SK Hynix says that it has not done any business with Huawei since the chip sanctions started in the fall of 2020
The South Korean-based SK Hynix said that it had not done business with Huawei since the chip-related sanctions against the Chinese manufacturer started in 2020. The chipmaker said that it was looking into the matter and company Vice Chairman Park Jung-ho said, “We have had absolutely no business (with Huawei). We are investigating the circumstances. Huawei’s new smartphone is a well-made product … and we need to check more closely what kind of DRAM is being used in that phone.”
Huawei’s homegrown Xmage photography system is used on the Mate 60 Pro
The company itself said in a statement that it “no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the U.S. restrictions against the company and with regard to the issue, we started an investigation to find out more details. Also, SK Hynix is strictly abiding by the US government’s export restrictions.” At the time the ban started, Huawei was responsible for 10% of SK Hynix’s sales.
The SK Hynix chips the Mate 60 Pro was equipped with were found inside two other 2023 Huawei handsets this year
A video teardown of the Mate 60 Pro revealed that the SK Hynix NAND Flash memory chip seen int he recording has 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage and was model number UD310. This component was announced by SK Hynix in 2020 before the U.S. export rules were expanded to keep cutting-edge chips out of Huawei’s hands. As for the 12GB LPDDR5 RAM chip made by SK Hynix, it appears that Huawei just happened to have plenty of inventory of these chips available.
Bloomberg says that the memory chips used on the Mate 60 Pro were obtained by Huawei before the sanctions started
