Huawei Kirin 940 and 950 SoC release date and specs leaked: Sidekick processor
Only a couple of months have passed since Huawei unveiled its flagship tablet, MediaPad X2, sporting the company's Kirin 930 chipset and now, information concerning the company's next generation chipset, the Kirin 940 and Kirin 950 have been leaked. The difference separating the upcoming chips is that their primary processors will be supplemented by a co-processor called i7. The i7 (not to confused with Intel's i7 CPU) is similar in functionality to Apple's M7 or M8 co-processor; it takes care of less intensive tasks and applications, allowing additional breathing room for the primary processor to effectively take care of the more taxing tasks.
Both the Kirin 940 and Kirin 950 SoCs will be running octa-core packages that will be comprised up of the following:
- ARM Quad-core Cortex-A53
- ARM Quad-core Cortex-A72
The Kirin 940's octa-core processor will possess a maximum clock speed of 2.2 GHz while its higher performing chipset, the Kirin 950 will be running at a frequency of 2.4 GHz. While both chipsets will be equipped with dual-channel LPDDR4 memory, they will possess different GPUs. The details are as follows:
- Kirin 940: ARM Mali-T860 GPU
- Kirin 950: ARM Mali-T880 GPU
In addition, the lesser performing chipset will be equipped with an LTE Cat 7 modem and will be able to run two SIMs simultaneously for performing that function. The Kirin 950 however, will be running the Cat 10 modem. Other connectivity features will include a BT 4.2 module in both chipsets along with an additional sensor hub, and security coming from the i7 co-processor.
PhoneArena states that the Kirin 940 is expected to be released in Q3 2015 while the Kirin 950 will be arriving in Q4 2015. ARM's Cortex-A72's prowess will allow users to record 4K videos at an impressive frame rate of 120 FPS. Furthermore, the chip designer is also looking to break the mobile gaming barrier through its Mali-T860 and T880 GPUs. Qualcomm will be looking to create a hurdle for the company when it announces its Snapdragon 820 chipset, a chipset which will stocking processors based on the firm's Taipan architecture instead of its inferior Krait one.
