Technology

Well look at the other contract fabs that could buy EUV scanners if they wanted to.

GlobalFoundries gave up on 7nm so 14/12nm is the best they have. UMC barely makes any 14nm chips so they definitely aren't pursuing anything below 7nm. Getting to 7nm is an investment few can make and it won't pay off for most. The number of fabless chip companies that can afford to design for <7nm and need the leading edge in performance is tiny. A high price of entry to serve so few customers.

SMIC is only the third pure play contract fab to offer <=7nm and Samsung needed EUV to get to 7nm unlike SMIC and TSMC.

Judging by the performance and density of the Kirin 9000S, SMIC's 7nm DUV is at least as good as Samsung's 5nm EUV. The same A510 cores made with SMIC's 7nm are as efficient if not more so than those made with Samsung 4nm.

The previous top Huawei phone, the P60 Pro has the 4G variant of the 8+ Gen 1, which was made with TSMC 4nm. The Mate 60 Pro being technically a downgrade in process node is something few if any of its users will actually notice in practice. Huawei could've easily just made a 5G modem and paired it with an 8 Gen 2. It would've been a lot easier to make a tiny modem yield but they chose the harder option of making an entire SOC. They succeeded in matching if not surpassing the TSMC 5nm made original that stopped being made on September 15, 2020. All the sanctions could do was delay further production of the Kirin 9000 for 3 years.