The logo of Huawei is seen at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 12, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Dec 12 (Reuters) - The Kirin 9030, the chip that powers Huawei Technologies' latest flagship Mate 80 series handset, has been manufactured by China's top foundry SMIC with an improved version of 7 nanometres, which is still behind TSMC and Samsung, Canadian research firm TechInsights said.

The Kirin 9030 is manufactured using SMIC's N+3 process, a "scaled extension" of its previous 7 nanometer (N+2) node, TechInsights said in a report published on December 8.

"However, in absolute terms, N+3 remains substantially less scaled than industry 5 (nanometer) processes from TSMC and Samsung," it said.

Huawei and SMIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

In October, China added TechInsights, which has been publishing regularly reports on Huawei and SMIC’s chip progress, to its unreliable entity list.

(Reporting by Che Pan, Brenda Goh and Gursimran Kaur; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)