From the background of Huawei's adoption of hyper-threading technology, its primary goal is to make up for the shortcomings of Kirin processors in terms of performance at this stage.
As a relatively latecomer mobile phone chip manufacturer, there is indeed a certain gap between Huawei's chip technology and architecture compared with industry leaders. Under the original hardware conditions, how to maximize performance within limited resources has become an urgent problem for Huawei.
Hyper-threading technology can increase the multi-threaded processing capacity of the CPU without significantly increasing the chip area, thereby significantly improving the overall performance. For Huawei, this is a very convenient and cost-effective solution.
Of course, the use of hyper-threading also comes with some drawbacks, such as weakening the peak performance of a single core, increasing power consumption, etc. However, Huawei has successfully avoided these problems by appropriately reducing the core frequency, so that the hyper-threading technology has achieved a good balance between performance improvement and power consumption control.
It can be said that hyper-threading technology provides a relatively convenient path for Huawei to fill the shortcomings of chip performance in front of it, which is one of the important reasons why it insists on adopting this technology.
The key to playing to the overall advantage
In addition, Huawei has unique advantages in chip design and collaborative optimization of software and hardware, which also makes it more advantageous when applying hyper-threading technology.
As we all know, the performance of hyper-threading technology depends largely on how well the operating system optimizes CPU scheduling. If the system is not properly adapted, it may affect the performance.
As a technology giant that eats all hardware, software, and systems, Huawei obviously has more advantages than other mobile phone chip manufacturers in this regard. It can carry out in-depth and detailed system optimization and scheduling for its own Kirin processor, so that the hyper-threading technology can be fully utilized.
This full-chain optimization capability is a unique advantage that Huawei has and is difficult for other vendors to achieve. It is precisely with this that Huawei has successfully "played" with hyper-threading technology in the field of mobile phone chips and brought it to the extreme.
Paving the way for the technology of the future
In addition to the immediate needs of performance improvement and overall optimization, Huawei may also have a long-term strategic consideration when adopting hyper-threading technology.
From the current point of view, hyper-threading technology is very common on desktop-level CPUs, but it is relatively rare in the field of mobile phone chips. The reason for this is mainly due to the inherent disadvantages of hyper-threading technology in mobile phone application scenarios, such as power consumption problems.
But for Huawei, perhaps it is trying to completely overcome these limitations through its own technology accumulation and optimization capabilities, and promote the full implementation of hyper-threading technology on mobile phone chips.
This can not only bring advantages to its current Kirin processors, but also may become an important support for its future technical route. Once Huawei takes the lead in achieving a breakthrough in this field, it will undoubtedly establish a stronger dominant position in mobile phone chip technology.
It can be said that Huawei's "dead" hyper-threading technology not only contains immediate practical needs, but also contains a plan and layout for future development. This is undoubtedly an important attempt to seek greater initiative in the field of mobile phone chips.
To understand why Huawei insists on using hyper-threading technology on mobile phone chips, we first need to understand the fundamentals of this technology.
To put it simply, the core of hyper-threading technology is to simulate multiple logical processing threads through software means on a physical CPU core. This allows a single physical core to perform multiple tasks at the same time, improving overall multithreading
We can think of the control unit of the CPU as a boss, and the processing unit as the boss's employees. Before hyperthreading, a boss could only give instructions to one employee, and the employee could not move on to the next one after completing one task.
With hyper-threading technology, the same boss can issue task instructions to multiple employees at the same time, allowing employees to complete their work in a seamless manner. As a result, the parallel processing power of a single CPU core is greatly improved.
Of course, this way of simulating multi-threading also has some problems, such as affecting single-core performance and increasing power consumption. However, these problems can also be alleviated to a certain extent through reasonable trade-offs and optimization.
Application of hyper-threading technology on mobile phone chips
Hyper-threading technology is widely used in desktop-class CPUs, but it is not widely adopted in the field of mobile phone chips. The reason for this is mainly due to the special application scenarios of mobile phones.
As a mobile device, mobile phones are much more sensitive to power consumption and heat than desktops. However, due to the increased complexity of the front-end logic of the chip, hyper-threading technology will bring a certain increase in power consumption and heat generation. This is acceptable on desktop, but it can be fatal on mobile.
In addition, the performance of hyper-threading technology is extremely dependent on the degree to which the operating system optimizes CPU scheduling. If the system is not well adapted, it may drag down performance. Compared with desktop systems, mobile phone systems are usually less optimized in this regard.
It is based on these factors that the vast majority of mobile phone chip manufacturers prefer to adopt the heterogeneous multi-core architecture of "big core + small core" rather than hyper-threading technology when designing. This design allows for a better balance between performance and power consumption.
However, for Huawei, its unique overall advantages allow it to better address these challenges of hyper-threading technology in mobile applications.
First of all, with the self-developed Kirin processor, Huawei can optimize the system to make the performance of hyper-threading technology even better. At the same time, it can also effectively control power consumption by appropriately reducing the core frequency.