The Kirin 9010 came out, and the gap with the most advanced chips has been greatly narrowed, what does it represent behind it?
Huawei's latest flagship mobile phone chip, the Kirin 9010, was officially launched. This chip adopts a new "Taishan" CPU architecture, and its performance has been greatly improved compared with the previous generation of products, narrowing the gap with the most advanced mobile phone chips. The emergence of Kirin 9010 not only represents Huawei's insistence on independent chip research and development after being sanctioned, but also reflects the progress of China's chip industry chain.
The launch of the Kirin 9010 chip marks a new major breakthrough in the field of mobile phone chips. This chip adopts Huawei's self-developed new "Taishan" CPU architecture, which improves the performance of large-core IPC by 25% compared with the previous generation, and the floating-point IPC is increased by 20%, and the power consumption and heat generation are also well controlled. According to the benchmark test, the single-core performance of the Kirin 9010 is equivalent to Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 888, and the multi-core performance is equivalent to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen1, and the overall performance is in between. Compared to Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen3, the performance gap is around 30%.
Although the process lags behind TSMC, the performance of the Kirin 9010 is enough to meet the needs of daily use, closing the gap with the most advanced mobile phone chips at present. This not only demonstrates Huawei's strength in chip design, but also highlights the progress of China's chip industry chain.
After being sanctioned by the U.S. Entity List, Huawei has been insisting on independent chip research and development. As early as 2017, Huawei released the world's first mobile AI chip, the Kirin 970, with a built-in independent NPU, which achieves about 50 times the energy efficiency and 25 times the performance advantage over the CPU. Since then, Huawei Lu has launched a series of flagship chips such as Kirin 980, 990, and 9000, and the performance has been rising.
The appearance of the Kirin 9010 once again proves Huawei's leading position in the field of chip design. This chip not only adopts domestic technology, but also reflects the progress of China's chip industry chain, laying the foundation for domestic chips to replace foreign supply chains in the future.
Although the Kirin 9010 has improved in performance, compared with international giants such as Qualcomm, the gap still exists. This is mainly due to the limitations of the manufacturing process. At present, Huawei can only use the domestic 7nm process to produce chips, while Qualcomm, Apple, etc. have adopted TSMC's advanced 4nm or even 3nm processes. Advanced processes not only enable higher transistor density, lower power consumption, but also finer manufacturing processes to improve chip performance.
Even so, Huawei's strength in chip design is still far ahead. Kirin 9010 adopts a new "Taishan" CPU architecture, the performance of large-core IPC is increased by 25% compared with the previous generation, and the floating point computing power is also increased by 20%. This innovative design unleashes the full potential of the 7nm process, making the Kirin 9010 comparable in performance to Qualcomm's flagship products.
In addition to performance, production capacity is also another major bottleneck restricting the development of Huawei's chips. Due to the lack of advanced EUV lithography machines, Huawei can only produce 7nm chips through multiple exposures, and the production efficiency and yield rate are greatly reduced. With a production capacity of only a few million units, the Kirin 9010 is far from meeting the market demand. This is also the main reason why the new Huawei Pura 70 series products were rushed out of sale as soon as they went on sale.
In the face of many difficulties, Huawei is still working hard to break through the encirclement. In addition to investing in R&D, Huawei is also actively promoting the development of the domestic chip industry chain, laying the foundation for domestic chips to replace foreign supply chains in the future. Although there is a long way to go, as long as we insist on independent innovation, one day we will be able to fully master the core technology of chip manufacturing.
The advent of the Kirin 9010 will undoubtedly re-endow Huawei with its competitiveness in the high-end mobile phone market. For a long time, due to the lack of advanced chip support, the performance of Huawei's high-end models has lagged behind international giants such as Apple and Samsung. The appearance of the Kirin 9010 is expected to help Huawei regain lost market share.
After being included in the entity list, the sales of Huawei phones in overseas markets have been declining. However, in the domestic market, with excellent quality and good reputation, the sales of Huawei mobile phones still maintain a good level. According to relevant data, Huawei's mobile phone shipments in the domestic market in 2023 will be about 68 million units, with a market share of 27%, ranking first.
To regain dominance in the high-end market, brand power alone is not enough. Only with the support of strong chip strength can Huawei mobile phones show their inherent advantages in the fields of imaging, gaming, and AI, so as to attract more consumers.
With the beginning of the Kirin 9010, I believe that Huawei's development in the chip field will be more rapid in the future. Chip design is a long-term, systematic project that requires continuous investment and innovation. As long as Huawei can maintain its enthusiasm for chip research and development, and continue to innovate, one day we will be able to see the birth of domestic flagship chips with performance exceeding Apple's A series and Qualcomm Snapdragon series.
In addition to chips, Huawei also has its own unique insights in mobile phone cameras, operating systems and other fields. For example, the Pura 70 Ultra uses a 1-inch main camera with a large bottom and a retractable telephoto lens, which will undoubtedly bring users an unprecedented imaging experience. The distributed capabilities of the HarmonyOS system and the seamless experience across devices will also become a highlight to attract users.
Although there is still a certain gap between domestic chips and international giants, as long as we maintain our determination and adhere to independent innovation, we will eventually be able to fully control the core technology of chip manufacturing in the future and plug in the wings of take-off for domestic mobile phones.