Huawei has introduced their subsidiary HiSilicon’s newest mobile processor in the Kirin 980, which, along with Huawei's claim of the world's first commercial 7nm SoC, is the first SoC to use Arm Cortex A76 CPU cores and Arm’s Mali G76 GPU.
Huawei is aiming squarely at Qualcomm with this announcement, claiming better performance than a Snapdragon 845 during the presentation. One of its primary differences to the current Snapdragon is the composition of the Kirin 980’s eight CPU cores, notable as the usual 'big.LITTLE' Arm CPU core configuration for an octa-core design gives way to a revised organization with three groups, as illustrated by AnandTech here:
Of the four Cortex A76 cores just two are clocked up to maximize performance with certain applications such as gaming (and, likely, benchmarks) at 2.60 GHz, and the other two are used more generally as more efficient performance cores at 1.92 GHz. The remaining four A55 cores operate at 1.80 GHz, and are used for lower-performance tasks. A full breakdown of the CPU core configuration as well as slides from the event are available at AnandTech.
Huawei claims that the improved CPU in the Kirin 980 results in "75 percent more powerful and 58 percent more efficient compared to their previous generation" (the Kirin 970). This claim translates into what Huawei claims to be 37% better performance and 32% greater efficiency than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845.
The GPU also gets a much-needed lift this year from Arm's latest GPU, the Mali-G76, which features "new, wider execution engines with double the number of lanes" and "provides dramatic uplifts in both performance and efficiency for complex graphics and Machine Learning (ML) workloads", according to Arm.
Real-world testing with shipping handsets is needed to verify Huawei's performance claims, of course. In fact, the results shown by Huawei at the presentation carry a this disclaimer, sourced from today’s press release:
"The specifications of Kirin 980 does not represent the specifications of the phone using this chip. All data and benchmark results are based on internal testing. Results may vary in different environments."
The upcoming Mate 20 from Huawei will be powered by this new Kirin 980 – and could very well provide results consistent with the full potential of the new chip – and that is set for an official launch on October 16.
The full press release is available after the break.
BERLIN, Germany—August 31, 2018—In his IFA 2018 keynote titled “The Ultimate Power of Mobile AI”, Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Mr. Richard Yu introduced the Kirin 980, the system on a chip (SoC) that will bring about the next evolution of mobile AI. As the world’s first commercial SoC manufactured with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Company’s (TSMC) 7nm process, Kirin 980 combines best-in-class performance, efficiency, connectivity features, and Dual NPU AI processing power.
“Last year, we showed the world the potential of On-Device AI with the Kirin 970, and this year, we’ve designed an all-round powerhouse that not only features outstanding AI capabilities, but also brings cutting-edge raw performance to consumers,” said Mr. Yu. “Equipped with all-new CPU, GPU and Dual NPU, the Kirin 980 is the ultimate engine to power next-generation productivity and entertainment applications.”
Absolute Superiority
The cutting edge TSMC 7nm process technology enables Kirin 980 to pack 6.9 billion transistors within a 1cm2 die size, 1.6 times of the previous generation. Compared to the 10nm process, the 7nm process delivers 20 percent improved SoC performance and 40 percent improved SoC power efficiency.The Kirin 980 is also the first SoC to embed Cortex-A76 based cores, which are 75 percent more powerful and 58 percent more efficient compared to their previous generation. The Kirin CPU subsystem uses an intelligent Flex-scheduling mechanism that creates a 3-level energy efficiency architecture consisting of two super-big cores based on Cortex-A76, two big cores based on Cortex-A76, and four little cores Cortex-A55. Compared with the traditional big.LITTLE design, this solution designates the large high-performance cores to handle immediate, intensive workloads; the large, high-efficiency cores to provide sustained performance; and ultra-efficiency cores to tackle everyday, light activities with extreme power efficiency. Running at higher clock speeds compared to the prior generation, Kirin 980 enables quicker app launch times, better multi-tasking and a generally smoother user experience.
