HiSilicon explained

HiSilicon Co., Ltd.
Native Name:海思技术有限公司;上海海思
Foundation:[1]
Type:Subsidiary
Parent:Huawei
Location:Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Industry:Fabless semiconductors, Semiconductors, Integrated circuit design
Products:SoCs
S:海思技术有限公司
T:海思技術有限公司
P:Hǎisī Jìshù Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī
L:Haisi Technology Limited Company
Order:st

HiSilicon (Chinese: c=海思|p=Hǎisī) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, ARM Cortex-M3, ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore, ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore,[2] [3] ARM Cortex-A53, ARM Cortex-A57 and also for their Mali graphics cores.[4] [5] HiSilicon has also purchased licenses from Vivante Corporation for their GC4000 graphics core.

HiSilicon is reputed to be the largest domestic designer of integrated circuits in China.[6] In 2020, the United States instituted rules that require any American firms providing equipment to HiSilicon or non-American firms who use American technologies or IPR (such as TSMC) that supply HiSilicon to have licenses[7] as part of the ongoing trade dispute, and Huawei announced it will stop producing its Kirin chipsets from 15 September 2020 onwards[8] due to this disruption of its supply chain. On 29 August 2023, Huawei announced the first fully domestically fabricated chip, the Kirin 9000S, which is used on its latest Mate 60 Pro phablet series of phones and MatePad 13.2 tablets.

History

HiSilicon was Huawei's ASIC design center, which was founded in 1991.[9]

Smartphone application processors

HiSilicon develops SoCs based on the ARM architecture. Though not exclusive, these SoCs see preliminary use in handheld and tablet devices of its parent company Huawei.

K3V2

The first well known product of HiSilicon is the K3V2 used in Huawei Ascend D Quad XL (U9510) smartphones[12] and Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD7 tablets. This chipset is based on the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore fabbed at 40 nm and uses a 16 core Vivante GC4000 GPU.[13] The SoC supports LPDDR2-1066, but actual products are found with LPDDR-900 instead for lower power consumption.

K3V2E

This is a revised version of K3V2 SoC with improved support of Intel baseband.The SoC supports LPDDR2-1066, but actual products are found with LPDDR-900 instead for lower power consumption.

Kirin 620

• supports – USB 2.0 / 13 MP / 1080p video encode

Kirin 650, 655, 658, 659

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 650 (Hi6250)16 nm
FinFET+
ARM v8-ACortex-A53
Cortex-A53
4+42.0 (4x A53)
1.7 (4x A53)
Mali-T830 MP2900 MHz
(57.6 GFlops in FP32)
LPDDR3
(933 MHz)
64-bit
dual-channel
(2x 32-bit) [16]
A-GPS, GlonassDual SIM LTE Cat.6 (300 Mbit/s)WIFI 4 (802.11n) Bluetooth 4.1Q2 2016
Kirin 6552.12 (4x A53)
1.7 (4x A53)
Q4 2016
Kirin 6582.35 (4x A53)
1.7 (4x A53)
WIFI 5 (802.11ac)Q2 2017

Kirin 710

Model NumberFabCPUGPUMemory TechnologyNavWirelessSampling availabilityDevices using
ISAMicroarchitectureCoresFrq (GHz)MicroarchitectureFrq (MHz)TypeBus width (bit)Bandwidth (GB/s)CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 710 (Hi6260)TSMC 12 nm FinFETARMv8-ACortex-A73
Cortex-A53
4+42.2 (A73)1.7 (A53)Mali-G51 MP41000 MHz
(64 GFLOPS in FP32)
32-bit A-GPS, GLONASSDual SIM LTE Cat.12 (600 Mbit/s)WIFI 4 (802.11 b/g/n) Bluetooth v4.2Q3 2018
Kirin 710F[17]
Kirin 710ASMIC 14 nm FinFET[18] 2.0 (A73)1.7 (A53)

