While we are just 10 days away from the official unveiling of the Huawei P8 flagship, rumors about the device are still coming in. Thanks to the previous leaks, we know most of the specs of the upcoming P8, however, there’s still a lot of confusion about the processor inside the device.

Earlier it was said that the Huawei P8 will sport the same Kirin 930 processor as the Huawei Mediapad X2. However, we recently came to know that the processor was based on quad Cortex A53 + quad Cortex A53e architecture, which may not be as powerful as predicted. As a result, it didn’t make sense for Huawei to use the same less powerful Kirin 930 chipset on an important flagship.

Recently, new reports cropped up online claiming that the Huawei P8 will sport the powerful version of the Kirin 935 chipset. Up till now, we had no idea about the specs of this rumored 935, however, earlier today, a new leak gave out some details about the chip.

It is said that the company will increase the clock speed on the Kirin 935 to 2.2GHz. On the other hand, the existing Kirin 930 was clocked at 2.0GHz. Also, the company plans to give this chip a graphic performance boost with a new GPU. These changes are expected to improve the performance of the device to a great extent, however, we still don’t know whether it will be up to the mark as compared to other flagship SoCs currently available in the market.

Design wise, the Huawei P8 flagship will use a slim 6.4mm metal + glass body. There’s even a rumored platinum version which may feature dual sided sapphire glass protection.

As for the tech specs, the P8 is said to come with a 5.2-inch full HD 1080p display. There will be 3GB RAM on board with 32GB of expandable storage. Other possible tech specs include Android 5.0, 13MP rear camera with temperature flash, 5MP front shooter, 2520mAh battery and 4G dual SIM dual standby support.

Expect more details about the Kirin 935 chipset as well as the Huawei P8 flagship in the next few days.

Stay tuned.

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Huawei’s Hisilicon Kirin range of processors have come a long way since it first released in the market. Now, manufacturers as well as users are recognizing the potential of this new chipmaker.

The company’s latest chipset in the market is the Huawei Kirin 930. Huawei recently revealed in a presentation that the Kirin 930 uses a modified version of low power consuming Cortex A53 chipset to boost performance. So, with the enhanced four Cortex A53e and four regular Cortex A53 cores, the Kirin 930 balances power and performance.

But ever since we came to know about that Huawei Kirin 930 was powered by all Cortex A53 cores, we were wondering whether the chipset was made using the efficient 16nm process.

Now, Chinese Mobile Phone League Secretary General, Old Yao says that the Huawei Kirin 930 processor uses a 28nm process instead of 16nm TSMC process unlike earlier rumored. It is said that the upcoming Kirin 950 will use the 16nm process from TSMC. But unfortunately, the Huawei P8 which will launch on April 15 will use Kirin 930 chipset, so we may not see mind blowing performance from this smartphone.

So, what do you think about the Kirin 930 after reading this information? Are you disappointed or will you reserve your judgement until you see real life performance?

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Huawei recently announced its advanced Kirin 930 processor for 2015. This SoC uses a 16nm process which makes it much better than the 20nm process and 28nm process based chips in the market right now.

Although earlier it was rumored that the Huawei Kirin 930 chipset uses four Cortex A53 and four Cortex A57 cores, it was revealed recently that all the eight cores were ARM’s low power consuming Cortex A53. We were really surprised to hear that given that this would have made the SoC less powerful than other Cortex A57 based processors.

Finally, today, Huawei revealed why it decided to use eight Cortex A53 cores inside its flagship chipset.

According to the company, its new Kirin 930 processor is based on an enhanced version of the Cortex A53 cores. So, out of the eight cores in the SoC, four will be this Cortex A53e version which improves its performance to a great extent.

Traditional Cortex A53 cores run at 1.2GHz which is very low as compared to competitors. For example, the MT6752 octa-core SoC is clocked at 1.7GHz. So, in order to reach the same performance as these rival chipsets, the company had to increase the frequency to no less than 2.0 GHz.

It could have used the Cortex A57 processor which is almost 56% faster than A53. However, the company claims that A57 uses 256% more power than the A53, which would adversely affect the battery life. Moreover, Cortex A57 tends to heat faster, thereby increasing the temperature of the smartphone.

