Huawei Unveils Kirin 990 5G Chip to Counter US Restrictions
Huawei introduces the Kirin 990 5G, a highly integrated smartphone processor that boasts a built-in 5G modem and advanced AI capabilities. The release demonstrates the company's continued technological progress despite facing heavy pressure from the U.S. government.
Huawei unveils its new Kirin 990 5G smartphone chip at the IFA electronics show in Berlin and Beijing, proving its business continues despite U.S. government restrictions. Unlike competing flagship chips such as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855, this new system-on-a-chip features a fully integrated 5G modem rather than relying on a separate external component.
The tight integration of the SoC and the 5G modem allows the device to consume less power and generate less heat during operation. Furthermore, the Kirin 990 5G contains a massive 10.3 billion semiconductors, making it the densest and most complex chip of its kind currently available in the smartphone market.
The processor also introduces a flexible artificial intelligence system that utilizes three distinct AI cores of varying sizes. This innovative design conserves battery life by assigning simple AI tasks to a smaller core and reserving the larger cores for more demanding processing jobs, directly linking the smartphone's capabilities to Huawei's larger Ascend AI chip family.