Kirin 810 and 820

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 810
(Hi6280)
7 nm
FinFET
ARM v8.2-ACortex-A76
Cortex-A55
(big.LITTLE)
2+62.27 (2x A76)
1.90 (6x A55)
Mali-G52 MP6820 MHz
(157.4 GFLOPS in FP32)
LPDDR4X
(2133 MHz)
64-bit (16-bit
quad-channel)
31.78A-GPS, Glonass, BDSDual SIM LTE Cat.12
(600 Mbit/s)
WIFI 5 (802.11ac) Bluetooth 5.0Q2 2019
Kirin 820 5G
(Hi6290L V100)
(1+3)+42.36 (1x A76 H)
2.22 (3x A76 L)
1.84 (4x A55)
Mali-G57 MP6Balong 5000 (Sub-6 GHz Only; NSA & SA)Q1 2020
Kirin 820E 5G3+32.22 (3x A76 L)
1.84 (3x A55)
Mali-G57 MP6Balong 5000 (Sub-6 GHz Only; NSA & SA)Q1 2021

Kirin 8000

HiSilicon Kirin 8000 is a mid-range Kirin 8 series chip not officially announced, however, it was released along with the announcement of Huawei nova 12.[19]

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus width (bit)Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 8000
(Hi6290V110)
SMIC N+2
7 nm FinFET
ARM
v8.2-A
Cortex-A77
Cortex-A55
(big.LITTLE)
1+3+42.40 (1x A77 H)
2.19 (3x A77 L)
1.84 (4x A55)
Mali-G610
MP4
864 MHz
(442.4 GFLOPS in FP32)
LPDDR4X
-4266
64-bit (16-bit
quad-channel)
51.2GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, BeiDou, Galileo, QZSSBalong modem Wi-Fi 6
(802.11ax)
Bluetooth 5.2Q2 2019
Kirin T80
(Hi6290V110)
Q1 2025Huawei MatePad 11.5 PaperMatte (2025)

Kirin 910 and 910T

Model NumberFabCPUGPUMemory TechnologyNavWirelessSampling availabilityDevices using
ISAMicroarchitectureCoresFrq (GHz)MicroarchitectureFrq (MHz)TypeBus width (bit)Bandwidth (GB/s)CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 910 (Hi6620)28 nm HPMARMv74 1.6533 MHz
(32 GFLOPs in FP32)
32-bit single-channel 6.4LTE Cat.4H1 2014
Kirin 910T1.8700 MHz
(41.8 GFLOPs in FP32)
H1 2014

Kirin 920, 925 and 928

• The Kirin 920 SoC also contains an image processor that supports up to 32-megapixel

Model NumberFabCPUGPUMemory TechnologyNavWirelessSampling availabilityDevices using
ISAMicroarchitectureCoresFrq (GHz)MicroarchitectureFrq (MHz)TypeBus width (bit)Bandwidth (GB/s)CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 92028 nm HPMARMv74+4 1.7 (A15)
1.3 (A7)
600 MHz
(76.8 GFLOPs in FP32)
LPDDR3 (1600 MHz)64-bit dual-channel 12.8LTE Cat.6 (300 Mbit/s)H2 2014
Kirin 925 (Hi3630)1.8 (A15)
1.3 (A7)
Q3 2014
Kirin 9282.0 (A15)
1.3 (A7)

Kirin 930 and 935

• supports – SD 3.0 (UHS-I) / eMMC 4.51 / Dual-band a/b/g/n Wi-Fi / Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy / USB 2.0 / 32 MP ISP / 1080p video encode

Model NumberFabCPUGPUMemory TechnologyNavWirelessSampling availabilityDevices using
ISAMicroarchitectureCoresFrq (GHz)MicroarchitectureFrq (MHz)TypeBus width (bit)Bandwidth (GB/s)CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 930 (Hi3635)28 nm HPCARMv8-ACortex-A53
Cortex-A53
4+42.0 (A53)
1.5 (A53)
Mali-T628 MP4600 MHz
(76.8 GFLOPs in FP32)
LPDDR3 (1600 MHz) 64-bit(2x32-bit) Dual-channel 12.8 GB/sDual SIM LTE Cat.6 (DL:300 Mbit/s UP:50 Mbit/s)Q1 2015
Kirin 9352.2 (A53)
1.5 (A53)
680 MHz
(87 GFLOPs in FP32)
Q1 2015

