As has been its usual modus operandi for IFA, Huawei used the Berlin-based event to showcase its new mobile silicon – the Kirin 990 SoC.
The new chipset has been christened as the world’s fastest 5G SoC, with rival Samsung having revealed a similar offering only yesterday. Like the Exynos 980, Huawei’s new mobile processor features native 5G support, with a 4G only version also being developed by the Chinese firm.
Like the Kirin 980 of last year, this new offering is built upon a 7nm architecture with 10.3 billion transistors present. The company is talking up the 5G capabilities of the Kirin 990 SoC, highlighting in particular the fact that it caters to both standard (SA) and non-standard architecture (NSA). Added to this is up to 2.3Gbps download and 1.25Gbps upload speeds.
The firm is talking up the improvements in energy efficiency and overall performance, stating that is outdoes both the Apple A12 Bionic and Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processors.
An octa-core chipset in nature, the Kirin 990 5G is a pair of two Cortex-A76 cores at 2.86GHz and 2.36GHz respectively, as well as four Cortex-A55 cores at 1.95GHz. As for graphics, this is handled by a 16 core Mali-G76 GPU. For AI applications, the neural processing unit (NPU) on the 990 5G features a new two big core and one little core setup, according to Huawei, but we need to see it in action first before giving a verdict.
Speaking of which we’ll be able to experience the new Kirin 990 SoC 5G and 4G in the Huawei Mate 30 Series, which will be unveiled in Munich on 19th September.
While Huawei confirmed quite a bit at IFA 19 earlier today, there was no mention about the rumours that no official Google apps will be available on the Mate 30 Series, which still leaves things in a state of uncertainty.
That said, Huawei also revealed two new colour options for the P30 Pro, Mystic Blue and Misty Pink, which launch in select regions on 20th September (no mention of SA yet) running Android 10. As such the situation is even murkier than it was before, and only the 19th’s launch of the Mate 30 could add more clarity.
