THE NEWEST GENERATION OF SOC

THE NEWEST GENERATION OF SOC:

Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 980

The HiSilicon Kirin 980 is an ARM based high-end octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablets, which was introduced with the Huawei Mate 20 Pro in late 2018. It integrates eight CPU cores in three clusters. The performance cluster contains two Cortex-A76 cores with up to 2.6 GHz, the balanced cluster contains also two Cortex-A76 cores but with only up to 1.92 GHz and finally the power saving cluster contains four small ARM Cortex-A53 cores with up to 1.8 GHz. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a modern LTE radio with Cat 21/18 (max. 1400 Mbps download, 200 Mbps upload), 2x faster dual ISP (versus 970), a LPDDR4X 2133 MHz memory controller (34.1 GB/s versus 29.9 GB/s of the Kirin 970) and a 2160p30 H.265 video encoder (2160p60 decoding). The Kirin 980 is produced in the modern 7nm process at TSMC as the first Android SoC (after the Apple A12).

Series	HiSilicon
codename	Cortex-A76/-A55
Clock Rate	<=2600mhz
Number of Cores/Threads	8/8
Transistor Count	6900 Million
Manufacturing Technology	7 nm
Features	Arm Mali G76 GPU, 2x Cortex -A76(2.6ghz) + 2x Cortex A76(1.92)+4x Cortex A53 (1.8 ghz, big.LITTLE), 2x LTE Dual-SIM(1.4Gbps down CAT21)
gpu	Arm Mali-G76 MP10 (-720mhz)
64 bit	64 bit support

A12 Bionic - Apple

A12 Bionic

A12 Bionic is a 64-bit hexa-core ARM performance mobile system on chip introduced by Aplle in late 2018 as a successor to the A11.

Overview

Fabricated on TSMC 7 nm process and integrating 6.9 billion transistors, the A12 features two big Vortex cores operating at up to 2.4 GHz along with four little Tempest high-efficiency cores. Apple claims the big cores are up to 15% faster than the one in the A11 while being up to 40% more efficient. For the four high-efficiency cores, Apple claims up to 50% higher efficiency. Note that all six cores can operate concurrently.
The A12 features an Apple-designed graphics processor that is said to deliver up to 50% higher performance as well as a neural processor capable of peak performance of 5 TOPS (int8).

Facts about chip

base frequency	2.49GHZ
core count	6
core name	Vortex+Tempest
designer	Aplle
die area	83.27 mm2
die width	8.42 mm
family	Ax
first announced	September 12, 2018
first launched	September 21, 2018
process	7nm
transistor count
used by	IPhone XR,iPhone XS and XS Max

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in December 2018. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 2.84 GHz and three further fast ARM Cortex-A76 performance cores, which can reach up to 2.42 GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8 GHz. The higher ‘Prime Core’ clock speed should provide significantly better single core performance than the Snapdragon 845, but we suspect that the Snapdragon 855 will fall short of the Apple A12 Bionic. The new SoC should have up to 45% faster single-core performance and 35% multi-core performance than its predecessor. Qualcomm praises the Snapdragon 855’s ability to maintain its performance when faced with sustained load, beating the Apple A12 Bionic SoC and the HiSilicon Kirin 980.

Series	Qualcomm Snapdragon
Codename	Cortex-A76 / A55 (Kryo 485)
Clock Rate	2840 MHz
Level 3 Cache	5 MB
Number of Cores / Threads	8 / 8
Max. Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power)	5 Watt
Manufacturing Technology	7 nm
Features	X24 LTE Modem, Adreno 640 GPU
GPU	Qualcomm Adreno 640
64 Bit	64 Bit support
Announcement Date	12/05/2018 = 104 days old
Product Link (external)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855