# Huawei's new Kirin chip, minus America

> Huawei says the Kirin 9050 Pro contains no US technology, but the machines that made it tell a different story.
- Title: Huawei's new Kirin chip, minus America · TechRadar | Shortify
- Summary: Huawei says the Kirin 9050 Pro contains no US technology, but the machines that made it tell a different story. Huawei has closed the design gap faster than…
- Keywords: huawei, semiconductors, kirin, china, export controls, technology, Huawei's, chip, minus, America, TechRadar
- Source: TechRadar — https://techradar.com/pro/huawei-says-its-new-smartphone-chip-is-entirely-free-of-any-us-made-components
- Published: 2026-09-15T20:10:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: huawei, semiconductors, kirin, china, export controls, technology
## A chip with no America in it
Huawei introduced the Kirin 9050 Pro and says it is fully free of American technology. It powers the Mate XT 2 tri-fold, which went on sale in China on September 12 2026 from 19,999 yuan, about $2,980.
## The word nobody said
The South China Morning Post read the launch as Huawei signaling less reliance on foreign chip equipment. Huawei's own press materials never mention sanctions once.
## Most powerful Kirin ever
Consumer chief Richard Yu claimed a 42% overall gain over the Kirin 9020 in the previous Mate XTs. Against the Kirin 9030 Pro, Huawei cites 24% higher single-core and 52% better multi-core.

> most powerful Kirin chip ever
## Nine cores and on-device AI
The LinxiCore CPU peaks at 3.1GHz, the Maleoon GPU adds hardware ray tracing, and graphics rendering jumps 142%. The Da Vinci NPU runs a 30-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model locally.
## Folding logic instead of shrinking it
This is the first commercial silicon using LogicFolding, a technique Huawei's semiconductor chief He Tingbo presented at IEEE ISCAS in Shanghai in May and detailed in a signed paper.
## Two layers, fifty million wires
LogicFolding splits logic across two active silicon layers bonded face to face, joined by roughly 50 million vertical interconnects at about a 1.5 micrometer pitch. Shorter signal paths let Huawei drop voltage while raising density 55%.
## Every number is Huawei's
No independent testing or peer review backs any of the performance or density claims. Huawei also refused to name a process node, and that silence says plenty.
## The receipts are in the fab
SemiAnalysis tore down the predecessor in June 2026 and found SMIC's third-gen 7nm N+3 process hitting about 113 million transistors per square millimeter with no EUV. That process still runs on ASML immersion scanners.
## America-free, seven years running
Bloomberg reported SMIC built earlier Kirins on Applied Materials and Lam Research gear bought before the October 2022 export rules. Huawei called its phones America-free back in 2019 too, when TSMC was fabbing the Kirin 990 on EUV.

> all of our 5G is now America-free
## Key takeaway

Huawei has closed the design gap faster than expected, yet the equipment inside the fab is still Western, so "America-free" describes the parts list, not the process.