Huawei's launch last week of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone "shocked industry experts," reports CNN, who didn't understand how Huawei "would have the ability to manufacture such an advanced smartphone following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China's access to foreign chip technology." And in a related note, CNN adds that South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix "is investigating how two of its memory chips mysteriously ended up inside the Mate 60 Pro, a controversial smartphone launched by Huawei last week." Shares in Hynix fell more than 4% on Friday after it emerged that two of its products, a 12 gigabyte (GB) LPDDR5 chip and 512 GB NAND flash memory chip, were found inside the Huawei handset by TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, which took the phone apart for analysis. "The significance of the development is that there are restrictions on what SK Hynix can ship to China," G Dan Hutcheson, vice chair of TechInsights, told CNN. "Where do these chips come from? The big question is whether any laws were violated." A Hynix spokesperson told CNN Friday that it was aware of its chips being used in the Huawei phone and had started investigating the issue. The company "no longer does business with Huawei since the introduction of the U.S. restrictions against the company," it said in a statement... Industry insiders said it was possible that Huawei had purchased the memory chips from the secondary market and not directly from the manufacturer. It's also possible Huawei may have had a stockpile of components accumulated before the U.S. export curbs kicked in fully. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear for sharing the news.

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