So, in order to avoid these problems, the company used the enahnced Cortex A53e cores on the chip. Of course, we still don’t think the performance will be at par with rival processors based on A57, however, for that you get efficiency and therefore additional battery life.

We have not yet seen the Mediapad X2 in action running this SoC, but according to leaked AnTuTu results, the processor manages to score above 44000 points on AnTuTu which is very impressive.

So, before we make our conclusions about the A53e powered Kirin 930, lets wait for an official review.

What do you think about the Kirin 930? Do you think the company was right in using Cortex A53 instead of A57 to make it more efficient and battery friendly?

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Ever since the news about a possible Huawei made Nexus made the headlines, the company’s Hisilicon Kirin processors have suddenly entered into the spotlight. Before this news, not many cared about Huawei’s processors, but since it could make it to the next Nexus, everyone wants to know the true capability of its Kirin processor lineup.

This year, the company is expected to announce the upgrade to the Kirin 930, possibly Kirin 940 and Kirin 950 SoCs. However, as of now, we only know details about the existing Kirin 930. The processor is based on four Cortex A53 cores and four Cortex A57 cores clocked up to 2.0GHz. It comes with ARM’s Mali T628 GPU and dual-channel LPDDR3 RAM.

The SoC has a built in Tensilica HiFi 3 DSP and an ISP which supports sensors up to 32MP. Like the Kirin 925, the new Kirin 930 too features the i3 co-processor. Other features include support for LTE Cat.6, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Dual Band Wi-Fi, USB 2.0. The processor was expected to hit the markets by Q2 2015 and will most likely end up on the upcoming Huawei P8 flagship.

Luckily, we have some details about the upcoming Kirin 940 and 950 processors too. Our source tells us that the Kirin 940 which is expected to be announced by Q3 2015 will feature four Cortex A53 and four Cortex A72 cores clocked up to 2.2GHz. If you remember, the Cortex A72 is the latest launch from ARM which is very powerful yet power efficient. The GPU will be upgraded to Mali T860 and it will support dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM. The HiFi DSP gets upgraded to Tensilica HiFi 4 and the processor will have dual ISP which supports up to 32MP sensor. Kirin 940 is expected to bring native 10bit 4K Main 10 HEVC VP9 Encoding and Decoding. It will feature the new i7 co-processor and will support dual SIM cards with LTE Cat. 7 connectivity. The processor will support the new MU-MIMO Wi-Fi ac standard, Bluetooth 4.2 Smart, NFC and USB 3.0.

Unlike the Kirin 940 which is expected to be a big upgrade to the Kirin 930, the Kirin 950 will only have slight modifications. Our source tells us that the SoC will use the same Cortex A53 + Cortex A72 combination but will bump up the clock speed to 2.4GHz. Other important upgrades include a newer Mali T880 GPU, support for Cat. 10 LTE networks and Dual ISPs which now support up to 42MP sensors. Most of the remaining specs of the processor are expected to be the same as the Kirin 940.

Remember that this news comes via a new source, so it may happen that some of the details of the upcoming SoCs turn out different. Hence, make sure that you take this news with a pinch of salt. Still it looks like Huawei is all set to strengthen its processor lineup this year with faster and power efficient chips.

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In the past two weeks, multiple sources reported that Google may have entered into a partnership with Huawei for its next Nexus smartphone. While the news was almost confirmed by an iSuppli analyst, the source revealed nothing about the processor that the new Google powered smartphone would use.

Now, a new report has cropped up online which claims that the Huawei made Nexus device could indeed use the company’s own Kirin processor. We have already seen the new Kirin 930 on the new Huawei Mediapad X2 smartphone. And most of the smartphones in the company’s lineup use its own Kirin processors. However, using Huawei’s processors inside Google’s Nexus range would be a big step up for the company.
In case you are wondering, there are plenty of reasons why Google would agree to use a Hisilicon made Kirin SoC inside its next Nexus phone. First of all, Hisilicon has evolved a lot in the past few years, enough to compete with market leaders like Qualcomm and Mediatek.

Hisilicon was established back in 2004 and has generated over $1.4 billion in revenues in 2013. It is now the no.1 IC design company in China.

