Huawei unveils new flagship 5G chip

Huawei on Friday unveiled what it considers the world's first flagship 5G system-on-chip (Soc) chipset.

The move comes as the Chinese tech company continues to showcase its technological capabilities, despite the challenges it faces.

The Kirin 990 5G is manufactured with seven nanometer processes and can support real-time on-device inference.

Huawei's Mate smartphones powered by the Kirin 990 5G will be unveiled later in September.

Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, said the Kirin 990 5G supports both standalone and non-standalone 5G networks, suggesting wider use scenarios.

Non-stand-alone networks still rely on existing 4G.

Most companies currently use 4G SoC and a separate 5G modem as chip solutions for their 5G smartphones. The Kirin 990 5G incorporates the 5G modem into its 5G SoC, making it the smallest chip solution for 5G handsets.

The chipset has 10.3 billion crystal valves and is the most powerful 5G SoC, Yu said.

The Kirin 990 5G can achieve peak download speeds of 2.3 Gbps and peak upload speeds of 1.25 Gbps. It can also enable new AI applications and photography capabilities, Huawei said.

Wang Yanhui, secretary-general of the Mobile China Alliance, said the move demonstrates Huawei’s technological competitiveness when competing with Qualcomm and Samsung in 5G chips.

Its product development map is not affected by the US government’s restrictions on the company, Wang said.