Kirin 950 and 955

• supports – SD 4.1 (UHS-II) / UFS 2.0 / eMMC 5.1 / MU-MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi / Bluetooth 4.2 Smart / USB 3.0 / NFS / Dual ISP (42 MP) / Native 10-bit 4K video encode / i5 coprocessor / Tensilica HiFi 4 DSP

Model NumberFabCPUGPUMemory TechnologyNavWirelessSampling availabilityDevices using
ISAMicroarchitectureCoresFrq (GHz)MicroarchitectureFrq (MHz)TypeBus width (bit)Bandwidth (GB/s)CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 950 (Hi3650)TSMC 16 nm FinFET+[20] ARMv8-ACortex-A72
Cortex-A53
big.LITTLE
4+42.3 (A72)
1.8 (A53)
Mali-T880 MP4900 MHz
(151.2 GFLOPS in FP32)
64-bit(2x32-bit) Dual-channel 25.6Dual SIM LTE Cat.6Q4 2015
Kirin 955[21] 2.5 (A72)
1.8 (A53)
LPDDR3 (3 GB) LPDDR4 (4 GB) Q2 2016

Kirin 960

Kirin 970

Kirin 980 and Kirin 985 5G/4G

Kirin 980 is HiSilicon's first SoC based on 7 nm FinFET technology.

Kirin 985 5G is the second Hisilicon's 5G SoC based on 7 nm FinFET Technology.

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 980TSMC 7 nm
FinFET
ARM
v8.2-A
Cortex-A76
Cortex-A55
(big.LITTLE)
(2+2)+42.6 (A76 H)
1.92 (A76 L)
1.8 (A55)
Mali-G76 MP10[25] 720 MHz
(345.6 GFLOPS in FP32)
LPDDR4X
-2133
64-bit (4x16-bit)
Quad-channel
34.1GalileoDual SIM LTE Cat.21 LTE 5x CA, No 4x4 MIMOQ4 2018
Kirin 985 5G/4G
(Hi6290V110)
(1+3)+42.58 (A76 H)
2.40 (A76 L)
1.84 (A55)
Mali-G77 MP8700 MHz
(358.4 GFLOPS in FP32)
Balong 5000 (Sub-6 GHz only; NSA & SA), 4G version availableQ2 2020

Kirin 990 4G, Kirin 990 5G and Kirin 990E 5G

Kirin 990 5G is HiSilicon's first 5G SoC based on N7 nm+ FinFET technology.[26]

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 990 4GTSMC 7 nm
FinFET (DUV)
ARM
v8.2-A
Cortex-A76
Cortex-A55
(big.LITTLE)
(2+2)+42.86 (A76 H)
2.09 (A76 L)
1.86 (A55)
Mali-G76 MP16600 MHz
(460.8 GFLOPS in FP32)
LPDDR4X
-2133
64-bit (4x16-bit)
Quad-channel
34.1Beidou, Galileo, GlonassBalong 765 (LTE Cat.19)Q4 2019
Kirin 990 5GTSMC 7 nm+
FinFET (EUV)
2.86 (A76 H)
2.36 (A76 L)
1.95 (A55)
Balong 5000 (Sub-6-GHz only; NSA & SA)
Kirin 990E 5GMali-G76 MP14600 MHz
(403.2 GFLOPS in FP32)
Q4 2020

