Paul Jones / Android Authority
TL; DR
- A new teardown of the Pura 70 Pro has revealed that HUAWEI is using more Chinese suppliers.
- The most notable change is the move to locally packaged storage of chips from South Korea.
a trade ban has forced HUAWEI to become self-sufficient if it hopes to continue producing smartphones. The manufacturer already attracted attention when it launched the Mate 60 Pro at the end of last year, with an internal 5G chipset. Now it looks like a breakdown of the Pura 70 series also reveals HUAWEI's efforts in self-sufficiency.
A disassembly of the Pura 70 Pro on behalf of Reuters has revealed that the company is using more Chinese suppliers this time. The most notable new domestically made component is the NAND storage. The outlet reports that the storage is likely packaged by HUAWEI's HiSilicon chip division.
This would be a notable change from the Mate 60 Pro, which appeared to use storage from South Korea's SK Hynix. The Korean company stated at the time that it was did not do business with HUAWEI. The statement suggested that the storage chip came from the Chinese manufacturer's existing stock of components. However, the Pura 70 Pro's DRAM chip was still made by SK Hynix.
The Pura 70 Pro teardown also reports that the phone will be powered by an internal 7nm Kirin 9010 processor. The name matches previous claims from China.
“While we can't give an exact percentage, we would say the use of domestic components is high, and certainly higher than in the Mate 60,” says iFixit's Shahram Mokhtari, who performed the teardown for Reuters.
This news also comes a day after it was announced that the US Department of Commerce has revoked Intel and Qualcomm's export licenses to HUAWEI. Intel's revoked license means that pressure could increase on HUAWEI to become self-sufficient in PCs as well.