As graphics in mobile games have become more and more sophisticated in recent years, Huawei has integrated the Mali-G76 GPU into the Kirin 980 to deliver unparalleled gaming experiences. Debuting with the Kirin 980, Mali-G76 offers 46 percent greater graphics processing power at 178 percent improved power efficiency over the previous generation. Mali-G76 also features an innovative clock boosting technology that utilizes AI to intelligently identify gaming workloads and adjust resource allocation for optimal gaming performance.
Industry’s First “Dual-Brain” Power
The latest Kirin SoC represents a new era of On-Device AI. The Dual NPU Kirin 980 elevates the On-Device AI experience with greater processing power and intelligence. The synergy between the Dual NPU results in an image recognition capability that is greater than the sum of two—the Kirin 980 can recognize up to 4,500 images per minute, up 120 percent compared to Kirin 970, further demonstrating Huawei’s industry leadership in the On-Device AI space. Additionally, Kirin 980 supports common AI frameworks such as Caffee, Tensorflow and Tensorflow Lite, and provides a suite of tools that simplifies the difficulty of engineering On-Device AI, allowing developers to easily tap into the leading processing power of the Dual NPU.Full-Featured ISP
In pursuit of the best smartphone photography experience, Huawei integrated its proprietary fourth-generation ISP into the SoC. In addition to a 46 percent increase in data throughput compared to its predecessor, the new ISP also provides better support for multi-camera configurations, as well as an all-new HDR color reproduction technology that can manipulate picture contrast to highlight objects on various parts of an image. In addition, Kirin 980 utilizes the Multi-pass noise reduction solution that accurately removes artifacts without scrubbing away image details, resulting in better quality on images taken in low-light scenarios. Another new feature of the ISP is improved motion tracking. When a user attempts to snap a photo of a moving person, the ISP can still recognize the subject with 97.4 percent accuracy, so any user can capture fleeting moments with ease.The rise of video-centric social media platforms brought together with it a surge of demand for video capture features. Kirin 980 adopts a new pipeline dedicated to processing video captures, allowing the camera module to shoot videos with 33 percent shorter delay.
World-Class Connectivity
To deliver the best connectivity to users of Kirin 980-powered devices, Huawei integrated the world’s first modem supporting LTE Cat.21 with a peak download speed of 1.4Gbps. Additionally, the Kirin 980 supports carrier aggregation, even across frequency bands, so users are free to choose their mobile operators and still enjoy the same premium connectivity experience, regardless of where they are.Inspired by Nature
At IFA 2018, Huawei also announced the launch of two new gradient variants for the HUAWEI P20 Series: Morpho Aurora and Pearl White , expanding its range of gradient colors to four. When creating these two unique hues, Huawei once again turned to nature for inspiration. The Morpho Aurora was inspired by the Morpho butterfly, while the Pearl White exudes the same elegance as the iridescent mother-of-pearl.The next-generation AI experience is around the corner. Stay tuned for the launch of the first Kirin 980-powered Mate Series device, which is scheduled to arrive in October*.
*The specifications of Kirin 980 does not represent the specifications of the phone using this chip. All data and benchmark results are based on internal testing. Results may vary in different environments.
I was at the huawei event and
I was at the huawei event and prebrief, i got to check out a pre-pro 980 on a demo/test board with a display attatched showing gameplay stuff.
was imrpessive, but until it’s in an actual device, those things might as well be useless, at least it was being completely passively cooled, no fans, no heatsinks etc. just the package.
Modern Smartphones are so
Modern Smartphones are so much more than just their CPU cores with for example that Apple A11 on the high end:
“Embedded in the A11 is the M11 motion coprocessor.[8] The A11 includes a new image processor which supports computational photography functions such as lighting estimation, wide color capture, and advanced pixel processing.[6]” (1)
“The A11 also includes dedicated neural network hardware that Apple calls a “Neural Engine”. This neural network hardware can perform up to 600 billion operations per second and is used for Face ID, Animoji and other machine learning tasks.[7]” (1)
So yes the Arm Holding’s Older generation Reference core/semi-custom core based designs are going to perform less well as any of the Arm Holdings newer generation Reference core/semi-custom core based designs.
