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The US government’s ban on Huawei from conducting business with American companies led to the demise of its Kirin chips, which last saw a release in 2020. However, according to a new report from a Weibo leaker, Fixed Focus Digital (via NotebookCheck.net), it looks like Huawei might be gearing up to reenter the market with its Kirin SoCs.
As per the leak, there are two potential configurations for an upcoming Kirin chipset. The first configuration could feature a combination of two Cortex-X3 and two Cortex-A715 CPU cores, accompanied by four Cortex-A510 CPU cores. For graphical performance, the SoC might include an Arm Immortalis-G715 MC16 GPU.
The second configuration differs slightly, with 2 Cortex-X1 CPU cores, 3 Cortex-A78 cores, and 3 Cortex-A55 cores, along with an Arm Mali G710 MC10/6 GPU. However, it remains unclear whether these configurations represent distinct chips or variant iterations of a single model.
Another configuration in the works
While the prospect of new Huawei chips is intriguing enough, another Weibo post suggests the existence of not just one or two but three new SKUs in the pipeline. These SKUs aptly named—Kirin 720, Kirin 830, and Kirin 9100—would imply that Huawei is developing at least a few new smartphones.
Furthermore, if the rumors hold true, the Kirin 720 and Kirin 830 might debut later this year, and the Kirin 9100 could potentially launch the following year, possibly aligned with the release of a Huawei P70 flagship device.
How will Huawei bypass the restrictions?
Given that Huawei is barred from conducting business with American companies, reports propose that China’s leading foundry, SMIC, could provide a solution, as the company might utilize SMIC’s N+2 (7 nm) node technology to manufacture the new chips. Alternatively, there’s speculation that Huawei has potentially devised a method to stack two 14nm chips to achieve performance comparable to 7nm while maintaining low power consumption.