Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro Impresses Market, SoC Competition Key Against Qualcomm/MediaTek

---

---

Huawei’s official website unexpectedly unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the Mate 60 Pro, on August 29, 2023, followed by the release of the Mate 60 the next day. The Mate 60 Pro’s performance, powered by the Kirin 9000S SoC, has garnered significant attention in the market.

TrendForce’s Insights:

• Kirin 9000S Offers Comparable Computing Power to 2021 Flagships, But Energy Efficiency May Lag

According to benchmark test results from the Geekbench Browser, a product known as Huawei LNA-AL00, believed to be housing the Kirin 9000S, first appeared in test data on March 30, 2023, and has been continually updated since. The test results for Huawei LNA-AL00 during this period fall into two ranges. One range is roughly equivalent to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, while the other is on par with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. This suggests potential variations in Kirin 9000S versions.

Further analysis of the Kirin 9000S reveals that its CPU architecture maintains the 1+3+4 configuration of the Kirin 9000 but operates at slightly lower clock speeds, with a difference of approximately 10-20%. The GPU is Huawei’s in-house Maleoon 910. However, in comparison to the Kirin 9000, which employs TSMC’s 5nm process, the Kirin 9000S has a larger chip size, roughly 30% larger. Additionally, the presence of a large Vapor Chamber beneath the Mate 60 Pro’s screen indicates that the Kirin 9000S may have higher energy consumption, reflecting the use of a less advanced process than TSMC’s 7nm. Overall, Kirin 9000S is expected to offer computing performance similar to mainstream flagships from 2021-2022, but its energy efficiency might align with levels seen in 2019-2020.

• Maintaining Performance Gap with Other Flagship SoCs Will Be a Key Challenge for Huawei and SMIC

Based on available information, Kirin 9000S is likely produced by SMIC. Currently, SMIC’s advanced process nodes include 14nm, N+1, and N+2. Since SMIC has indicated that the N+1 process is not equivalent to 7nm, it is speculated to fall between 10-8nm. To produce Kirin 9000S, it would need to utilize an N+2 process closer to 7nm, which is currently the most suitable process node for domestic wafer foundries in China.

Kirin 9000S undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of China’s domestic IC design and manufacturing capabilities. In terms of computing performance, it lags only 2-3 years behind Qualcomm and MediaTek’s upcoming flagship SoCs set to be launched in the second half of 2023. However, without access to EUV equipment, SMIC faces significant challenges in developing processes below 7nm, and even achieving mass production at 5nm is not a short-term goal.

As Qualcomm and MediaTek advance their products to 4nm and below, the Kirin series will likely remain constrained by SMIC’s process technology, making it difficult to significantly increase clock speeds and reduce power consumption. This situation will lead to a gradual widening of the performance gap between the Kirin series and Snapdragon 8 Gen series, and the Dimensity series. As they grapple with the responsibility of technological advancement, maintaining a competitive performance gap for the Kirin series against other flagship SoCs will be a primary challenge for Huawei and SMIC moving forward.

(Photo credit: Huawei)