Kirin 9000 5G/4G and Kirin 9000E, Kirin 9000L

Kirin 9000 is HiSilicon's first SoC based on 5 nm+ FinFET (EUV) TSMC technology (N5 node) and the first 5 nm SoC to be launched on the international market.[27] This octa-core system on a chip is based on the 9th Gen of the HiSilicon Kirin series and is equipped with 15.3 billion transistors in a 1+3+4 core configuration: 4 Arm Cortex-A77 CPU (1x 3.13 GHz and 3x 2.54 GHz), 4 Arm Cortex-A55 (4x 2.05 GHz) and a 24-core Mali-G78 GPU (22-core in the Kirin 9000E version) The Kirin 9000L uses a 1+2+3 core configuration: 3 Arm Cortex-A77 (1x 3.13 GHz and 2x 2.54 GHz), 3 Arm Cortex-A55 (3x 2.05 GHz) and a 22-core Mali-G78 GPU with Kirin Gaming+ 3.0 implementation.

The integrated quad pipeline NPU (Dual Big Core + 1 Tiny Core configuration) is equipped with the Kirin ISP 6.0 to support advanced computational photography. The Huawei Da Vinci Architecture 2.0 for AI supports 2x Ascend Lite + 1x Ascend Tiny (only 1 Lite in 9000E/L). The system cache is 8 MB and the SoC works with the new LPDDR5/4X memories (made by Samsung in the Huawei Mate 40 series). Due to the integrated 3rd generation 5G proprietary modem "Balong 5000", Kirin 9000 supports 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G SA & NSA Sub-6 GHz connectivity. The SoC's TDP is 6W.

The 2021 4G version of the Kirin 9000 has the Balong modem limited via software to comply with the ban imposed on Huawei by the US government for non-chinese 5G technologies. The Kirin 9006C is a rebranded variant of the Kirin 9000E for the Huawei Qingyun L420 and L540 laptops.[28] [29]

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCoresFreq (GHz)μarchFreq
(MHz)
TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 9000LTSMC 5 nm+
FinFET (EUV)
ARM v8.2-ACortex-A77
Cortex-A55
(big.LITTLE)
(1+2)+33.13 (A77 H)
2.54 (A77 L)
2.05 (A55)
Mali-G78 MP22759 MHz
(1068.7 GFLOPS in FP32)
LPDDR4X
-2133
LPDDR5
-2750
64-bit (4x16-bit)
Quad-channel
34.1 (LPDDR4X)
44 (LPDDR5)
Beidou, Galileo, GlonassBalong 5000 (Sub-6-GHz only; NSA & SA)Wi-Fi 6Q4 2020Huawei Mate 40E Pro
Kirin 9000E(1+3)+4Balong 5000 (Sub-6-GHz only; NSA & SA)
4G version available
Kirin 9000
(Hi36A0V101)
Mali-G78 MP24759 MHz
(1165.8 GFLOPS in FP32)
Wi-Fi 6

Kirin 9000S, Kirin 9010, Kirin 9020 series

The Kirin 9000S, Kirin 9000S1, and Kirin 9010 of the Kirin 9000 Hi36A0 family were the first HiSilicon-developed SoCs manufactured in high volumes in mainland China in 2023 by SMIC. The SoC had its debut with the Huawei Mate 60 in late 2023 with the Kirin 9000S alongside overclocked enhancements of the Kirin 9000S1 and Kirin 9010 with the Huawei Pura 70 series in early 2024.[30] According to Tom's Hardware, the Taishan V120 core, developed by HiSilicon, was roughly on par with AMD's Zen 3 cores from late 2020.[31] Four of these cores were used in the 9000 series alongside four efficiency-focused Arm Cortex-A510 cores.[32] The SoCs are based on SMIC's 7nm technology node, referred to as "N+2". It also includes 1 Da Vinci "big" NPU core and 1 Da Vinci "small" NPU core. Kirin 9000W, a Wi-Fi only SoC for the Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 Wi-Fi only model, debuted in global markets in Q1 2024. The Kirin 9010 and Kirin 9000S1 debuted in Q2 2024, using a modified 2+6+4 core configuration with a new large Taishan core with the same configurations of medium and small cores from the Kirin 9000S with faster enhancements over the Kirin 9000S.[33]