Arm Holdings’ Reference cores are still narrow order superscalar compared to the wider order superscalar Fully Custom Apple A series core designs or the Samsung Mongoose M3 Fully Custom core design that is just as wide order superscalar as Apple’s A series Fully Custom core designs. But CPU cores alone do not make the smartphone anymore as that’s also DSPs, GPUs, and Neural, GPUs and other processor related IP also.
So yes more of a concern about these new cores are the final IP that the Phone’s OEM will choose and that includes that other Percessing IP in addition to the CPU micro-arch based IP that goes into any smartphone. Qualcomm has its Hexagon DSP and other IP also and any phone OEM has options related to what IP is included in the final prodct that will affect performance.
(1)
“Apple A11”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A11
Edit: Percessing IP
To:
Edit: Percessing IP
To: Processing IP
No 2160p60fps encoding
No 2160p60fps encoding (meaning no 4K60FPS video) and probably underpowered GPU again. No thanks Huawei.
Curious how A76 IPC compares
Curious how A76 IPC compares to Apple’s custom cores…
“Starting off with a rough
“Starting off with a rough overview of the Cortex A76 microarchitectural diagram we see the larger functional blocks. The A76 doesn’t look too different than other Arm processors in this regard and the differences come only with details that Arm is willing to divulge. To overly simplify it, this is a superscalar out-of-order core with a 4-wide decode front-end with 8 execution ports in the backend with a total implementation pipeline depth of 13 stages with the execution latencies of a 11 stage core.” (1)
Now compare that to the Apple A7(Cyclone) and later Apple A series SKUs of which there is less known about their actual CPU core resources makeup. But since the A7 Cyclone that 6 wide decoders compared to the A76’s 4 wide decoders that’s going to give the A7/cyclone a higher IPC.
So for the A7 according to Shimpi’s analysis”
“I also noted an increase in overall machine size in my initial tinkering with Cyclone. Apple’s LLVM commits indicate a massive 192 entry reorder buffer (coincidentally the same size as Haswell’s ROB). Mispredict penalty goes up slightly compared to Swift, but Apple does present a range of values (14 – 19 cycles). This also happens to be the same range as Sandy Bridge and later Intel Core architectures (including Haswell). Given how much larger Cyclone is, a doubling of L1 cache sizes makes a lot of sense.
On the execution side Cyclone doubles the number of integer ALUs, load/store units and branch units. Cyclone also adds a unit for indirect branches and at least one more FP pipe. Cyclone can sustain three FP operations in parallel (including 3 FP/NEON adds). The third FP/NEON pipe is used for div and sqrt operations, the machine can only execute two FP/NEON muls in parallel.” (2)
And we know that Apple has continued to tweak its cores since the A7/Cyclone and even back then the Cyclone was a 6 wide superscalar decode and according to Shimpi’s update on the A7 cyclone at the time of the iPad Air’s review Anand finds out even more about the A7/Cyclone’s performance(3).
There are more reviews of the A7 Cyclone but That’s rather old and Apple has greatly improved everything since and up to its A11 a11 bionic chip’s cores and their IPC improvments so even the Apple A7 beats this Arm Holdings Refrence core A76 SKU in IPC what with the A7 cyclone having 6 instruction decoders compared to the A76 core 4. There is also Samsungs Fully costom M3 Mongoose core(4) that 6 wide also and has an ever larger back end than the A7 cyclone.
There really is no contest between ARM Hoidings reference design A76/eariler Arm Holdings in-house designs compared the Fully custom designs like Apple’s A series or Samsung’s Mongoose M3 and newer designs that are of a much wider order superscalar design.
With ARM Holdings Reference designs most customers lack their own fully in house chip design engineeing capability that Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm/others all have. Most of the phone OEMs will just use octo-core designs in order to try and match Apple’s and Samsung’s fatter core designs. Apple leads with its use on non CPU based custom core ASIC IP like its Neural Engine IP with Samsung and Qualcomm each having their own DSP/similar IP.
