Huawei Launches 5G-Capable Hisilicon Kirin 990 Soc At IFA 2019
Huawei Technologies showcased its chipset for a new high-end smartphone on Friday, pressing ahead with plans to launch its Mate 30 range, despite uncertainty about whether the new phones will be able to run Google’s Android operating system and apps.
The Chinese tech giant bills the Kirin 990 chipset as the first all-in-one 5G system on a chip, describing it as superior to alternatives from Qualcomm and Samsung that, it says, graft 5G modems on to 4G chips.
“It’s the world’s most powerful 5G system on a chip. It’s the world’s most powerful 5G modem,” Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business group, said in a speech in Berlin.
Huawei’s launch at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin of the Kirin 990, made using the latest 7 nanometre production process, is part of a carefully sequenced buildup to the September 19 international launch of the Mate 30 in Munich.
Yet, say Huawei sources, it is still not known whether the Mate 30 will be able to run services from Alphabet’s Google following the blacklisting of the Chinese company by the US administration in May.