HiSilicon Kirin 930 vs HiSilicon Kirin 960 vs HiSilicon Kirin 650

HiSilicon Kirin 930

The HiSilicon Kirin 930 is an ARM-based octa-core SoC (system-on-a-chip) for smartphones and tablets. It was launched in the first half of 2015. It integrates two quad-core clusters of Cortex-A53 cores (big.LITTLE). The performance cluster clocks at up to 2 GHz, the power saving cluster at up to 1.5 GHz. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a ARM Mali-T628 MP4 graphics card and LTE Cat. 6 modem. The SoC is manufactured in 28nm and thanks to the small Cortex-A53 cores also suited for smaller smartphones.

HiSilicon Kirin 960

The HiSilicon Kirin 960 is an ARM based high-end octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablet, which was introduced with the Huawei Mate 9 in November 2016. Besides 8 CPU cores (4x Cortex-A73, 4x Cortex-A53), the SoC is also equipped with a modern Mali-G71 MP8 graphics adapter, a dual-channel LPDDR4 memory controller as well as an LTE Cat. 12/13 modem. It is one of the fastest ARM SoCs in the end of 2016. The Kirin 960 is manufactured in a modern 16-nm process at TSMC.

HiSilicon Kirin 650

The HiSilicon Kirin 650 is an ARM-based octa-core SoC for mid-range smartphones and tablets. It was announced early 2016 and features eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores. Four cores can be clocked with up to 1.7 GHz (power saving cores) and four with up to 2 GHz (performance cores). Furthermore, a ARM Mali-T830 MP2 graphics card (at 600 MHz with 40.8 GFLOPS), a 64-Bit LPDDR3 memory controller and a dual-sim capable LTE Cat. 6 (max. 300 MBit/s and GSM, WCDMA, UMTS, HSPA+) radio are integrated in the SoC.

The processor performance can be compared with the older Kirin 930 and therefore sufficient for daily usage as browsing and non demanding apps. High-end SoCs with Cortex-A57 or A72 cores however should be noticeably faster.

The SoC is produced in a modern 16nm FinFET process and is therefore very power efficient.