HiSilicon Kirin 990 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ / 855 Plus vs HiSilicon Kirin 810

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.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ / 855 Plus

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus (855+) Mobile Platform is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in 2019. Compared to the normal Snapdragon 855, the 855 Plus offers higher clock speeds of the GPU and CPU. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 2.96 GHz (up from 2.84 GHz in the 855) and three further fast ARM Cortex-A76 performance cores, which can reach up to 2.42 GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8 GHz.

The SoC also integrates the new X24 LTE modem that Qualcomm promises will deliver up to 2 Gbit/s maximum download speed over LTE Cat.20 and up to 316 Mbit/s upload speeds. The Snapdragon 855 can be configured with the company’s new X50 5G modem too.

Qualcomm has also improved the integrated Wi-Fi modem, which is Wi-Fi 6-ready, has 8x8 Sounding and supports up to 802.11 ay Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi modem can utilise the 60 GHz mmWave band for up to 10 Gbit/s internet speeds.

The Hexagon 690 DSP has undergone the most revisions of that which Qualcomm has integrated into the Snapdragon 855. The new DSP incorporates a neural processing unit (NPU) with dedicated Tensor-cores that can execute up to 7 trillion operations per second in conjunction with the CPU and GPU. In short, the Snapdragon 855 should be three times faster than the Snapdragon 845 and two times faster than the Kirin 980 SoC.

The Snapdragon 855 also has a Spectra 380 ISP onboard, which is the world’s first chip to incorporate a Computer Vision Engine (CV-ISP) that can perform depth calculations in videos at up to 60 FPS. The Snapdragon 855 should deliver real-time portrait modes or be able to detect objects with relatively low power consumption.

The built-in memory controller supports up to 16 GB LPDDR4x RAM (4 x 16-bit). As the SD855, the 855+ integrates an Adreno 640 graphics card that is now higher clocked and should offer a 15% higher performance.

Qualcomm will manufacturer the Snapdragon 855+ at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) using a 7 nm FinFET process. 

HiSilicon Kirin 810

The HiSilicon Kirin 810 is a ARM-based mid-range Octa-Core-SoC for Android based smartphones and tablets. It was announced mid 2019 and contains 8 processor cores. Two fast ARM Cortex-A76 cores with up to 2.27 GHz and six small power efficient ARM Cortex-A55 cores with up to 1.88 GHz (bigLITTLE). Furthermore, the SoC integrates a mid range graphics card called ARM Mali-G52 MP6 with 6 clusters. For AI acceleration, the Kirin 810 integrates a Ascend D100 Lite NPU (Da Vinci architecture). The integrates LTE modem supports Cat.12/13 with Dual Sim VoLTE. For photography, the Kirin 810 integrates the Kirin ISP4.0. The memory controller supports LPDDR4X at up to 2133 MHz. Furthermore, WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0 are integrated in the chip.

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