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Scott Sutton
ibm221
the recent trend of HW also including hiring star talent from silicon valley or ...
Huawei claims quad-core chip outguns Tegra3
Rick Merritt
2/26/2012 11:45 AM EST
BARCELONA – In a surprise announcement the night before the Mobile World Congress opens here, Huawei Devices showed what it claims were the world's fastest handsets and tablets, using a new quad-core applications processor designed by its chip division. Huawei said its K3V2 chip significantly outperforms the competition, including Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra3.
The 1.2-1.5 GHz K3V2 was a two-year project of Huawei’s HiSilicon division. Officials said the chip delivers 30 to 50 percent more performance than the Tegra3 across a range of benchmarks.
A 64-bit memory bus--twice the width of the Tegra3--is one of the main factors in the performance of the K3V2, said Jerry Su, chief architect of the chip. Built in a TSMC 40 nm low power process, the chip fits in a 12x12mm package. Su said Huawei is willing to sell the chip as a merchant part to other handset makers.
The 40 nm Huawei K3V2 fits in a 12x12 mm package.
The K3V2 uses four ARM Cortex A9 cores and a 16-core graphics block co-developed with an unnamed U.S. chip designer. The two collaborated on the GPU’s architecture, and the U.S. partner handled its implementation.
The graphics block handles 2-D and 3-D work and helps a handset deliver 35 frames/second video compared to 13 fps for Tegra 3 and 8.4 for a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, according to Huawei's tests.
In addition, the chip sports new versions of several existing Huawei hardware accelerators. They include blocks to speed up audio, video, network processing and to handle power management functions.
The design was a big leap for the HiSilicon group whose last chip, released two years ago, sported just one A9 core.
“The time pressure is the biggest issue,” said Su. “We are moving faster than Moore’s Law,” he said.
Indeed, the group hopes to have a follow on design out in 12 months that uses A15 and A7 cores in a big/little brother configuration ARM announced last year. That chip will likely use 28 nm technology, a process that will take another six months to mature, said Su.
Huawei is not widely known for its applications processors. However, the company has been designing handset chips for several years, said Su who has been with the mobile group for eight years.
In addition to a tablet, the company plans separate models of smartphones using the chip in 1.2 and 1.5 GHz versions. The Ascend D quad will go on sales in global markets this summer. The smartphones will use a 4.5-inch screen with a 1290 x 720 pixel resolution capable of 720-progressive video.
The systems use third party baseband chips to cover 3G and LTE networks.Su said HiSilicon has an LTE multi-band chip in the works that could be ready for the market in six months. The company already makes LTE chips for data cards.
The company is on a fast rise in handsets, said Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei Devices. The unit shipped just three million handsets two years ago, but sales jumped to 20 million last year and could triple to 60 million this year with up to 40 percent of sales in China, Yu said.
On the technology front, Su said his design team was able to leverage multicore expertise from HiSilicon designers who have developed multicore network processors and base station chips.
For full coverage of Mobile World Congress see our online page on the event.
The 1.2-1.5 GHz K3V2 was a two-year project of Huawei’s HiSilicon division. Officials said the chip delivers 30 to 50 percent more performance than the Tegra3 across a range of benchmarks.
A 64-bit memory bus--twice the width of the Tegra3--is one of the main factors in the performance of the K3V2, said Jerry Su, chief architect of the chip. Built in a TSMC 40 nm low power process, the chip fits in a 12x12mm package. Su said Huawei is willing to sell the chip as a merchant part to other handset makers.
The 40 nm Huawei K3V2 fits in a 12x12 mm package.
The graphics block handles 2-D and 3-D work and helps a handset deliver 35 frames/second video compared to 13 fps for Tegra 3 and 8.4 for a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, according to Huawei's tests.
In addition, the chip sports new versions of several existing Huawei hardware accelerators. They include blocks to speed up audio, video, network processing and to handle power management functions.
The design was a big leap for the HiSilicon group whose last chip, released two years ago, sported just one A9 core.
“The time pressure is the biggest issue,” said Su. “We are moving faster than Moore’s Law,” he said.
Indeed, the group hopes to have a follow on design out in 12 months that uses A15 and A7 cores in a big/little brother configuration ARM announced last year. That chip will likely use 28 nm technology, a process that will take another six months to mature, said Su.
Huawei is not widely known for its applications processors. However, the company has been designing handset chips for several years, said Su who has been with the mobile group for eight years.
In addition to a tablet, the company plans separate models of smartphones using the chip in 1.2 and 1.5 GHz versions. The Ascend D quad will go on sales in global markets this summer. The smartphones will use a 4.5-inch screen with a 1290 x 720 pixel resolution capable of 720-progressive video.
The systems use third party baseband chips to cover 3G and LTE networks.Su said HiSilicon has an LTE multi-band chip in the works that could be ready for the market in six months. The company already makes LTE chips for data cards.
The company is on a fast rise in handsets, said Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei Devices. The unit shipped just three million handsets two years ago, but sales jumped to 20 million last year and could triple to 60 million this year with up to 40 percent of sales in China, Yu said.
On the technology front, Su said his design team was able to leverage multicore expertise from HiSilicon designers who have developed multicore network processors and base station chips.
For full coverage of Mobile World Congress see our online page on the event.
Jerry Su with the Huawei Ascend Quad D using his K3V2 chip.
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kinnar
2/26/2012 2:35 PM EST
It this benchmark is perfect, Huawei will rule the mobile market using android mobile devices.
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pradipk
2/27/2012 3:03 AM EST
They have not mentioned about power compared to Nvidia Tegra, it is not simple to beat a company like Nvidia in terms of power per performance.
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rick.merritt
2/27/2012 10:23 AM EST
They claim they have 30% longer battery life than Tegra3...lots of claims.
