HiSilicon Kirin 990 vs HiSilicon Kirin 820e

HiSilicon Kirin 990

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is an ARM based high-end octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablets, which was introduced with the Huawei Mate 30 Pro in late 2019. It integrates eight CPU cores in three clusters. The performance cluster contains two Cortex-A76 cores with up to 2.86 GHz, the balanced cluster contains also two Cortex-A76 cores but with only up to 2.09 GHz and finally the power saving cluster contains four small ARM Cortex-A55 cores with up to 1.86 GHz. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a neural processor (1 + 1 cores) for AI tasks and a ARM Mali-G76 MP16 GPU clcoked at up to 600 MHz. Compared to the 5G version, the 4G Kirin 990 integrates a fast 4G modem and is slightly lower clocked (2 of the 3 clusters and the GPU).

The Kirin 990 is produced in the modern 7nm process at TSMC.

HiSilicon Kirin 820e

The HiSilicon Kirin 820e is a ARM-based mid-range Octa-Core-SoC for Android based smartphones and tablets. It was announced 2022 and contains 8 processor cores. One fast ARM Cortex-A76 core with up to 2.22 GHz, three addition A76 cores at up to 2 and four efficiency Cortex-A55 cores at up to 1.84 GHz. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a 5G modem and a fast mid-range ARM Mali-G57 MP6 graphics card. For AI acceleration, the Kirin 820 integrates a DaVinci NPU. Compared to the similar named Kirin 820, the 820e offers slower clocked CPU cores on a level with the older Kirin 810.

The chip should also integrate Bluetooth 5 and WiFi 6.

The SoC is manufactured in the modern 7nm process at TSMC and therefore should be very energy efficient.