The Kirin 990 and Kirin 990 5G chipset that were announced at the IFA tech trade show in Berlin, Germany earlier this month is the second generation 7nm chipset designed Huawei’s HiSilicon division and manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The Kirin 990 chipset powers the Mate 30 series and it is also expected to feature in Honor V30 5G phone and some other flagship phones from Huawei and its Honor sub-brand. Fresh information reveals that Huawei is working on 5nm Kirin 1000 that will be first seen on the Huawei Mate 40 series of flagship phones arriving in the last quarter of 2020.
The rumored 5nm Kirin 1000 will be built by TSMC that has also started working on 3nm process. It is speculated that the new chipset will feature the most powerful Cortex-A77 CPU. The Kirin 990 chipset was rumored to feature it, but the company reportedly choose for Cortex-A76 for it. The inclusion of Cortex-A77 will improve performance by 20 percent without consuming more power.
The Huawei P40 series arriving in the first quarter of the coming year will be driven by the Kirin 990 chipset. Huawei will be using the Kirin 990 SoC to power few more Huawei and Honor branded flagship phones before finally debuting the Kirin 1000 in the Mate 40 series.