The new Hisilicon Kirin 930 is a very advanced processor. It is built on a smaller 16nm process, even better than the 20nm process used by Qualcomm Snapdragon 810. Moreover, its an 64-bit octa-core SoC clocked at 2.0 GHz and based on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture which helps save power. The processor is also capable enough to support up to 32MP resolution camera sensors.

While Huawei’s Hisilicon doesn’t make it to the top three global chipmakers list, the company announced last year that it would be selling chips to other companies too, which should further increase its market share. And what better smartphone than the upcoming Nexus device.

Remember to take this news with a grain of salt as nothing is confirmed as of now. But since a number of sources have started giving out details, its best to wait and watch if we actually see a Huawei made Nexus smartphone this year.

Stay tuned.

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Huawei is known to be active on Weibo revealing and teasing its upcoming products. Under its “Make it Possible” theme the company had teased two new products for MWC 2015 launch. We had predicted that it could be the new smartwatch and the successor of the Mediapad X1 phone tablet. And we were right indeed as the company revealed both the 7-inch Mediapad X2 as well as the beautiful Huawei Watch at the event in Barcelona.

However, the company did not update its smartphone lineup at the event. But to our surprise, earlier today, the company released a new teaser with the words “Huawei P8”. Along with the teaser, the company said the following.

“If March can not give you more surprises, it is better and we look forward to April,”

As you can see, this confirms the launch of the much anticipated Huawei flagship at a special event in April. An earlier leak had predicted this and looks like it was bang on target.

We already know a lot about the upcoming Huawei flagship device. Previous leaks indicate that the Huawei P8 will feature the company’s latest Kirin 930 octa-core 64-bit processor clocked at 2.0 GHz and 3GB of RAM and 64GB of inbuilt storage. At the front will be a 5.2-inch full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution display along with an 8MP camera on top. The rear camera will be of 13MP with possibly the same duo camera setup as the Honor series. Finally, like all flagship releases this year, the phone is expected to run on the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system out of the box.

It is said that the device will be priced around $460 or 2888 Yuan, however, we can’t really confirm any of these information unless Huawei makes the P8 official.

Its already March and we are just a month away from the official launch of the device. So stay tuned for more details.

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Huawei’s upcoming Huawei P8 flagship was recently leaked with most of its specs on weibo. The source said that the company would incorporate the latest Kirin 930 processor based on a  16nm process, which will be the first such SoC in the market.

Just a day after this leak, we have spotted a new Huawei device on Geekbench browser benchmark which reveals quite capable hardware. The device has a model number ML100-UL00 and could be the Huawei P8.

The benchmark reveals an octa-core 1.5Ghz processor based on the 64-bit architecture. The phone comes with 3GB of RAM onboard and runs on the latest Android 5.0.2 Lollipop operating system.

We still don’t know whether this is the new Kirin 930 processor. The benchmark scores of this new device is much higher than the existing Kirin 620, so it can’t be from this range. On the other hand, the performance is quite close to Kirin 925 that’s currently powering the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. The single core score of the 925 (899 points) is slightly better than the SoC used in this device (875), however the multi-core score on this device (3541 points) is much better than Mate 7.

Huawei P8 is said to come with a dual glass body (front+back) with a zirconia ceramic unibody design. It will be around 6mm thin and will feature a 2600 mAh battery.

We still don’t know whether this is the new Kirin 930 based on the 16mm process, but we expect more details soon as rumors say Huawei will announce the flagship on 15 April in London this year.

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In response analyst Kong Changxu’s argument that merely producing a good cellphone is not enough to cover up the company’s vulnerability in the industry, and that they can only enjoy using a manufacturing process that is inferior to those used by foreign manufacturers.

A Weibo user, @建华Wei业 disagreed saying that Huawei’s new processor, the Kirin 930 was made using a 16nm manufacturing process similar to that of Apple’s A9 processor with some differences in the workmanship.

The Kirin 930 used the 16nm HiFET manufacturing process while the Apple A9 used the 16nm FinFET. The former is the process used by Huawei and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It looks like the process was thought of just for the Kirin 930.

Since Qualcomm’s flagship chips are only made using a 20nm process, then if Huawei skipped the 20nm stage and went straight for 16n, then it could be said that they surpassed Qualcomm. However, there’s no way of knowing whether @建华Wei业 is correct.

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