The Kirin chip is a mobile phone processor independently developed by Huawei, which has gone through more than 10 years of development since the launch of the first-generation Kirin 910 in 2014. The goal of Kirin chips is to provide users with a high-performance, low-power, and intelligent mobile phone experience, which is also an important strategic layout of Huawei in the chip field. In the past ten years, the Kirin chip has experienced many technological breakthroughs and innovations from being usable to being easy to use, among which the Kirin 980 chip is an important turning point.
The development of Kirin chips can be divided into three stages: the first stage is from being usable to being easy to use, the second stage is from being easy to use to being powerful, and the third stage is from being strong to leading. Among these three stages, the Kirin 980 is an important turning point, which allows the Kirin chip to go from following to leading, from staking to intensive cultivation, from simple performance to comprehensive experience.
Stage 1: From usable to usable
The first phase of Kirin chips was from 2009 to 2015, during which time chips such as Kirin 910, Kirin 920, Kirin 930, Kirin 935 and Kirin 950 were launched. The main feature of these chips is that they adopt the public version of Arm's architecture, without much innovation and optimization, mainly to meet the basic needs of Huawei mobile phones, improve the ability of independent research and development and the degree of self-sufficiency. The performance and power consumption of these chips are not outstanding, and there is still a big gap compared with competitors such as Qualcomm and Samsung at that time. However, these chips also laid a solid foundation for the later Kirin chips, accumulated valuable experience, and cultivated a group of excellent engineers.
Stage 2: From easy to powerful
The second phase of the Kirin chip is from 2016 to 2018, during which chips such as the Kirin 960 and Kirin 970 were launched. The main feature of these chips is that they have begun to adopt ARM's customized architecture, adding more innovation and optimization, mainly to improve the performance and experience of Huawei mobile phones, and catch up with and surpass competitors such as Qualcomm and Samsung. The performance and power consumption of these chips have been significantly improved, and compared with competitors such as Qualcomm and Samsung at that time, they are comparable or even ahead. In particular, the Kirin 970 is the world's first mobile phone processor that integrates an artificial intelligence neural network processing unit (NPU), opening a new era of artificial intelligence in mobile phones and making breakthroughs in photography, voice, and security for Huawei mobile phones.
Stage 3: From strong to leading
The third phase of the Kirin chip is from 2019 to 2020, during which chips such as the Kirin 980, Kirin 990 and Kirin 9000 were launched. The main feature of these chips is that they continue to adopt Arm's customized architecture, adding more innovations and optimizations, mainly to lead the performance and experience of Huawei mobile phones, and consolidate and expand the advantages of competitors such as Qualcomm and Samsung. The performance and power consumption of these chips have been greatly improved, and compared with competitors such as Qualcomm and Samsung at that time, they have been far ahead and unbeatable. In particular, the Kirin 9000 is the world's first mobile phone processor with a 5nm process, integrating more than 15 billion transistors, and has powerful CPU, GPU, NPU, ISP, 5G and other modules, creating the pinnacle of mobile phone processors, allowing Huawei mobile phones to reach unprecedented heights in terms of performance, photography, battery life, and network.
Kirin 980: A turning point
As can be seen from the above introduction, the development history of Kirin chips is a process of continuous progress and breakthroughs, and each generation of Kirin chips has its own highlights and characteristics, all of which have contributed to the success of Huawei mobile phones. However, among these Kirin chips, there is one chip that is a turning point, which makes the Kirin chip from following to leading, from staking to intensive cultivation, from pure performance to comprehensive experience, that is, Kirin 980.
The Kirin 980 was released in September 2018 and is used on phones such as the Huawei Mate 20 series and the Huawei P30 series. It is the world's first mobile phone processor with a 7nm process, the world's first mobile phone processor with an integrated dual-core NPU, and the world's first to support LTE Cat21 mobile phone processors. Its CPU uses Arm's latest Cortex-A76 architecture, which is divided into two ultra-large cores, two large cores, and four small cores to achieve a balance of high performance and low power consumption. Its GPU uses Arm's latest Mali-G76 architecture, with 10 cores, a 46% increase in performance and a 178% reduction in power consumption. Its NPU adopts Huawei's self-developed DA Vinci architecture, which has two cores, one for high-performance computing and one for low-power computing, to achieve high efficiency and energy saving of artificial intelligence. Its ISP adopts Huawei's self-developed ***ISP, which has 48 million pixel support to achieve better photo results.
These characteristics of the Kirin 980 gave it obvious advantages in terms of performance, power consumption, artificial intelligence, photography, networking, etc., in terms of performance, power consumption, artificial intelligence, photography, networking, etc., and even surpassed competitors such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and Samsung Exynos 9810 at that time. The Kirin 980 not only surpasses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 and Samsung Exynos 9810 in technology over the same period, but also has achieved great success in the market, equipped with Huawei's flagship mobile phone series, such as Huawei Mate 20, Huawei P30, Huawei Nova 5, etc., providing a strong impetus for the sales and reputation of Huawei mobile phones.
The success of Kirin 980 has also laid a solid foundation for the subsequent development of Kirin chips, allowing Kirin chips to occupy a place in the global chip market, becoming a strong competitor to Qualcomm and Samsung, and setting a model for the rise of China's chip industry. Kirin 980 is a milestone for Kirin chips, and it is also a turning point for Kirin chips, which allows us to see the potential and future of Kirin chips, and also makes us always full of expectations and confidence in the next generation of Kirin chips, although, due to sanctions,The performance of the Kirin 9000s released in 2023 may not meet the performance of some people, but I believe that Huawei will surprise us with the next generation of Kirin chips.
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