Huawei announces "Kirin 990", a 5G processor that claims to be the "world's first", installed in the Mate30 series: IFA2019 (page 1/3)

On September 6th, IFA2019, one of the world's largest consumer electronics exhibitions, was held in Berlin, Germany. The opening keynote was delivered by Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's Consumer Business Group. He gave a lecture on the theme of "5G: An Opportunity to Rethink Evolution".

The content of the lecture was centered on the announcement of the latest processor "Kirin 990" that Huawei will introduce from the next model, and also presented new products that will be released globally within the year, rather than a keynote speech. That's what I was interested in.

Richard Yu first appealed Huawei's track record of leading mobile AI with the release of AI-compatible processors "Kirin 970" and "Kirin 980."

The conventional technology that links the AI ​​on the device and the AI ​​in the cloud, but cannot be said to be "real time", is defined as "Mobile AI 1.0". 2.0”, and will be able to synchronize with the cloud in real time without time lag.

Huawei has already released a 5G processor called "Balong." While other companies' 5G processors are NSA (Non-StandAlone) used in combination with 4G processors, Balong appealed its superiority of functioning alone.

And the "Kirin 990 5G" was announced as "the world's first flagship 5G processor". Manufactured using a 7nm process and EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography), it has 10.3 billion transistors. The previous model Kirin 980 has 6.8 billion transistors, so it is about 1.5 times more. It has a built-in 5G modem, the GPU has increased from 10 cores to 16 cores, and a core that improves transmission efficiency has been added to the NPU that processes AI-related data.

Kirin 990 5G, which has achieved four "world firsts", is a processor with a built-in 5G modem, so it is said that it is significantly smaller than other companies. The communication speed on 5G reaches a maximum of 2.3Gps for download and a maximum of 1.25Gps for upload. In addition to significantly improving performance over traditional processors, it is also said to be more power efficient.

Communication methods cover from 2G to 5G. If you insert two SIMs and use them, the first one can be used up to 5G and the second one up to 4G. In other words, it is a mechanism that allows 5G data communication and 4G VoLTE to be used together.

The NPU consists of two Big-Cores (large cores) like the previous model Kirin 980, but a newer Tiny-Core ( A small core) is added to improve transmission efficiency and save power.

The core CPUs for data processing consist of 2.86GHz x 2 cores, 2.36GHz x 2 cores, and 1.95GHz x 4 cores. . We posted a benchmark comparison with our competitors, emphasizing that the performance is significantly higher. The world's first 16-core GPU and "smart cache" function also improve graphics processing performance and power efficiency.

The ISP (Image Signal Processor) that performs image processing has evolved to the 5th generation. Especially enhanced is the noise reduction. It supports not only still images but also noise reduction for movies. By linking with AI, it is said that correction of people's faces can be done quickly.

The Kirin 990 There is also a model for 4G, and it is said that it will be used depending on the shipping country and model. And, although it was already announced, we once again announced that the "HUAWEI Mate 30" series equipped with the Kirin 990 will be announced on September 19th in Munich.