Model numberFabCPUGPUMemory technologyNavWirelessSampling
availability
Devices using
ISAμarchCores
(total)
Threads
(total)
Freq (GHz)μarchFreq (MHz)TypeBus
width
(bit)
Band
width
(GB/s)
CellularWLANPAN
Kirin 9000S
(Hi36A0V120)
SMIC
7 nm
FinFET [34] [35]
ARMv8.xHiSilicon
Taishan,
Cortex-A510
1+3+4 (8)2+6+4 (12)2.62 GHz (TaishanV120)
2.15 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.53 GHz (Cortex-A510)
HiSilicon
Maleoon 910
750 MHzLPDDR5
-6400 @2750Mhz
LPDDR5X
-8533 @4266Mhz
64-bit (4x16-bit) Quad-
channel
51.2 (LPDDR5)
68.2 (LPDDR5X)
Beidou, Galileo, GLONASSBalong 5000 5G 3GPP Rel. 15 (Sub-6-GHz)Wi-Fi 6
(external
module)
Bluetooth 5.2, NearLink, NFCQ3 2023
Kirin 9000S1
(Hi36A0V120)
2.49 GHz (TaishanV120)
2.15 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.53 GHz (Cortex-A510)
Q1 2024Huawei Pura 70
Kirin 9000W
(Hi36A0V120)
Q4 2023
Kirin 9000WL
(Hi36A0V120)
Q2 2024Huawei MatePad 11.5 S PaperMatte Edition
Kirin 9000WE
(Hi36A0V120)
Q2 2024Huawei MatePad 11.5 S (12GB RAM)
Kirin T90
(Hi36A0V120)
Q3 2024Huawei MatePad Air (2024)
Kirin T90A
(Hi36A0V120)
Q3 2024Huawei MatePad 12 X
Kirin 9000SL
(Hi36A0V120)
1+2+3 (6)2+4+3 (9)2.35 GHz (TaishanV120)
2.15 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.53 GHz (Cortex-A510)
Balong 5000 5G 3GPP Rel. 15 (Sub-6-GHz)Q4 2023Huawei Nova 12 Ultra
Kirin 9000WM
(Hi36A0V120)
Q2 2024Huawei MatePad 11.5 S Smart Model
Kirin 9010
(Hi36A0V121)
1+3+4 (8)2+6+4 (12)2.30 GHz (TaishanV121)
2.18 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.55 GHz (Cortex-A510)
Balong 5000 5G 3GPP Rel. 15 (Sub-6-GHz)Q2 2024
Kirin 9010E
(Hi36A0V121)
2.19 GHz (TaishanV121)
2.18 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.55 GHz (Cortex-A510)
Q3 2024Huawei Nova Flip
Kirin 9010A
(Hi36A0V121)
Q3 2024
Kirin 9010W
(Hi36A0V121)
Q3 2024
Kirin T91
(Hi36A0V121)
Q3 2024Huawei MatePad Pro 12.2 (2024)
Kirin 9010L
(Hi36A0V121)
1+2+3 (6)2+4+3 (9)2.19 GHz (TaishanV121)
2.18 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.40 GHz (Cortex-A510)
Balong 5000 5G 3GPP Rel. 15 (Sub-6-GHz)Q2 2024Huawei Nova 12 Ultra Star Edition
Kirin 9020
(Hi36C0V110)[36]
HiSilicon
Taishan
1+3+4 (8)2+6+4 (12)2.50 GHz (TaishanV123)
2.15 GHz (TaishanV120)
1.60 GHz (Taishan-Little)
HiSilicon
Maleoon 920
840 MHzBalong 6000 5G 3GPP Rel. 17 (Sub-6-GHz)Q4 2024
Kirin T92
(Hi36C0V110)
Q4 2024Huawei MatePad Pro 13.2 (2025)

Smartphone modems

HiSilicon develops smartphone modems which are primarily used in its parent company Huawei's handheld and tablet devices.