The bad thing for camparsion reasons is that even Wikichip lacks sufficient details about Apple’s Post A7/Cyclone A series CPU core details and no one websight like Wikichip is taking the time to document that information in one easy to read tabular form. Wikipedia has their info and Wikichip has the best info in one place but Apple is double top secret with is CPU core’s actual feature sets and A series core capabilities. And Anand Lal Shimpi is no longer at Anandtech(Anandtech is owned by the same Media Interest that owns Tom’s hardware USA). So it’s not looking good for there being much information on Apple’s later A series core specifications listed.
Samsung was rather like AMD and Intel on being up front with the Samsung M3 Mongoose core’s feature sets and execution resources. The Arm folks for the most part are too afraid to step up and properly list their CPU cores’ resources except Samsung who did a great job providing enough information compared to the other fully custom ARM core makers. Apple is somehow paranoid to let anyone know much at all about the actual workings of their CPU core/other processor IP.
(1)
”
Arm’s Cortex-A76 CPU Unveiled: Taking Aim at the Top for 7nm
by Andrei Frumusanu on May 31, 2018 3:01 PM EST”
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-cortex-a76-cpu-unveiled-7nm-powerhouse
(2)
“Apple’s Cyclone Microarchitecture Detailed
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 31, 2014 2:10 AM EST”
https://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchitecture-detailed
(3)
“The iPad Air Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 29, 2013 9:00 PM EST
An Update on Apple’s A7: It’s Better Than I Thought”
(4)
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12361/samsung-exynos-m3-architecture
“The Samsung Exynos M3 – 6-wide Decode With 50%+ IPC Increase
by Andrei Frumusanu on January 23, 2018 1:30 PM EST ”
How about posting with a less
How about posting with a less twatish name and coming over sounding like a massive cunt nextime?
Never that’s the whole Idea
Never that’s the whole Idea of the post and it took about 5 minutes to research that Info, not too difficult at all.
And just look at all the Gaming Morons over at r/Amd and r/Nvidia crying about AMD not competing with Nvidia in the Flagship GPU market or whining about Nvidia’s Ray Tracing. Really Nvidia’s Fanboys care more about having the highest FPS and they do not appear to care much for doing any actual gaming on Nvidia’s costly SKUs.
WTF is with you folks and getting the higest FPS at all costs, actual gaming be damned. It’s no wonder why JHH of Nvidia and Lisa Su over at AMD are focusing on the Professional markets. And AMD should never field a Flagship GPU unless it’s just a reason to get rid of some non performant GPU dies rather than having to throw them in the rubbage pile. That’s How AMD creates those dual GPU Die PCIe card Gaming/Consumer SKUs and it’s a usefull way from a business standpoint to get some money back on those poop dies that do not make the grade for professional market usage. Ditto for Nvidia and their GP102 Die binns becoming GTX 1080Ti instead of Quadros because the DIEs are too Poopy for Professional usage!
AMD is smart at 7nm with Vega 20 going towards the Professional markets just look at the Nvidia fanboys crying about paying for anything that advances more than Just the little gaming peckerwoods’ irrational psychopathic need for the highest FPS metrics. Talk about irrational cargo cultists with the gaming hicks and getting that top end FPS metrics so they can tell Vern about how important they are at the trailer park and Ditto the stupid urban Hipsters and their latest iPhone Bling.
Gamers do not want their GPUs for actual gaming they want them for the Bling Narcissistic value much like the bog standard peckerwood decks his pickup truck to look like an 18 weeler with excessive lights out the wazoo. Look at all that gamer LED Bling Narcissism, it’s as bad as the damn hipsters with their crazy body piercings and 5 full pounds of shiny metal crammed/studded everwhere or their moronic faces.
You Millennial Peckerwood MAGAs and equally moronic Hipster SJWs are out of your collective minds. Really when the comedians begin to fear college campuses because of the Damn Abject Moralists on both sides of the crazy spectrum then one knows that things are out of wack big time.
