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Kirin 950 announced: What you need to know
June 05, 2025
Mobile chip developers have been lining up their next generation hardware for a few months now andHuawei’sHiSilicon has just announced its new high-endKirin 950, and it’s a beast.
We’ll start with the main processing components, the CPU and GPU. The Kirin 950 is the first SoC based on ARM’s big.LITTLE technology to make use of four Cortex-A72 and four Cortex A53 CPU cores, combined with a Mali-T880 GPU for some serious all-around performance.
Architecturally, it’s quite a fair comparison to make to the octa-core A57/A53 big.LITTLE chips that have proven popular this generation. The Cortex-A72 found in the Kirin 950 offers an 11 percent performance boost and 20 percent reduction in power consumption when compared with an A57, while HiSilicon is boasting a 100 percent increase in GPU performance over its last chip that used a Mali-T760.
Some of these gains also come from the chip’s move on down to TSMC’s 16nm FinFET manufacturing process, marking another industry first for the Kirin 950. This puts the chip ahead of this generation’s Snapdragon 810, which was produced at 20nm, and on par with Samsung’s 14nm process. It is also a notable jump from the Kirin 930’s 28nm design.
HUAWEI has also done some major work on task scheduling and eking out additional performance. As many mobile tasks are burst like in nature, the Kirin 950 employs Heuristic Scheduling Algorithms (HSA) to predict when to boost performance for these type of workloads without causing the chip to overheat. As a result, HiSilicon boasts that the 950’s boost performance is up by 100 percent compared with its predecessor, while continuous performance is up by 56 percent. The Kirin 950 also includes support for LPDDR4 memory and is designed with ARM’s GIC500 controller and a new bus to tie the system together.
Co-processors and more
The Kirin 950 certainly has it where it counts in terms of performance capabilities, and it is packed full of extra features too.
4G LTE is included as standard, as is support for VoLTE for enhanced call quality. VoLTE is expected to arrive at China Mobile by the end of 2015, so the Kirin 950 and other chips in the line-up will be ready to take advantage. The new RF chip also supports more bands from 450MHz to 3.5G, which satisfies roaming demands.
HUAWEI has also implemented a new co-processor technology on the chip, which it calls the i5. The chip is based on ARM’s high performance Cortex-M7 microcontroller. This extra core can share resources with the main A72 and A53 CPU cores and is designed to quickly power up the main CPU cores when they are needed using an “always-sensing mode”, while also allowing a very low power sleep state. Overall, HiSilicon estimates that idle power has been reduced by 90 percent, from 90mA to just 6.5mA. The i5 co-processor can also be used to provide real-time location services, by combining GPS, WiFi and sensor positioning.
HUAWEI has also introduced its own image signal processing technology with this chip. The Kirin 950 supports 14-bit dual ISPs, allowing for a 960MPixel/s throughput, dual 13 megapixel sensors or a single 31 megapixel sensor. The integrated DSP also boasts fast facial recognition technology that can detect up to 35 faces in an image.
With new chips from Qualcomm and Samsung expected to hit devices next year, high-end handsets packing the Kirin 950 look set to offer some serious competition.
文档名称 文档密级2015-11-5 华为保密信息,未经授权禁止扩散 第1 页, 共4 页Key Messages of Kirin950 Press BriefingOn July 22, 2025, HUAWEI showcased its latest smartphone SoC, the Kirin950, ata press briefing in Beijing.1. Kirin SoCs powers 4G+ commercialization around the worldIn June 2014, HUAWEI released the world’s first 4G+ SoC, the Kirin920, and the firstLTE+ smartphone, the HONOR 6. Today, all Kirin 900 series chips can support 4G+,including the Kirin920, Kirin930, Kirin950. More than 50 percent of smartphones inChina are powered by Kirin SoCs today.2. Kirin950 supports VoLTE, delivering a better HD voice experienceWith the debut of the Kirin 930, Kirin SoCs continued to enhance the user experienceon 4G+ networks. The Kirin 930 further optimized 4G+ Internet browsing and the Kirin950 now delivers an HD voice experience to users via 4G+ networks.Upgraded 4G+ networks and increased bandwidth have created more opportunitiesfor HD voice applications. Voices can be transmitted with higher integrity, makingthem sound more realistic. Kirin 9xx SoCs support VoLTE technology, which hasdoubled the voice sampling rate, increased the spectral range by 100 percent,improved video call quality by 10 times, and enabled users to make calls while surfingthe Internet. Compared with legacy voice technologies, Kirin 950 VoLTE delivers amuch higher call quality and much lower network latency, to better meet the needs formulti-party calls and ensure call quality.To provide users with a better voice experience, the Kirin SoC team worked withleading mobile operators in China, Europe and Korea to complete a two-year VoLTEtest. CMCC’s VoLTE commercialization pace is the fastest in China. Kirin950 receivedthe earliest VoLTE verification from CMCC. China Mobile has announced that VoLTEwill be put into commercial operation across its entire network by the end of 2015, andKirin 920/930/950 SoCs support VoLTE. Among VoLTE devices put into commercial uselately across various provinces, the Kirin 920-based Mate 7 is a benchmark model.3. Kirin 950 achieves a breakthrough in energy efficiency.Managing power consumption is one of the smart phone industry’s biggest challenges.Kirin SoCs take a balanced approach to managing performance and powerconsumption, and the Kirin 950 