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Huawei unveils Kirin 980 – the world’s first 7nm Mobile AI chipset

Unlike other manufacturers, Huawei did not use IFA 2018 to introduce any new smartphones, but rather opted to showcase some silicon. This latest offering is rather notable – the Kirin 980 SoC (System on Chip).

What makes this latest processor particularly noteworthy is its new 7nm architecture, making it the first mobile chipset to feature such a design.

As such, Huawei has been able to beat competitors like Qualcomm, Exynos and Mediatek to the punch, with the CPU also set to feature in an upcoming device.

More specifically it will be powering the Huawei Mate 20, which the company will be unveiling at an event in London on 16 October.

Shifting back to the Kirin 980 it features 6.9 billion transistors on its 1 cm2 die size, which is 1.6 times the number that the previous generation mustered.

Added to this is a 20 percent improved SoC performance compared to its predecessor’s 10nm construction, along with a 40 percent increase in power efficiency, according to Huawei.

Along with the 7nm design, the Kirin 980 has a number firsts including its housing of embedded Cortex-A76 cores, which Huawei says is 75 percent more powerful and 58 percent more power efficient compared to last year’s Kirin 970.

In terms of graphics performance and gaming in particular, the Kirin 980 utilises the Mali-G76 GPU which has 46 greater graphics performance when weighed against its predecessor too.

Another important element of the Kirin 980 is the modem, which supports LTE Cat.21 capable of up to 1.4Gbps download speeds.

Whether we’ll be able to experience such speeds remains to be seen, but given consumer propensity to have the latest and greatest, we can see devices with the Kirin 980 to be hot commodities.

“Last year, we showed the world the potential of On-Device AI with the Kirin 970, and this year, we’ve designed an all-round powerhouse that not only features outstanding AI capabilities, but also brings cutting-edge raw performance to consumers. Equipped with all-new CPU, GPU and Dual NPU, the Kirin 980 is the ultimate engine to power next-generation productivity and entertainment applications,” enthuses Huawei consumer business group CEO, Richard Yu.

As such, it looks like improvements across the board from Huawei for their new chipset.

How those enhancements translate in-hand, will have to wait until the Mate 20 is unveiled in October.

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