Balong 700

The Balong 700 supports LTE TDD/FDD.[37] Its specs:

Balong 710

At MWC 2012, HiSilicon released the Balong 710.[38] It is a multi-mode chipset supporting 3GPP Release 9 and LTE Category 4 at GTI (Global TD-LTE Initiative). The Balong 710 was designed to be used with the K3V2 SoC. Its specs:

Balong 720

The Balong 720 supports LTE Cat6 with 300 Mbit/s peak download rate. Its specs:

Balong 750

The Balong 750 supports LTE Cat 12/13, and it is first to support 4CC CA and 3.5 GHz. Its specs:

Balong 765

The Balong 765 supports 8×8 MIMO technology, LTE Cat.19 with downlink data-rate up to 1.6 Gbit/s in FDD network and up to 1.16 Gbit/s in the TD-LTE network.[39] Its specs:

Balong 5G01

The Balong 5G01 supports the 3GPP standard for 5G with downlink speeds of up to 2.3 Gbit/s. It supports 5G across all frequency bands including sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave). Its specs:

Balong 5000

The Balong 5000 was the world's first 7 nm TSMC 5G multi-mode chipset (launched in Q1 2019), the world's first SA/NSA implementation, and the first smartphone chipset to support the full NR TDD/FDD spectrum.[40] The modem has an advanced 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G connectivity.[41] Its specs:

Balong 6000

The Balong 6000 is an iteration of the HiSilicon Balong 5G baseband series and first appeared in the Huawei Mate 70 Pro, launched on November 26, 2024.

It is one of the first 3GPP Rel. 18 and therefore 5.5G/5G-Advanced supporting modem in the world alongside the Qualcomm Snapdragon X75/X80 and onwards series.[43]

Wearable SoCs

HiSilicon develops SoCs for wearables such as wireless earbuds, wireless headphones, neckband earbuds, smart speakers, smart eyewear, and smartwatches.[45]

Kirin A1

The Kirin A1 (Hi1132) was announced on 6 September 2019.[45] It features:

Kirin A2

The Kirin A2 was announced on September 25, 2023.[47] It features:

Server processors

HiSilicon develops server processor SoCs based on the ARM architecture.

Hi1610

The Hi1610 is HiSilicon's first generation server processor announced in 2015. It features:

Hi1612

The Hi1612 is HiSilicon's second generation server processor launched in 2016. It is the first chiplet-based Kunpeng with two computing dies. It features:

Kunpeng 916 (formerly Hi1616)

The Kunpeng 916 (formerly known as Hi1616) is HiSilicon's third generation server processor launched in 2017. The Kunpeng 916 is used in Huawei's TaiShan 2280 Balanced Server, TaiShan 5280 Storage Server, TaiShan XR320 High-Density Server Node and TaiShan X6000 High-Density Server.[49] [50] [51] [52] It features:

Kunpeng 920 (formerly Hi1620)

The Kunpeng 920 (formerly known as Hi1620) is HiSilicon's fourth generation server processor announced in 2018, and launched in 2019. Huawei claims the Kunpeng 920 CPU scores more than an estimated 930 on SPECint_rate_base2006.[53] The Kunpeng 920 is used in Huawei's TaiShan 2280 V2 Balanced Server, TaiShan 5280 V2 Storage Server, and TaiShan XA320 V2 High-Density Server Node.[54] [55] [56] It features:

Kunpeng 920B (formerly Hi1630V100)

The Kunpeng 920B (formerly known as Hi1630V100) is HiSilicon's fifth-generation server processor announced in 2019 and scheduled for launch in 2021. It features:

Kunpeng 950

The Kunpeng 950 is HiSilicon's sixth-generation server processor announced in 2019 and scheduled for launch in 2023.

AI acceleration

HiSilicon also develops AI Acceleration chips.

