IFA 2018: Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 980 SoC is official, the best smartphone processor in the world?

At the IFA 2018, HiSilicon, the semiconductor company of Huawei, unveiled the Kirin 980, the world's first TSMC 7 nm processor. It's the upgrade of the Kirin 970 last year.

Meet Kirin 980

Related: Huawei announces Mate 20 series pre-order and pricing details in the Philippines!

The Kirin 980 is also the first chip to come with the Cortex A76 CPU, Mali-G76 GPU, 4G LTE Cat 21 with up to 1.4 Gbps speeds, and 2133MHz LPDDR4X RAM. In total, this thumbnail-sized chipset highlights 6.9 billion transistors.

Dual NPU for AI

According to Huawei, 7 nm processors can deliver 20 percent better SoC performance and 40 percent improved SoC power efficiency versus the 10 nm process found on most high-end processors today.

Up to 1.4 Gbps download speed

The Cortex-A76 cores are also 75 percent more powerful and 58 percent more efficient versus their predecessors.

Basically, Kirin 980 is made out of two super big Cortex-A76 cores, two big Cortex A-76, and four small Cortex-A55 cores.

In case you missed our previous report, the Mali-G76 is 46 percent better and 178 percent more power efficient versus the previous generation.

It also has a new Dual NPU to elevate On-Device AI experience with greater processing power and intelligence.

For the best photography experience, Huawei integrated its proprietary fourth-generation ISP into the Kirin 980 as well.

Last year, we showed the world the potential of On-Device AI with the Kirin 970, and this year, we’ve designed an all-round powerhouse that features outstanding AI capabilities, and brings cutting-edge raw performance to consumers, said Mr. Yu. Equipped with all-new CPU, GPU and Dual NPU, the Kirin 980 is the ultimate engine to power next-generation productivity and entertainment applications.

The Kirin 980 will be available with the Huawei Mate 20 Series which will launch in London on October 18.

It will also be available with the Honor Magic 2 later this year.

Sources: Huawei, Business Wire