Apple's iron grip on the ARM laptop and desktop space may be coming to an end, starting with Qualcomm and its Snapdragon XElite. However, Huawei is rumored to be another player entering the space, and there are claims the former Chinese giant has already developed a rival to the M1. The company is thought to have shed its dependence on a series of foreign companies as it looks to kick-start its smartphone business starting with the Kirin 9000S, but that doesn't mean there are other hurdles to jump.

Huawei has developed a 5nm SoC for its notebook range, but it is manufactured by TSMC rather than its local foundry partner SMIC, suggesting that development of an M1 rival could be an uphill battle.

Earlier reports stated that Huawei has secretly released its first 5nm SoC-Kirin 9006C, which is used in its Qingyun L540 series laptops. However, a previous teardown revealed that the chip was not manufactured by China's largest semiconductor manufacturer Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), but by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), suggesting that Huawei may have surplus wafer inventory and repurpose it to manufacture the Kirin 9006C. It is also possible that Huawei still maintains contact with the Taiwanese foundry, but now on a much smaller scale.

Today, Revegnus released news on the X that Huawei has developed a competitor to Apple's M1, but the news needs to be confirmed.

Judging from the wording, the whistleblower mentioned "already developed", which means that Huawei has successfully developed and manufactured this unnamed competing product, which means that it is ready to appear in portable devices and compete with a number of Mac models. However, as optimistic as we are about this rumor, we have to face reality. At this stage, it is difficult for SMIC to meet Huawei's 7nm chip needs because it still faces yield issues. The reason is simple: SMIC currently relies on old-fashioned DUV equipment and complex processes to mass produce chips in the 7nm process, rather than the most advanced EUV equipment provided by ASML.

Since the Biden administration has also banned ASML from selling chip production equipment, including DUV, to Chinese entities, SMIC will have to make use of the equipment it currently has. According to reports, SMIC will build a 5-nanometer production line for Huawei, but the price of each wafer may be 50% higher than TSMC’s mass production cost on the same photolithography technology. Manufacturing SoCs for different hardware categories is a difficult task as its local foundry partners do not have access to the latest chip manufacturing equipment. Most of SMIC's mass-produced wafers are used in Huawei's smartphones, and there are almost no competitors that can be used to prepare Apple M1.