has achieved breakthroughs both in performance anduser experience compared with its predecessors.3.1 16nm FinFET plus process technology文档名称 文档密级2015-11-5 华为保密信息,未经授权禁止扩散 第2 页, 共4 页The process technology is the foundation for user experience. The Kirin 950 is amongthe first SoCs to employ the 16nm FinFET plus process node, and is the first SoC in theindustry to commercialize the TSMC 16nm FinFET plus technology. Thecommercialization of the 16nm FinFET plus technology faced major challenges:? The number of transistors on a single chip has increased from 2 billion to 3billion, thus doubling the difficulty of metal interconnection? The 3D transistor structure makes the process much more complex? The photolithography limitation entails the dismantling of the mask, thusincreasing the mask layers by nearly 30 percent? The number of design constraints has increased from 10000+ to 40000.The decision to move to a cutting-edge process means overcoming many engineeringchallenges before commercialization. At the end of 2013, the Kirin SoC team started towork closely with TSMC to solve the mass production issues for the advanced process.The process taped out in April, 2014 and entered mass production in January, 2025-08-07 Outstanding performanceTo achieve a breakthrough in performance, Kirin 950 features the industry’s first ARM4A72+4A53 big.LITTLE architecture and its new MaliT880 GPU. Compared with A57,the performance of the new ARM Cortex A72 core has improved by 11 percent, and itspower consumption has decreased by 20 percent. The graphic rendering capacity ofKirin 950’s new GPU ARM MaliT880 is 100 percent higher than its predecessor, and itsGFLOPS is also 100 percent higher than its predecessor. In addition, the Kirin 950’snew architecture also includes a new LPDDR4, a new GIC500, and a new bus and FBCapplications, providing the Kirin 950 with a more powerful hardware performancefoundation.3.3 Fine tuningKirin 950 focuses on the user’s actual performance experience. A study shows thatquick responses and smooth operations are two key factors that affect user experience.Quick responses depend on an SoC’s boost performance, while smooth operationsdepend on its continuous performance. The Kirin SoC team optimized boost andcontinuous performance. When the user triggers an operation, the SoC can respond toit within 100ms, thus enabling a quick-response experience to the user. In active mode,each frame can be rendered within 1/60 second to deliver a smooth-operationexperience.In addition to its powerful hardware performance, the Kirin 950 employs HeuristicScheduling Algorithm (shortened for HSA) to fine-tune the system to addressAndroid’s native issues and two performance requirements: when the boost文档名称 文档密级2015-11-5 华为保密信息,未经授权禁止扩散 第3 页, 共4 页performance is required, it can make an accurate prediction and recover quickly; andin normal scenarios, it can make most accurate performance predictions withoutgenerating additional heat. Compared with its predecessor, the Kirin 950’s boostperformance has improved by 100 percent, and its continuous performance hasimproved by 56 percent.4 i5, the co-processor, enable chip-level intelligent positioningThe Kirin 950 contains a newly upgraded i5 co-processor which is based on the latestM7 cores. Compared with M3, the performance of M7 has improved by 4 times, makingit the most powerful co-processor in the industry. As the tiny core of the Kirin 950’sinnovative big.LITTLE plus tiny core architecture, i5 can collaborate with big A72 coresand little A53 cores to share resources. Under the intelligent scheduling by the mainsystem, when the master CPU is required, i5 in always-sensing mode can quickly wakeup the main CPU, thus greatly reducing the CPU start-up time. The i5 can put thephone in always-sensing mode with an ultra-low power, and can receive data fromsensors continuously even if the phone is in sleep mode. Its power consumption ismuch lower than that of the main CPU.The algorithmic strength of a location service is much higher than that of a calculatorapplication. Specifically, its real-time requirements for floating point arithmetic cannotbe fulfilled by the previous M4/M3-based solutions. The M7-based i5 processor ishighly scalable in terms of architecture, making the Kirin 950 the first SoC that canprovide real-time location services for combined GPS, base station, WiFi and sensorpositioning in indoor environments, on viaducts and among buildings. It is ahardware-based solution, reducing the power by 90 percent from 90mA to 6.5mA.5 The self-developed ISP enhances Kirin 950’s camera feature.With the Kirin 950, HUAWEI has introduced its own ISP technology to achieve apremium level of performance. It supports 14bit dual ISPs, increasing the throughputby 4 times to 960MPixel/s for quicker focusing. It also supports online dual 13M PixelSensors, up to a 32MPixel Sensor, and can collect more complete image information.The dedicated image post-processing DSP can deliver the best image quality andeffects. It integrates a high-end FD for fast and accurate face scanning, which canidentify up to 35 faces continuously in automatic face-scanning mode.6 A new in-house RF chip supports more bands for global roaming.Huawei’s new in-house RF chip provides features that could only be delivered by twoprevious-generation chips. A single chip can support carrier aggregation with higherintegration and lower power. Compared with its predecessor, the new RF chipsupports more bands from 450MHz to 3.5G which satisfies roaming demands in more文档名称 文档密级2015-11-5 华为保密信息,未经授权禁止扩散 第4 页, 共4 页countries.It is reported that HUAWEI’s latest flagship deviced based on Kirin 950 will be launchedsoon.
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