Look at all you damn Phone/Gaming-Rig-LED Bling Narcissists and you can not even tell the core from the “Uncore” on a processor or just what superscalar means in that context also.
I hope that the retailers Tack on a $200 big on all of Nvidia’s new Turing SKUs and the AIB’s Tack on $75 to that just to cover all the Pascal DIEs that Nvidia is forcing the AIBs to take on just to be able to get their hands on Turing’s Ray Tracing/AI IP. AMD with Navi(Mainstream Gaming Only) should only charge at most $100 less than Nvidia’s already high pricing and actually be able to make a proper return on their consumer market investments.
The professional GPU market has got all you gaming scrubs beat with that market’s deeper pockets! And the PC master crying race needs to stop with their whining. Because Both Nvidia and AMD(to a lesser degree than Nvidia) don’t need your stinking gamer chump change where the markups have the GPU makers barely breaking even.
Ha Ha HA, how crazy are all you Millennial Morons and your crazy fringe nut allegiances(On Both Ends of the Extremely Insane). Born with fondleslabs in your hands and a short attention spans to match with your collective propensity twoards the extremes. You where raised by a YouTube-Fondleslab mother on a diet of Video/Sound bites milk with every word and phrase in the dictionary supplanted as a business name or the name of some crappy band. So Little actual coping skills for those Socially Promoted Millennial Morons!
Ha Ha HA, Ah ha Ha HA! Look at Civilization(Not the Damn Game) exiting on stage left and getting the hell out of crazy town!
So Little actual coping skills for those Dumbed Down Socially Promoted Millennial Morons!
Way back when
In Sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston
So young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale
Where the hell am I
Hey Nineteen
No we can’t dance together
No we can’t talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
Hey Nineteen
That’s ‘Retha Franklin
She don’t remember
The Queen of Soul
It’s hard times befallen
The Soul Survivors
She thinks I’m crazy
But I’m just growing old
Hey Nineteen
No we got nothing in common
No we can’t talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
Nice
Sure looks good
Mmm-mmm-mmm
Skate a little lower now
The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
No we can’t dance together
No we can’t talk at all
If it takes about 5 minutes
If it takes about 5 minutes to research that Info WTF do you keep spamming the comments sections with information that anyone can look up instead of actually make a comment?
Haha, i guess mentioning this
Haha, i guess mentioning this guy’s constant wall of text in a negative way really got to him. Wow. I think I know who is really butt hurt. I appreciate some of the facts provided in the wall of text but maybe if you want to write an article you should get on with PCper.
Why would I as that’s almost
Why would I as that’s almost like Tom’s Hardware USA but to a much lesser degree with the over the top marketing oriented “Content”!
The Wall-O-Text is a form of Trolling that’s also mixed with some informative technical content along with the soapboxing and philosophical rants. Get on With PCcer, Just No. It’s just the piss you off and it works so well.
[philosophical rant begins]
Let’s face it Millennials are mostly humorless sticks up their Arses that mostly represent on the Left a PC-ness that is comparable to what Frank Burns of M*A*S*H* was for the 1950’s right and that sticks up their Arses time period of Right Leaning PC-ness. So the Left and the Right in current society are just the same deep down within their respective dogmas of MAGA(PC of The Right) and SJW(PC of The Left) with no happy median among these respective clueless Millennials and their Abject Moralist ways.
When the Comedians fear going onto college campuses you know that society has reached its Mad Zenith point of inquisition with so many ready to smite any and all that does not match up “correcty” with the dogma of the day. This constipated form of reasoning is why things get so out of wack that they need to be brought back to the middle ASAP with both the Far Right and Far Left pushed back out to their respective lunatic fringes.
Millennials and the excessuve use of Social Promotion and the decimitation of a true Liberal Education(Not to be confused with Politically Liberal) have developed such a myopic view of reality. It’s all owing to those specilized Curricula that are not really dispassionately academic in nature. The polemics are too much in control of the academic settings be they on the left or right and
Millennials currently lack the proper amount of education even after college to be considered fully well rounded and properly educated.
