-up, rumoured to be fabbed by SMIC using 5nm technology,” wrote the authors of the TechInsights report. “However, it seems we have found the Kirin 9020 instead,