Huawei officially unveiled its HarmonyOS for PCs yesterday and confirmed that its first device running the new OS will launch on May 20. Not to anyone’s surprise, the chip powering the device will not be an off-the-shelf silicon, either. Now, a fresh leak out of China has revealed some major details about the silicon.

According to DCS, the Kirin X90 is Huawei’s in-house desktop processor, and it’s internally codenamed “Charlotte Pro.” Interestingly, Huawei’s Kirin 9010 chip, which powers the Mate 70 smartphone, has a similar codename, “Charlotte.” 

The implication is that Huawei might be developing the Kirin X90 based on the same CPU architecture as its mobile SoCs, with notable enhancements to scale it up for PC-level performance.

Kirin X90 Specifications (Expected)

The leak describes the Kirin X90 as a 10-core processor in a 4+4+2 configuration with support for 20 threads via simultaneous multithreading. It’s also said to support China’s national cryptography standards, SM3 and SM4.

Beyond the core and thread count, the leak does not reveal details about GPU specs, process node, or thermal performance. According to previous reports, the Kirin X90 might feature a 10-core graphics unit codenamed “Ma Liang 920”.

The chip is also expected to support up to 32GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory on a 128-bit bus, with 100GB/s of bandwidth. Storage-wise, it could handle up to 2TB of SSD space and come with three USB-4 ports.

This isn’t Huawei’s first attempt at carving out space in the PC market. But this is the first time Huawei has its in-house chip and OS for the desktop. The company is basically leaning hard into vertical integration. How well the silicon performs in comparison to its peers is still an open question.

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The post Huawei’s upcoming PC chip, Kirin X90, leaks ahead of May 20 HarmonyOS laptop launch appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei has been working on HarmonyOS-based laptops for a while now, with an expected launch in 2025. However, a new report suggests the timeline may have been pushed back.

At the same time, we’ve known for a while that Huawei is developing its own PC processor. A report last year hinted that the company’s Kirin PC chip could arrive in early 2025. 

Aligning with the rumor, a new Kirin chip for PCs called the Kirin X90, has now surfaced on China’s Information Security Evaluation Center.

Kirin X90 will likely use 7nm fabrication

The listing itself doesn’t reveal much about the chipset, but given Huawei’s limited options, it’s likely built on SMIC’s 7nm process. That means it’s unlikely to match the performance of Apple’s latest M-series chips or even Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X lineup for that matter. 

An earlier report, however, hinted that the performance-wise, the SoC is in the same ballpark as Apple’s M2 chip. It is said to be built on Huawei’s Taishan v130 architecture, featuring an 8-core CPU clocked at 2.5GHz (likely its base frequency). The GPU is rumored to be a 10-core unit codenamed “Ma Liang 920”.

The chip is also expected to support up to 32GB of LPDDR5-6400 memory on a 128-bit bus, with 100GB/s of bandwidth. Storage-wise, it could handle up to 2TB of SSD space and come with three USB-4 ports.

Huawei’s push into the PC processor space is a big deal, but whether its Kirin chip can truly compete outside of China remains to be seen.

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The post Huawei’s self-developed Kirin PC chip surfaces in wild for the first time appeared first on Gizmochina.