Proficient leaker says he solved the mystery about which Kirin chip powers the Mate XT tri-fold

Everytime the U.S. thinks that it has Huawei pinned, the phone manufacturer, like a wrestler whose body is covered with olive oil, manages to slip away. Block the company from using the Google Play Services version of Android, and it comes up with HarmonyOS. Prevent foundries using U.S. tech from shipping 5G chipsets to the company and Huawei gets China's largest foundry to produce the Kirin 9000s 5G chipset.

Despite the restrictions it faces, the company continues to create outstanding phones and earlier today it showed off the triple-fold Mate XT, You might not know this but Huawei was the world's top vendor of foldable phones during the first quarter replacing Samsung. And that was months before the $3,000 tri-fold with a 10.2-inch internal screen hit the market.

While Huawei's presentation on Tuesday didn't name the processor that powers the device, leaker Digital Chat Station replied to a query on the Weibo platform by stating that the Mate XT is powered by the Kirin 9010 5G application processor (AP). This is the same AP that powers the top-of-the-line Huawei Pura 70 Ultra model. This year, the Pura series replaced what used to be known as the "P-series," a flagship line that focuses on photography (hence the "P").

The Kirin 9010 has a CPU configuration made up of 2 cores TaiShan V121 at 2.30 GHz, 6 cores TaiShan V121 at 2.18 GHz, and 4 cores Cortex-A510 at 1.55 GHz. The chip is built by SMIC, the world's third-largest foundry, using its 7nm N+2 process node. While an enhanced 7nm chipset, it is considered to be a nice improvement over the 7nm Kirin 9000s 5G which was unveiled by Huawei last year for the Mate 60 series. It was the first Kirin chip with 5G support to power a Huawei phone since the 5nm Kirin 9000 was used to drive 2020's Mate 40 line.

The Mate XT works with Huawei's two-way satellite calling feature that allows the user to make calls even in areas without cellular or Wi-Fi reception. The phone has a dual hinge which keeps the screens flexible and continues the use of  a variable aperture for the primary camera, a feature Huawei launched with the Mate 50 series in 2022 and has continued to offer since.

There has been speculation that SMIC is working on developing a 5nm process for Huawei that would not require the use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines which are not allowed to be shipped to China. For now though, it appears that the foundry is stuck on 7nm albeit an enhanced version of that node.