Huawei is one of the top five smartphone manufacturers in the market right now. But the company is also a player in the server market. We have heard about the servers from the company before, but the one that Huawei released recently is definitely worth our attention. The company has, for the first time, released a server powered by a processor with 16-core custom architecture.
Huawei has been making considerable progress in the silicon industry, thanks to its Hisilicon chipset department. Although the earlier Kirin chips from the company were not that impressive, the ones that have been released recently, like the Kirin 955 and 950 are quite powerful and efficient, putting Huawei smartphones at par with most flagships in the market. But Huawei uses ARM’s stock architecture on its Kirin chips for smartphones. On the other hand, for its new server, the company has reportedly used a self-developed 64-bit processor Hi1612a architecture, manufactured on TSMC’s 16nm process, with up to 16 cores on board and compatible with ARMv8-A instruction set. Further, the company is said to hold some IP rights related to large data analysis, cloud computing and information search.
But Huawei uses ARM’s stock architecture on its Kirin chips for smartphones. On the other hand, for its new server, the company has reportedly used a self-developed 64-bit processor Hi1612a architecture, manufactured on TSMC’s 16nm process, with up to 16 cores on board and compatible with ARMv8-A instruction set. Further, the company is said to hold some IP rights related to large data analysis, cloud computing and information search.
Huawei’s processors for smartphones have been till now limited to eight-core architecture. It is said that the company decided to develop a custom architecture for its new server because the server market is a very complex. There are a lot of factors to be considered like stability, reliability, long-term supply etc, but the development period could be long. Hence, the company had the time to develop its own custom architecture for its new product.
However, when it comes to the consumer smartphone market, the company will reportedly stick with ARM’s stock architecture because the development period is really short. So, it doesn’t look like Huawei plans to release a custom processor for smartphones and consumer market anytime soon.
Still, it’s good to see Huawei’s silicon arm progressing.
(via)
