Huawei announced the Kirin 980, company’s next-generation processor and the world’s first commercial mobile SoC manufactured with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Company’s (TSMC) 7nm process and dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
ALSO READ: Huawei Kirin 710 Vs MediaTek Helio P60: What’s The Difference?
Huawei Kirin 980: The Smaller The Better!
The Kirin 980 is an octa-core SoC with two ARM Cortex A76 cores clocked up to 2.6GHz for Turbo performance, two ARM Cortex A76 cores clocked up to 1.92GHz for Long-lasting performance and four ARM Cortex A55 cores clocked up to 1.8 GHz for power efficiency.
It has support for LTE Cat.21 offering download speeds of up to 1.4 Gbps. So what is 7nm process? Well, this chipset packs 6.9 billion transistors within a 1cm2 die size, up by 1.6 times from the previous generation. According to the company, compared to Kirin 970, the Kirin 980 promises 75% improved performance and 58% better energy efficiency.
ALSO READ: Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 Vs. Huawei Kirin 710: What’s The Difference?
Furthermore, the 10-core Mali-G76 GPU comes with a clock boosting technology that identifies gaming workloads and adjusts resource allocation for optimal gaming performance. It also promises 46% improved graphics and 178% improved power efficiency over the previous generation.
The Kirin 980 supports common AI frameworks such as Caffee, Tensorflow, and Tensorflow Lite, and provides a suite of tools that simplify the difficulty of engineering On-Device AI, allowing developers to easily tap into the leading processing power of the Dual NPU. And with Dual NPU, it can recognize up to 4,600 images per minute, up 120% compared to Kirin 970.
ALSO READ: Why Are Smartphone Companies Moving Towards AI? [Explained]
Huawei Kirin 980 SoC Quick Specifications
- Up to 2.6GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A76 + up to 1.9 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A76 + up to 1.8GHz ARM Cortex A55, i8 coprocessor
- 720 MHz ARM Mali-G76MP10 GPU
- TSMC 7nm process
- Memory: 4x 16-bit LPDDR4X at 2133MHz
- Dual Neural Processing Unit (NPU)
- Video: HDR10; 4K at 60fps decoding, 4K at 30fps encoding
- Dual ISP with 46% increase in performance
- Security Engine
- Integrated Multi-mode 4G LTE Modem – Category 21 FDD / TDD for downloads (up to 1.4 Gbps), 4 x 4 MIMO, 5CC CA, 256QAM; 200 Mbps downloads, 2×2 MIMO, 1x20MHz CA, 256-QAM
- 5G ready with Balong 5000 Modem
The Huawei Kirin 980 SoC will power the Mate 20 series which will be announced at an event in London on October 16.
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