It hasn’t been long since Huawei unveiled its Kirin 980 processor that’s now powering its latest flagship smartphone. It’s also the company’s first mobile processor built on the 7nm process technology. If a new report out of China is believed, Huawei has another 7nm mobile chip in the pipeline which will also feature a 5G modem. The company is expected to launch this chip in 2019.
The report claims that Huawei may announce the arrival of this chipset in the first quarter of 2019. This means that Huawei smartphones powered by this chip could arrive by mid-2019.
This won’t really be surprising as multiple manufacturers are expected to launch 5G-capable smartphones in the first half of next year. Samsung’s Galaxy S10, due in the first quarter of 2019, is likely going to have a separate 5G variant.
The Kirin 990 chipset will reportedly be manufactured by TSMC with HiSilicon, Huawei’s chip division, investing $28 million for research and development. The overall chip architecture may be similar to the Kirin 980. It will be the first chip from Huawei to feature its Balong 5000 5G modem.
Huawei hasn’t said anything about this chipset so far which is why the report shouldn’t be taken at face value right now. If the company is indeed going to launch this chip in the first quarter of 2019 then we should be hearing more reports about it in the coming weeks.