Huawei released the Pura 70 series on April 18, 2024, which is powered by the new Kirin 9010 chip.
Huawei Pura 70
Last night (April 28), Geek Bay released a related performance evaluation video. The results show that the architecture of the Kirin 9010 has improved a lot. Taishan super core compared with the previous generation Kirin 9000s Taishan large core increased by 25%, IPC is also increased by 20% compared with the previous generation, if compared with the ARM architecture, it has surpassed Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+, basically caught up with the level of 8 Gen 2, the only deficiency is that the transistor scale has not kept up, and the overall performance is still weaker than the Snapdragon chip.
Image from Geek Bay video screenshot
Since Huawei's past P series (today's Pura), itself is positioned as fashion and photography, compared with the Mate series, Pura has less room in terms of internal space, so it can be speculated that Huawei may have made some trade-offs in heat dissipation and power consumption balance when designing the 9010, and it is a small half-generation upgrade of the Kirin 9000s on the Mate 60 in terms of chip model and performance improvement. And according to past practice, major upgrades to Kirin chips are usually launched on the Mate series.
Huawei Mate 60
Yu Chengdong said at the 2023 pollen annual meeting that Huawei will launch more disruptive products in 2024 and rewrite the history of the industry. From this, we can also boldly predict that the architectural performance improvement of the Kirin 9010 in April is likely to be just a forerunner, and a more powerful Kirin chip is on the way. Huawei will release the Mate 70 in September this year, and I personally speculate that it will be stacked on the basis of the Kirin 9010 to increase the overall transistor scale, surpassing the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in performance, and approaching or even reaching the 8 Gen 3 level. Considering the stacking of chips, there is enough room to build a cooling system, and the Mate 70 will be equipped with a larger battery capacity to ensure battery life, so the device is expected to be larger than its predecessor.
Apple A7 chip, the world's first mobile 64-bit processor
Apple's A7 processor uses a 64-bit architecture, which attracted a lot of attention and discussion at the time. This decision is considered a bold technological innovation, as it is one of the first cases of a 64-bit architecture in the field of mobile processors. This technology choice established Apple's leadership in mobile processors at the time and had a profound impact on the development of the mobile device industry as a whole.
First, the 64-bit architecture provides a larger memory address space, allowing the processor to process large amounts of data more efficiently. This means that the processor can handle complex computing tasks and large applications more quickly, improving the overall performance of the device. And it provides a wider range of support for future applications and systems. As mobile devices continue to grow in functionality and applications become more complex, 64-bit processors are better positioned to future-proof devices and provide longer support and updates to devices. The 64-bit architecture also brings improvements in graphics and multimedia processing performance. This allows the device to play HD videos, run graphics-intensive games, and process other multimedia content more smoothly.
Huawei Kirin 970, the world's first mobile processor with integrated NPU
Huawei's Kirin 970 chip uses the advanced TSMC 10nm process, integrating 5.5 billion transistors on a fingernail-sized chip, including an 8-core CPU, a 12-core GPU, dual ISPs, a 1.2Gbps high-speed LTE Cat.18 modem and an innovative HiAI mobile computing architecture, which is installed on the Huawei Mate 10 device for the first time.
One of the Kirin 970's most striking features is the Neural Network Processing Unit (NPU), the industry's first chip to integrate a dedicated NPU into a mobile processor, bringing a leading AI experience to Huawei's phones. The addition of the NPU makes the Kirin 970 more efficient when handling AI tasks, and also takes into account the energy efficiency ratio, consuming less energy, extending the battery life of the mobile phone and providing users with a better experience. In addition to accelerating AI applications built into mobile phones, the Kirin 970's NPU can also provide an AI development platform for third-party developers, enabling more applications to make full use of the NPU's performance and bring users a richer and smarter experience.
Huawei Kirin 990, the world's first mobile processor with integrated 5G baseband
Kirin 990 adopts the self-developed Huawei da Vinci architecture NPU, and innovatively designs NPU large core + NPU micro core architecture, NPU large core achieves excellent performance and energy efficiency for large computing power scenarios, NPU micro core empowers ultra-low power consumption applications, gives full play to the intelligent computing power of the new NPU architecture, and integrates the Barong 5000 5G modem chip. The Kirin 990 is manufactured using the industry-leading 7nm process to achieve both performance and energy efficiency.
Just like the above-mentioned Apple A7 introduced the 64-bit architecture of the desktop to the mobile terminal, the Huawei Kirin 970 introduced the NPU neural processing unit, and the Kirin 990 integrated 5G Baron baseband. The application of stacking packaging technology in mobile terminals is not only a turning point for domestic chips, but also a pioneering attempt and a milestone event for smart devices, which means the maturity of chiplet mobile chips and the arrival of a new era.