Amidst all the trade restrictions from the US, Huawei is continuing to build its Kirin chips for smartphones. The Huawei Pura 70 series uses an upgraded version of last year’s Kirin 9000s chip. Now a rumor from the Chinese microblogging site Weibo claims an under-development Kirin PC chip is capable enough to match the performance of Apple M3 in multi-core and Apple M2 in GPU performance.
The upcoming Huawei Kirin chip for PCs could match the Apple M3’s multi-core performance
The user named “Fixed Focus Digital” (translated from Chinese) has revealed some specifications of the new Kirin PC chip. It will reportedly boast eight TaiShan v130 performance cores and the company’s next-generation Mailiang 920 GPU. For those unaware, last year’s Kirin 9000s chip (that powers the Huawei Mate 60 series) uses TaiShan v120 cores. The architecture is reportedly scalable and hints at the possibility of matching Apple Silicon in performance.
In addition to the CPU architecture and the GPU, the rumor also hints at the storage and memory support of the new chip. It will reportedly support 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage.
Speaking of the process node, Huawei has two options. One of them is SMIC’s 7nm process. Another option for the company will be waiting for the next generation 5nm process node of SMIC, which is reportedly not ready for mass production yet. So the company will have to delay the production of the new Kirin PC chip.
There are two process nodes available for Huawei to fabricate the chip
Going with the 7nm process means lower power efficiency, which is not ideal for a device that runs on limited battery power. In order to manage battery life, the company will have to dial down the performance of the chip. This is evident in the performance of the Kirin 9000s and this year’s Kirin 9010. But then, the chip might not achieve its performance target. If the company decides to manage the heat with more aggressive active heat dispassion, the device may become bulkier and less efficient overall. Nonetheless, it seems that Qualcomm isn’t the only company chasing Apple Silicon focusing on Windows-on-Arm.
Nonetheless, the tipster didn’t provide any information about the process node. We will have to wait and see how the upcoming Kirin PC chip deals with the technical challenges amidst the trade sanctions and whether it manages to match the multi-core performance of Apple M3. Speaking of the release timeline, this new chip could come out later this year, possibly in September.