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elctrnx_lyf
2/27/2012 3:11 AM EST
This could leave jitters for Motorola, Nokia and Samsung. Huawei is probably looking at the mobile market as more profitable than the mobile network infrastructure equipment market.
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Clifton Reynes
2/27/2012 6:37 AM EST
Still vannot match the performance of ClearSpeed's CSX700
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GREAT-Terry
2/27/2012 9:43 AM EST
Huawei is so aggressive in the chip market. I think Huawei may not think building phone is more profitable than building network equipment. They may find that making chip is more profitable or they have no other direction to expand besides going into mass consumer market. Anyway, it is exciting to see this new advancement in a Chinese enterprise. How about the next generation processor from Apple? I hope Apple won't fall behind too much.
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rick.merritt
2/27/2012 10:24 AM EST
Huawei is clearly hungry
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goafrit
2/27/2012 11:00 AM EST
This world is a new game. Imagine Huawei making this claim. No one can claim innovation now. And this is the reason why our industry is very competitive. Let us see how this plays out as the devices roll out in coming months.
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Sanjib.Acharya
2/27/2012 11:48 AM EST
I'm amazed to see the estimation of sales of Huaweai handset increasing 3 folds from 20 million to 60 million (if I've read it correctly)...what drives this huge growth?
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cdhmanning
2/27/2012 1:05 PM EST
The growth is driven by huge uptake in emerging markets. Over half the world's population is in China and India both of which have a huge rise in people able to afford luxury goods for the first time.
Huawei is clearly destined to become the communications leader that Ericsson was 10 years ago.
Part of the success is surely that Chinese brands are now getting global traction. It was just a matter of time.
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Scott Sutton
2/27/2012 1:37 PM EST
Rick,
Any clues from Huawei on who the U.S. based partner for GPU co-development could be? Likely not NVIDIA given the lower power compared to Tegra, maybe AMD...?
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rick.merritt
2/29/2012 5:32 PM EST
Our current best guess is Vivante, but it is ONLY A GUESS. If anybody knows anything about this, drop me an email at rick.merritt@ubm.com
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ibm221
2/27/2012 7:34 PM EST
The main driven factor behind HW should be the vast amount of chinese engineering graduate turned out every year.
They can find all kinds of talents (chip, telecom, mobile...) at a discount price , maybe less experienced in some area.
HW 's job is to get em organized and work on some project.
this engineer pool is 5 times the size of US, so just imagine what ll happen next...
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eewiz
2/28/2012 1:48 AM EST
Since Tegra 3 also uses the same ARM 9 cores, that Huawei uses, the performance improvement might have come from just clock speed improvement. or the 16 core secret GPU the reason?
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Scott Sutton
2/28/2012 3:17 PM EST
NVIDIA has an architecture license from ARM so it is conceivable their A9 implementation could consume less power than the one ARM licenses.
Are both of these SoC's TSMC 40LP? Otherwise it's oranges and lemons.
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rick.merritt
2/29/2012 5:36 PM EST
Nvidia does have an ARM architectural license, but it hasn't made use of it yet. Tegra3 was made in a 40nm high performance process at TSMC. Huawei's K3V2 was made in a 40 nm low power process at TSMC.
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Scott Sutton
3/6/2012 11:49 AM EST
Rick,
Another interesting development last week relative to K3V2 is Microsoft adding Huawei to the Windows 8 on ARM program:
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/2/29/microsoft-expands-windows-8-on-arm-approved-vendors-list-welcome-huawei2c-marvell.aspx
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BobsUrUncle
2/28/2012 12:22 PM EST
This this benchmark with or without the Chinese military spyware included?
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ibm221
2/28/2012 7:30 PM EST
The CIA has planted micro-devices inside many US travelers ass,
which can collect image, audio, transmit sms,
which is truely state of art, some of em get busted in afganistan lately and get a bullet on their ass...
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BobsUrUncle
2/28/2012 12:24 PM EST
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/11/chinese-telecom-firm-tied-to-spy-ministry/?page=all
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Athlor
2/28/2012 5:16 PM EST
Impressive claims indeed. I'm going to keep an eye out for them. The spyware angle sounds like a good plot for a movie. :)
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specilaist
2/29/2012 12:15 PM EST
They learn from U.S, hiring the talent forgineers ( none Chinese)
to help them.
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MikeSmith2011
2/29/2012 12:57 PM EST
With the availabilty of so much of the IP - A9 processors from ARM, GPU from the unnamed partner in the US, "designing" such an SoC is not such a big deal as it used to be a few years back.
For these applications the power efficiency is key - fps alone does not matter - a xeon gets better fps e.g.
BUT I believe this will enable Huawei to do what it has done in the other markets - lower the price of its handsets to a price-point that cannot be touched by anyone else since they now control the silicon as well and do not need to pay a TI or nVidia margins.
It will take them a few generations but they will eventually get it right. Be scared, be very scared.
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ibm221
2/29/2012 7:22 PM EST
yep, be prepared,
even TI, intel folks,
ready to give up your car, biking to your next job.
so you can compete better cost wise.
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ibm221
2/29/2012 7:36 PM EST
otherwise it ll just gone like assembling jobs.
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seaEE
3/1/2012 12:09 AM EST
Don't worry, pretty soon China will be offshoring work...to the U.S.!
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ibm221
3/1/2012 7:24 PM EST
yeah, right,
farming, hotel, casino, business will boom soon.
just be versatile.
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konda
3/3/2012 9:48 PM EST
Excellent claims.surprised everyone with its growth too.large pool of engineering talent can replace any competitor with its low cost solutions..
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ibm221
3/4/2012 7:37 PM EST
the recent trend of HW also including hiring star talent from silicon valley or else to lead /architect projects...
which cut short the learning curve significently.
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