Despite devastating US sanctions, Chinese tech giant Huawei has launched a new 5nm Kirin 9006C SoC chip. This development comes just a few months after Huawei introduced the 7nm Kirin 9000S chip used in the latest Mate 60 series smartphones.

US sanctions have severely affected China’s technology sector, especially domestic brands such as Huawei that are heavily dependent on US technology. These sanctions affect every Chinese company by limiting US giants like Qualcomm’s access to critical semiconductors and silicon.

However, Huawei made a breakthrough earlier this year with its 7nm ARM processor called Kirin 9000S. The processor is manufactured by SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) and powers the Huawei Mate 60, which broke sales records in China.

While the Kirin 9000S doesn’t quite match the latest offerings from Qualcomm or MediaTek, it’s a much more advanced design than anyone could have expected from SMIC with its current hardware specs.

Huawei’s new 5nm chip: Kirin 9006C

This wasn’t just a one-time success. The Kirin 9000S marked the beginning of a series of chips designed to defy sanctions. Now Huawei is pushing the boundaries even further with the launch of the Kirin 9006C SoC.

The new processor has eight ARM cores (four A77 and four A55) with a maximum clock frequency of 3.13 GHz. While the specifications may not seem groundbreaking, what really stands out is the 5nm process technology, a major milestone achieved by Huawei despite US sanctions. Kirin 9006C is expected to be produced by SMIC, just like Kirin 9000S.

Currently, the Kirin 9006C can only be found on Huawei’s Qingyun L540 laptop. But its potential goes far beyond that. It is said that Huawei will use this powerful new 5nm Kirin chip in its P70 series smartphones, which are expected to be announced early next year.