Trade restrictions imposed by the US government have made it difficult for Chinese electronics company Huawei to source chips and other components for its smartphones in recent years. But over the past week, the company has launched four new smartphones, showing that Huawei may have another path forward.

Researchers at TechInsights told Bloomberg and Reuters that Huawei’s latest phones use more Chinese-made components than the company’s previous products, allowing Huawei to offer phones with the performance you saw from rival flagships a few years ago.

Kirin 9000s processor, especially found in phones such as Huawei Mate 60Pro, It appears to be a 7nm chip with the same level of computing power as the 2021 Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor.

Among other new phones Huawei Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro+ And Mate X5 (a foldable phone), and they all appear to support 5G-like cellular connectivity with download speeds of 1Gbps or higher.

The chips are produced by SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation), a Chinese chip foundry that looks set to catch up with rivals like TSMC and Samsung, even if it’s a few years behind (MediaTek recently announced it has developed one of the first chips). The chips are expected to use TSMC’s 3nm process, and Apple’s next-generation iPhone processors are also expected to have 3nm chips).

However, China has invested heavily in domestic technology over the past few years in response to US sanctions, which may be a sign that Huawei and other Chinese companies may have viable alternatives. It’s unclear what SMIC can do; The Mate 60 Pro sold out shortly after going on sale in China this week. May It indicates that demand is high… but it can also be a sign of limited supply.