Huawei is expected to unveil a new Kirin chipset, the Kirin 9100, later this year. This chip is rumored to power the upcoming Mate 70 series which will also be the first Huawei phone to come pre-installed with HarmonyOS NEXT.
There are rumors that the Kirin 9100 could mark a significant performance leap for the Chinese tech giant. However, there are doubts about this since Huawei and its chip manufacturer, SMIC, lack the latest chip manufacturing infrastructure due to the US trade ban.
As a result, Kirin chips have so far struggled to compete with offerings from Qualcomm and MediaTek. The Kirin 9100, however, might be different. A fresh new rumor suggests it could outperform Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.
The news comes from an X tipster, jasonwill, who seems confident that the upcoming Kirin chip will surpass the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. If Huawei’s next-gen Kirin SoC is indeed faster, this would be a monumental gain compared to the current-best Kirin 9010, which struggles to compete even with mid-range chips like the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2.
Additionally, the tipster claims that the Kirin 9100’s performance could lead to an improved user experience, even if its on-paper specifications “may not match those of the 8gen3”.
How could Huawei achieve this? The answer likely lies in software optimization. Huawei is expected to launch HarmonyOS NEXT alongside the Kirin 9100, completely severing ties with Google’s Android platform.
According to Huawei, HarmonyOS NEXT is three times more efficient in memory utilization compared to Android. This translates to smoother UI performance on Huawei devices, even those powered by older Kirin chipsets.
Another factor is the Kirin 9100’s manufacturing process. The chip will reportedly be mass-produced using SMIC’s 5nm node. While this technology isn’t the most cutting-edge, it should still offer improved performance and power efficiency compared to previous Kirin chipsets.
While it would be exciting to see Huawei’s upcoming chip match the performance of its competitors, it’s wise to remain skeptical as this leap forward seems almost too good to be true for Huawei to achieve in one go.
Comments