Huawei‘s next-generation Mate series smartphone is likely to adopt the Mate 40 moniker. The flagship is still several months from meeting with buyers but Huawei’s R&D has since commenced research into the upgrades it will feature. While the design may have not been finalised yet, the company is definitely going to launch the Mate 40 with a next-generation Kirin processor. Early details have emerged that the Mate 40 will pack a 5nm chipset. Going by the current-gen Kirin 990, the next version that’ll be released later this year is expected to be named Kirin 1020.
The Kirin 1020 chipset is expected to be built on a 5nm wafer manufactured by the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC is said to have one of the largest foundry factories for 5nm chip production. The manufacturing firm will reportedly commence the mass-production of the 5nm chip in the first half of 2020. Shipment is expected to start in the third quarter of the year as the company starts supplying chips for the iPhone 12 series and Mate 40 series. Both series are expected to be the first mobile phones with 5nm chips.
TSMC’s 5nm process will come in two versions- N5 and N5P. Compared with the 7nm process, N5 improves performance by 15%, reduces power consumption by 30%, and increases crystal density by 80%. On the other hand, the N5P performance is 7% stronger than N5, and power consumption has dropped by 15% again. The 5nm N5 version will be mass-produced this year, and the N5P will be mass-produced in 2021.
It is reported that Kirin 1020 performance will be more than 50% higher than Kirin 990. The CPU architecture is upgraded from A76 to A78, surpassing the Cortex-A77 feature on the Snapdragon 865. Kirin 1020 will also integrate 5G baseband.
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