Purported Kirin 1020 to end the current Snapdragon dominance

According to word on the grapevine, Huawei is working on a new SoC, the Kirin 1020, that will offer twice the performance of the current-gen Kirin 970.

Huawei launched its Kirin 970 SoC back in September last year. While the SoC is as premium as it get—even having the honor of the being the first mobile processor to feature a dedicated neural processing unit—the launch of the Snapdragon 845 a few months later all but put paid to the Kirin 970’s reign.

Not for much longer, though. According to sources, the company is working on a Kirin 1020 that’s supposed to take the Snapdragon 845 to the cleaners. The Snapdragon 845 has a sizeable 80% lead over the Kirin 970 in single core scores, and a 20% lead in multi-core, so this would have to be quite the jump in performance from the touted Kirin 1020.

Do note that Huawei’s next flagship SoC remains the Kirin 980. It’s said to be built on TSMC’s 7nm manufacturing node, and will likely be unveiled sometime in August.