At IFA today, Huawei announced its newest system-on-a-chip, the Kirin 980, which boasts a number of world firsts. It’s the first 7nm mobile processor, the first one built around ARM’s Cortex-A76 CPU and Mali-G76 GPU, the first with a Cat.21 smartphone modem supporting speeds up to 1.4Gbps, and the first chip to support 2,133MHz LPDDR4X RAM. The Kirin 980 has 6.9 billion transistors, but I’ve seen it for myself and it’s no larger than a thumbnail.
The road to today’s announcement started three years ago for Huawei, with the company engaging more than 1,000 senior semiconductor design experts and churning through more than 5,000 engineering prototypes. The end result is roughly a 20 percent speed improvement and a 40 percent reduction in power consumption relative to Huawei’s previous generation.
But the product that Huawei really wants to compare the Kirin 980 against is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845, the chip that figures in practically every Android flagship phone not made by Huawei. It’s worth noting that the 845 has been out for many months now whereas Huawei’s 980 won’t be in any retail devices until next month at the earliest (Huawei let slip that it’s planning its Mate 20 announcement for October 16th). Still, the margin of improvement that Huawei is quoting over its major rival is impressive.
On the memory front, Huawei says the Kirin 980 has 20 percent better bandwidth and 22 percent lower latency than the Snapdragon 845. In practical terms, that means faster app launches across the full range of the world’s most popular apps. In gaming applications, the 980 has been shown to produce 22 percent higher frame rates than the 845, and its power consumption when gaming is said to be 32 percent lower.
Photography performance is another major upgrade for the Kirin chip, according to Huawei’s numbers. Using a new dual ISP (image signal processor), the Kirin 980 is 46 percent faster at camera processing than its predecessor, with a related 23 percent improvement in power efficiency while recording, and 33 percent improvement in latency.
Huawei has doubled down on its AI processing aspirations, adding a dual NPU (neural processor unit) to the Kirin 980, which performs AI-assisted image recognition tasks at a rate of 4,500 images per minute. By the same measure, the Snapdragon 845 reaches 2,371 and Apple’s A11, which enjoys performance leads in other categories, gets only 1,458. AI also aids the Kirin 980’s power efficiency, as Huawei says it’s using it to more accurately and intelligently predict load requirements, making it more responsive to the power needs of the user — both when the chip needs to power up more cores and when it’s done its task and can save energy by slowing down.
The architecture of the Kirin 980 has eight cores: two are for so-called turbo performance, two are for long-term performance, and the last and smallest four are used to maximize power efficiency when not much is going on.
The Kirin 980 will offer the world’s fastest smartphone Wi-Fi speed, clocking in at 1,732Mbps, which is substantially higher than the Snapdragon 845’s best of 866Mbps with a Qualcomm modem or 1083Mbps with a third-party modem. So, by all metrics that matter to an end user, the new Kirin chip is shaping up to be a winner.
Huawei, with the Mate 20, and its sub-brand Honor, with the Magic 2, are going to be putting the Kirin 980 into retail devices by the end of the year.
Comments
"Huawei says"
By peggs on 08.31.18 8:50am
It probably is faster but also a lot more expensive to produce.
Qualcomm isn’t’ about the making the fastest. It’s about making the fastest they can mass produce and make a good profit on.
By MML10022 on 08.31.18 9:35am
Now the Chinese govt can spy on users even faster.
By JFitzgerald on 08.31.18 5:30pm
Which is so much worse than the US government spying on everyone…
By MicroGoogApplMazon on 09.01.18 3:08am
Exactly. Huawei always barks the loudest. They swore their chip from last year was going to obliterate the A11.
By NaeemTHM on 08.31.18 9:49am
They cater to their massive nationalistic following, through clever marketing, nowadays in China, using Samsung = moron + unpatriotic, using Huawei = clever + patriotic.
By fredyy on 08.31.18 9:53am
still most buy iPhone if they can afford it.
By swav on 08.31.18 12:39pm
That’s kinda true, but iPhones aren’t really compatible with Chinese user habits.
My brother used to say Huawei is the best and all his boss friends use it, last year he bought another iphone coz his Huawei is lagging like mad.
The thing is, people judge you by your watch, phone brand or what ever, and you want to blend in to do business in China, they won‘t like you if they think you are being different and not one of them and unpatriotic.
By fredyy on 08.31.18 1:43pm
Is that based on any data or just your opinion?
The Chinese have their own services for pretty much everything, there isn’t really any kind of ecosystem lock-in like there is in the US with iMessage.
The hardware of most local brands like Huawei and Xiaomi is excellent and the Android skins used are pretty tailored to their market.
By Celso Rodrigues on 08.31.18 1:59pm
No, only people who care about form over function buy iPhones. I prefer more function. I prefer not being limited to the storage that comes with my phone, or be charged 3 times the retail value for said storage. I prefer to not be limited to using wireless headphones that I will likely lose and cannot plug my headphone amp into. I prefer to not be limited to blessed apps from the almighty phone manufacturer because they think I am a child unable to decide what apps I want. I also prefer not to add a 30% premium on top of the value of the device because it bears a particular name.
But that’s just me.
By menotu000 on 09.01.18 2:48pm
So like Apple then.
By Popcorn! Smiles! on 09.01.18 4:44am
Maybe the definition of "nationalistic" is different here, Huawei has long been marketing that they price their phones more expensive in EU than in China, and their fans just love
this kind of feel of proud and privilege.
By fredyy on 09.01.18 5:02am
It’s the same.
There’s a reason why iPhones are the market leader in their home country.
Their packaging with the words "designed by Apple in California" also play on this.
By Popcorn! Smiles! on 09.01.18 7:04am
The real question ISN’T if it beats the 845, that’s silly, but will it be better than the 855?
By GreenApple13 on 08.31.18 12:34pm
Really it needs compared against the 855 or whatever they are calling the next gen processor. It’s built on the next ARM platform. It would be like comparing an Xbox One vs PS3.
By Brison Harvey on 08.31.18 9:01am
How?
855 isn’t’ out………
By MML10022 on 08.31.18 9:36am
Neither is this chip. The 845 has been out for 6 months and it will be 7-8 months by the time this one comes out. The 855 is scheduled to come out around MWC (as it always is), which would only be 3-4 months after this chip comes out.
By Someguyperson on 08.31.18 10:42am
Facts. Try using some instead of made up numbers you pull out of your head.
By MML10022 on 08.31.18 10:51am
So the 845 hasn’t been out for 6 month? The next Snapdragon won’t be released in the same time period as it’s always released?
By Darkness690 on 08.31.18 11:13am
Except the Xbox One and PS3 are out. the 855 can’t be tested as it is not out.
By wubanger on 08.31.18 9:06am
well done Huawei
By Michael iang on 08.31.18 9:13am
So huawei new CPU beats last year’s Samsung chip? ROFLMAO
By m0sher on 08.31.18 10:30am
The S845 was released in retail phones just this year.
By texazzpete on 08.31.18 10:36am
Samsung make s845?
By MML10022 on 08.31.18 11:03am
Yes, they do. For Qualcomm.
By Dr Strange on 08.31.18 11:26am