Brief
Huawei launches Mate 90 series with 3‑D LogicFolding Kirin chip
The new flagship phones use a three‑dimensional chip design to boost performance while Huawei still faces advanced‑chip shortages.
By Felo News Desk · Published
Huawei Technologies introduced its Mate 90 smartphone line on Thursday, highlighting a new in‑house Kirin 9050 Pro system‑on‑chip that employs a three‑dimensional "LogicFolding" architecture, according to techcentral.co.za.
The Mate 90 Pro Max is powered by the Kirin 9050 Pro, which restructures internal wiring in three dimensions to achieve denser, faster processing, though it requires more wafers to produce. Huawei said the top‑end model offers a 31% performance increase over the Mate 80 launched in November 2025. The Pro Max ships with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage and is priced at C¥9 999, about C¥29 000 more than its predecessor.
All Mate 90 models run on Huawei’s Android‑free HarmonyOS 7, which the company claims supports more than 4.5 million apps and services. Consumer‑business chief Richard Yu told reporters that advanced semiconductor capacity in China remains limited and that Huawei’s Ascend AI chips draw on the same scarce resources. He added that while extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is valuable, Chinese manufacturers still rely on deep‑ultraviolet (DUV) machines.
Huawei did not name the fab producing the Kirin 9050 Pro, but industry observers widely believe Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is the likely manufacturer, as it supplies previous Mate series chips and Ascend AI processors. SMIC declined to comment.
Key facts
- Huawei launched the Mate 90 series on 1 October 2026. (techcentral.co.za)
- The flagship Mate 90 Pro Max uses a Kirin 9050 Pro chip built with LogicFolding technology. (techcentral.co.za)
- Huawei says the new phones run HarmonyOS 7, supporting over 4.5 million apps. (techcentral.co.za)
- The Pro Max is priced at C¥9 999, C¥29 000 more than the Mate 80 launch price. (techcentral.co.za)
- Huawei attributes chip‑making constraints to limited advanced semiconductor capacity in China. (techcentral.co.za)
Sources
- [1] techcentral.co.za — originally reported as “Huawei's Mate 90 bets on 3D chip design to get around US curbs”