Da Vinci architecture

Each Da Vinci Max AI Core features a 3D Cube Tensor Computing Engine (4096 FP16 MACs + 8192 INT8 MACs), a vector unit (2048bit INT8/FP16/FP32), and a scalar unit. It includes a new AI framework called "MindSpore", a platform-as-a-service product called ModelArts, and a lower-level library called Compute Architecture for Neural Networks (CANN).

Ascend 310

The Ascend 310 is an AI inference SoC, it was codenamed Ascend-Mini. The Ascend 310 is capable of 16 TOPS@INT8 and 8 TOPS@FP16.[59] The Ascend 310 features:

Ascend 910

The Ascend 910 is an AI training SoC, it was codenamed Ascend-Max. which delivers 256 TFLOPS@FP16 and 512 TOPS@INT8. The Ascend 910 features:

Ascend 910B

Ascend 910B is manufactured by SMIC and is very different from Ascend 910.[61]

Ascend 910C

Huawei Ascend 910C is expected to be mass shipped in May 2025, Ascend 910C combines two Ascend 910B processors. Ascend 910C is an evolution rather than a breakthrough, it achieves performance similar to NVIDIA H100. NVIDIA H100 chips were banned from sale to China by US government in 2022.[62]

DeepSeek researchers say Huawei Ascend 910C provides 60% of NVIDIA H100 inference performance. Ascend 910C compute chiplet is made by SMIC at 2nd generation 7nm process known as N+2.[63]

DeepSeek R1 model was trained on NVIDIA H800, but runs inference on Ascend 910C.[64]

Huawei is expected to sell more than 800,000 of Ascend 910B and Ascend 910C in 2025.[65]

In late April 2025 Huawei started delivering to customers CloudMatrix 384 - a cluster consisting of Ascend 910C chips. The system performs better than NVL72 (72 GB200 chips) from NVIDIA, however the power consumption is significantly higher. CloudMatrix 384 sells for Rmb60mn ($8.2mn) a set.[66] CloudMatrix 384 solution provides 2.3x lower performance per watt than Nvidia's GB200 NVL72. The systems consists of 16 racks including 12 computing racks and 4 networking ones facilitating high-bandwidth using 6912 800G LPO optical transceivers. CloudMatrix uses entirely optical connections for intra- and inter-rack connectivity.[67]

Ascend 910D

In late April 2025 WSJ has reported that Huawei approached several China based companies about testing Ascend 910D, the companies will receive first samples in May 2025.[65]

Ascend 920

Ascend 920 was announced in April 2025 and expected to provide performance similar to NVIDIA H20 chip (which was banned in April 2025 from selling to China). Ascend 920 is expected to be mass produced in late 2025. Ascend 920 features:[68]

Semiconductor equipment export control by US

The US government started to pressure ASML Holding not to sell new EUV machines to China in 2018.[69]

In 2022, the US government was lobbying the Dutch government to bar ASML from selling older DUV (deep ultraviolet lithography) machines to China. These DUV machines are a generation behind of newer EUV models.[70]

Lam Research and Applied Materials have suspended sales and services to Chinese counterparts in 2022.[71]

In late 2024, the US government expanded export control which will hit semiconductor toolmakers such as KLA Corporation, Lam Research and Applied Materials.[72]

China based SiCarrier is developing equipment to replace products from ASML Holding, Lam Research and Applied Materials.[73]

In late May 2025, the US administration has told to Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys and Siemens EDA to stop supplying their products to China. The restrictions have encouraged the local EDA companies such as Empyrean Technology, Primarius and Semitronix to significantly grow market share.[74]

In September 2025, the SMIC (the largest foundry in China) has started testing the first domestically produced DUV lithography equipment (DUV is the previous generation before EUV). This set of tools was developed by Shanghai Yuliangsheng Technology Co.. The machine is designed for 28nm fabrication, although it can be used for 7nm and 5nm fabrication using multipatterning techniques. It is expected that the mass production of DUV machines will begin in 2027.[75]

See also

Notes and References

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