Huawei's chip breakthrough has attracted global attention
After years of hard work, Huawei has finally made a major breakthrough in independent chip research and development. The new generation of Kirin 9000S mobile chip, with its 7nm process technology and innovative architecture design, has been comparable in performance to Apple's latest A16 processor, which has attracted wide attention from the global technology community.
Over the years, Huawei has been increasing its investment in self-developed chips and striving to achieve independent and controllable chips. As early as 2004, Huawei set up a dedicated chip design department and began to independently develop communication chips such as baseband chips and RF chips. In 2012, Huawei launched its first self-designed mobile phone application processor, the HiSilicon K3V2 chip, marking a key step in the field of chip design.
After more than 10 years of development, Huawei has a strong chip design team, and has made great progress in many fields such as mobile chips, communication chips, and artificial intelligence chips. In 2019, Huawei released the Barong 5000, the world's fastest 5G baseband chip at the time, and the Kunpeng 920, the first ARM-based server chip.
The Kirin 9000S chip has excellent performance, and the United States is worried
The outstanding performance of Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip is mainly due to its innovative architecture design and advanced manufacturing technology. This chip adopts a 4+4 large and small core design, the 4 large cores are based on ARM's new generation Cortex-X2 architecture, with a frequency of up to 3.13GHz, and the 4 small cores are based on the Cortex-A510 architecture. The division of labor between the large and small cores can achieve a good energy efficiency ratio while providing excellent performance.
In terms of GPU, the Kirin 9000S integrates a 24-core Mali-G79 MC10 graphics processing unit, which improves performance by 50% compared to the previous generation. The chip also has a built-in dedicated video codec ISP 6T, which can support seamless decoding and playback of 8K HDR videos.
The Kirin 9000S also has excellent AI computing capabilities. It integrates two large NPU (neural network processing units) with a theoretical computing power of up to 22.9TOPs, which can efficiently run various AI applications and algorithm models.
The Kirin 9000S is undoubtedly a flagship-level top-of-the-line mobile chip, and its performance is already comparable to Apple's latest A16 processor, and in some respects even slightly better. This breakthrough will undoubtedly further enhance the overall strength of Huawei's mobile phones.
The rapid progress of Huawei's chips has also made the US government feel unprecedented worries and threats. U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo has publicly stated that while Huawei's chip performance has not yet reached the true top level, the rate of progress is "astounding." He warned that if left unchecked, China's independent innovation in the field of chips will seriously threaten the United States' technological leadership.
To this end, the Biden administration has continuously increased sanctions on China's chip industry, not only extending the sanctions ban on Huawei, but also adding major chip manufacturers such as SMIC to the "entity list" of export controls.
Despite the heavy crackdown, the pace of development of China's chip industry has not stopped. Industry insiders pointed out that Huawei's Kirin 9000S chip was produced by SMIC using the advanced lithography machine of the Dutch company ASML, which shows that China has made a breakthrough in advanced process technology. As long as it maintains its determination to innovate independently, China's chip industry will eventually embark on its own development path.
Adhere to independent innovation and achieve self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology
Huawei's breakthrough in chips marks a solid step forward in China's independent chip innovation. This not only reflects Huawei's unremitting efforts in the field of chip research and development over the years, but also demonstrates China's firm determination to pursue self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology.
As the "heart" of the modern information society, chips are the basic strategic resources to support economic and social development. For a long time, China has been in the field of chips in the dilemma of being "stuck", and the situation of being controlled by others has seriously restricted the country's scientific and technological strength and industrial development. Realizing the independence and controllability of chips and ensuring the safety and reliability of the industrial chain and supply chain is a "hard bone" that China must gnaw on.
In recent years, under the overall deployment of the national strategy, China's chip industry has made great progress. A large number of independent and controllable chip products are emerging, the industrial ecology is gradually improving, and the talent team is also growing. However, compared with developed countries, there is still a certain gap in the overall strength of the mainland chip industry, especially in key areas such as process technology and design capabilities, there are still many shortcomings.
We must maintain strategic focus and adhere to the path of independent innovation. Only independent innovation can master the core technology and truly achieve independent and controllable chips, and only independent innovation can occupy a favorable position in the development and competition of the global chip industry.
At present, the pattern of the global chip industry is undergoing profound changes, and a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is poised to start, bringing a rare historical opportunity for the development of China's chip industry. We must seize this opportunity period, increase investment, improve the innovation system, accelerate the cultivation of high-end talents, promote the coordinated development of the upstream, midstream and downstream of the industrial chain, continue to break through key core technologies, and strive to occupy the commanding heights in the future chip industry competition.
Independent chip innovation is a tough and protracted battle, which requires the joint participation and unremitting efforts of the whole society. As long as we maintain our strategic focus and adhere to independent innovation, we will be able to achieve self-reliance and self-improvement in the core field of chip development, and contribute to the construction of a strong country in science and technology and manufacturing.