Last year Huawei did three surprises. The first is to return to offering devices with 5G, the second is to release the 7nm Kirin 9000s chip and the 5nm Kirin 9006C chip which is claimed to use its own 5nm technology with SMIC chips. But according to a Bloomberg report, when checked the Kirin 9006C is just an old chip developed with TSMC's 56nm technology.
When the Huawei Qingyun L540 laptop with the Kirin 9006C chip was disassembled by the TechInsights firm, it was found to be an old chip from 2020 manufactured by TSMC. It is believed that before the technology barrier was imposed on Huawei, they started dumping 5nm chip purchases. The same chip is now reused with modifications. After being put on the Entity List, Huawei can no longer use the TSMC foundry for their Kirin chips. China is not allowed to import the EUV machines needed for the 5nm process.
Huawei and SMIC are believed to be using older DUV machines to produce the Kirin 9000s chips. As a result of the technology restrictions, Huawei's status as one of the five largest smartphone manufacturers in the world was severely affected. Even so, in 2023, Huawei managed to record an increase in income after focusing on the automotive arena and the Internet of Things.