The upcoming Huawei P70 series will use a new chipset from HiSilicon tentatively named “Kirin 9010”, writes Smart Pikachu on Weibo. The chip hasn’t been officially announced yet, but it has been in the works for a long time.
The first time we heard the name Kirin 9010 was three years ago – another leakster revealed that it will be a 3nm chip. TSMC was the most likely foundry, but the trade restrictions on Huawei now make this unlikely.
Last week it was discovered that Huawei is shipping laptops with Kirin 9006C chips that were fabbed by TSMC, but that turned out to be an old stockpile. SMIC is making 7nm chips like the Kirin 9000s, however, it performs worse than TSMC’s 5nm node. SMIC is probably working on a 3nm node, though that is probably years away.
Will the Kirin 9010 really be a 3nm chip or is Huawei just reusing the name? It might be the latter, unless Huawei found a way around the trade restrictions. The company registered a trademark for the name back in 2021 (and had plans to start production in 2022, though they fell through).
Huawei will reportedly bring back 5G connectivity with the P70 series. Interestingly, rumor has it that the ultra wide camera on the P70 Art will have a 1-inch type sensor and a high quality 1G6P lens (with one glass element, six plastic). Huawei is said to be developing its own sensors – they should debut with the P70 series, which is expected to be unveiled in March.
