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Apple's A12 won't be the first 7nm chipset
We won't have to wait for the Galaxy S10 in 2019, or even for the 2018 iPhones to see the first mobile chipset made with the next-gen 7nm process take the stage, it seems. A leaked benchmark of Huawei's upcoming Kirin 980 processor indicates it will be first out of the TSMC foundry's gate with the next die shrink.
The first-gen 7nm processors will bring a whopping 40% reduction in chip size for the same number of transistors, and be up to 40% more power efficient than the current 10nm generation that is in phones like the Galaxy S9 or iPhone X.
That's not all there is to the Kirin 980 that is widely expected to power Huawei's Mate 20 Pro, though. As you can see from the screenshots, it will also have an LTE Cat. 19 modem attached to it, allowing the phone to reach up to 1.6 Gbps download speeds if your carrier can provide those. The Mate 10 Pro was the first with a 1.2Gbps modem last year, and its successor will again be LTE speed pioneer, it seems. Qualcomm's X24, for instance, was announced as a Cat. 20 modem made with a 7nm process, but it likely land in the Snapdragon 855 chipset in Galaxy S10.
The rest of the specs of Kirin 980 are nothing to sniff at, either. It will be an octa-core 2.8GHz endeavor that supports the latest Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-fi/ac standards. Moreover, it is listed as able to power 4K displays, and three image signal processors, indicating that the Mate 20 Pro might land the triple camera of the P20 Pro or thereabouts. Huawei's next-gen neural processing unit (a fancy name for dedicated AI subsystem) will also be present, with greatly improved capabilities compared to last year's edition.
Last but not least, Kirin's heretofore Achilles heel - the graphics subsystem - will be receiving a huge boost with a 24-core Mali-G72 graphics processor that brings about higher performance and an increase in battery draw efficiency should do wonders for your game sessions. We can't wait to benchmark this beast, in whatever phone it ends up being.
