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Huawei has unveiled a new flagship processor alongside its new Mate smartphone series. The Kirin 9000 powers the entire range of Mate 40 phones, promising better efficiency and more powerful network features than previous generations.
The main features of the Kirin 9000 include a smaller and more energy efficient 5nm manufacturing process. Apple is also at 5nm for the A14 chip inside the iPhone 12, Samsung is using it for its mid-tier Exynos 1080, and we also expect Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon flagship chip to build on this node. For us consumers, it means higher performance and longer battery life than previous generations.
The Kirin 9000 also features a built-in 5G modem, making it the first 5nm chip to do so. Huawei did not give exact speed figures during the presentation, but the chip’s Balong 5000 modem supports downloads of up to 6.5 Gbps with 5G carrier aggregation. Huawei claims that the modem is 5 times faster in uploads and 2 times faster in downloads in the real world compared to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 modem. Energetic talk.
Read also: Huawei Mate 40 Pro Practice
Kirin 9000 Specifications
| Kirin 9000 | Kirin 9000E | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | 1x Cortex-A77 3.13 GHz 3x Cortex-A77 at 2.54 GHz 4x Cortex-A55 2.05 GHz |
1x Cortex-A77 3.13 GHz 3x Cortex-A77 at 2.54 GHz 4x Cortex-A55 2.05 GHz |
| GPU | Mali-G78, 24 core | Mali-G78, 22 core |
| NPU | 2x big core 1x tiny core |
1x big core 1x tiny core |
| RAM | LPDDR5 / LPDDR 4X | LPDDR5 / LPDDR 4X |
| Modem | Pond 5000 5G, sub6Ghz and mmWave Integrated |
Pond 5000 5G, sub6Ghz and mmWave Integrated |
| ISP | Quad-core ISP, 6th generation | Quad-core ISP, 6th generation |
| Manufacturing | 5 nm | 5 nm |
What’s new in CPU and GPU
At this point last year, the Kirin 990 raised some eyebrows for sticking with an older generation of arm parts. At the time, Huawei’s Dr. Benjamin Wang assessed that Arm’s Cortex-A77 was better suited to manufacturing 5nm rather than 7nm. Richard Yu also highlighted that efficiency and battery life were a key part of the reason to stick with the Cortex-A76. So it wasn’t an entirely convincing argument, but it wasn’t unreasonable either.
Here we are at 5nm with the Kirin 9000 and we do have Arm Cortex-A77 cores, but not the latest Arm Cortex-A78 update. Huawei seems to be a year behind Arm’s latest CPU technology now, but this is not a deal breaker for performance. Huawei claims a 10% performance gain over Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 Plus. Although we should always take these internal performance metrics with a pinch of salt.
On the graphics side, Huawei is using the latest Arm Mali-G78 in 24- and 22-core configurations for the Kirin 9000 and 9000E, respectively. Huawei is again very aggressive in performance comparisons, promising 52% more performance than Qualcomm’s powerful Snapdragon 865 Plus in the GFXBench benchmark. We certainly want to put that to the test ourselves and see if the real-world performance adds up.
Huawei also claims a 2.4x performance gain for AI processing capabilities through its NPU over Qualcomm’s current best chip. Although AI performance is particularly sensitive to workload, we should be very careful with comparisons here. The Kirin 9000 also sees benefits in image processing with its sixth-generation quad-core ISP. The ISP has 50% more performance than the previous generation and a 48% improvement in video noise reduction.
Finally, the Kirin 9000 boasts 25% CPU, 150% NPU, 50% GPU efficiency wins over the Snapdragon 865 Plus. Although remember that Qualcomm is scheduled to update its high-end SoC in December 2020, which will also benefit from the efficiency gains of 5nm manufacturing.
What to expect from the Kirin 9000
After some deadlock with CPU and GPU specs between the Kirin 980 and 990, the Kirin 9000 will offer a tangible performance boost, particularly in gaming. Although the absence of a cutting-edge Cortex-A78 CPU means that any performance advantage over its rivals may be short-lived.
But CPU grunt isn’t everything. Huawei’s latest SoC continues to offer highly competitive machine, modem and image learning technologies that enable your hardware to stay on the cutting edge. However, unless things change with the trade dispute between the United States and China, the Kirin 9000 will be the last in-house chipset from Huawei and HiSilicon. We’ll just have to wait and see what this means for Huawei phones and their cutting-edge features in the future.
The Kirin 9000 debuts in the Huawei Mate 40 Pro and Mate 40 Pro Plus, while the Kirin 9000E powers the more affordable Mate 40 model. Stay tuned to see how the Kirin 9000 compares to other high-end mobile SoCs.
Next: Can Huawei survive without its custom Kirin chips?