There was a time when chemistry and calculus, logic and reasoning as well as the Arts where part of a High School education and not just part of some Gifted student curriculum. Folks Failed out of High School and that was that for most folks education. Millennials and their missplaced loyalties are just now starting to move up the social ladder and into middle management and we will all have to go along for the crazy ride with that pendulum swinging ever far into the Left and Right extremes with no happy middle of the road for people to take an all too brief respite before things swing too far between one or another pole.
There is a historcial precedence of the Extreme Left Moving on to become the Extreme Right and vice versa that these antipodes of thought somehow translate into a similar form of Tyranny. And thank goodness for the electoral college and the need to temper the majority before it becomes too demagogic one way or the other.
One has to win by the geography in the US and not just by popular vote. Which is why so many on Both the Extreme Right and the Extreme Left often time express their dislike of the electoral college. Look at history and Greek Democracy was done in by the demagogues and their popular vote. Millinials and their lack of a True Liberal Education are going to be subject to becoming under the influence of the Demagogue, be it Left or Right, that still represents a Tyranny of the masses.
Millinials and their pseudo Liberal(Not Political) edication be it from left or right, non corporate or too corporate, are in for some rough times as things go too far away from the middle for ever longer periods of time. So Without any checks and balances things run by Millinials are going to go to far. Watch the comedians and how they are treated in history(By the Left or Right) and that’s a damn good indicator of how things have gotten so far out of kilter towards the left or right at times with the raging inquisitors out of control and running amok.
[philosophical rant ends]
P.S. Gamers Most of you are such abject morons that the entire technology world is being ruined under the crush of your massively undereducated effluent flow of pseudo knowledge. Just go over to r/Amd and r/Nvidia and see what the poorly educated can do to any rational thought process. I do hope the historians are backing up and mirroring all that r/whatever effluent flow that so subsumes what little rational thought can sometime get its head above the crap that flows from the gaming masses, other masses also. One can never trust the masses as history so often proves.
Nobody cares, go stick your
Nobody cares, go stick your head in a blender you massive bellend.
Really you’re the massive
Really you’re the massive sphincter of the lower end variety and you just love taking a blood engorged bellend up that lower Hula Hoop, with a very rapid shoop shoop the poop! You are so very much in your state of TRIGGERED!
You Are the very definition of a Bog Standard Gaming Git! Mindless and unable to make heads or tails of any Highly Technological Subject Matter. Just Look at all the Gaming Gits over at r/Amd and r/Nvidia and the other r/Other-Technology related free-for-alls and the little Morons unable to make use of even the most mundane of computing nomenclature and terminology that the proper academic/industrial folks have created. Look at those little Bastard Gaming Gits, they can not even make up from down or in from out of any technological discourse because that are in a never ending/never resolved battle just to attempt to suss out a common technological language in which to more rigorously define just what the hell that they and the other Gaming Gits are on about!
What great fun for any future generations will be had just looking over those brain dead musings of the incompetent Gaming Gits that so mucks up the common discourse over at r/anything-technical!
Edit: that are
To: they are
Edit: that are
To: they are
So what is with the long
So what is with the long winded, bloviated comments being posted by some wanker on these articles?
It’s mostly some massive
It’s mostly some massive wanker.
See above Reply to your other
See above Reply to your other post you sphincter of the lower end, and a very fetid variety at that. You are the one that showers all with your very special effluent!
You just like run-on
You just like run-on sentences, don’t you? Some education you have.
Results of processor real
Results of processor real testing are quite enough for multi-task devices. You need to deal with several processes at the same time. Completing tasks with a four-core processor is very effective on https://ca.edubirdie.com/. In any way, we keep waiting for new announces of Huawei.
Indeed, they’ve already
Indeed, they’ve already realesed its code. https://www.xda-developers.com/huawei-kernel-source-code-kirin-980-kirin-970-android-pie/
nice