KIRIN 990 5G : history & architecture

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irin 990 5G is a 64-bit high-performance mobile ARM LTE SoC designed by HiSilicon, introduced on September 6th 2019, first appearing in the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. Fabricated on TSMC's enhanced 7nm+ EUV process, the 990 5G incorporates two high frequency Cortex-A76 cores operating at 2.86 GHz along with two medium frequency Cortex-A76 cores operating at 2.36 GHz along with four Cortex-A55 cores operating at up to 1.95 GHz.

The 5G model of the Kirin 990 is one of the first SoC that fully integrates a 5G modem (Balong 5000) in the same silicon as the CPU and the GPU. The Kirin 990 5G includes a limited version of the Balong 5000 modem that supports Sub-6-GHz frequency but no mmWave (commonly used in the USA).

There will be a Kirin 990 4G Version, including the Balong 765 with 4G LTE (3GPP Rel. 14) in the SoC.

The Kirin 990 5G supports up to 2.3 Gbps download and up to 1.25 Gbps upload speed and supports LPDDR4X-4266 memory.