Huawei unveils Kirin 990 5G, the world's first all-in-one 5G system-on-a-chip

Huawei's 5G chipset is made by TSMC using its latest 7nm manufacturing process

Huawei has unveiled its new 5G chipset, dubbed Kirin 990 5G, today.

The new chipset, which the Chinese tech giant claims is the world's most powerful 5G system on a chip (SoC), was exhibited at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

Huawei revealed that the 5G-enabled chipset will power its upcoming high-end smartphone range, the Mate 30, that the company plans to release later this month to compete with Apple's expected new iPhones.

It's the world's most powerful 5G system on a chip. It's the world's most powerful 5G modem

During the IFA event, Huawei described Kirin 990 as the world's first all-in-one 5G system on a chip and claimed that it is superior to alternatives from Samsung and Qualcomm.

"It's the world's most powerful 5G system on a chip. It's the world's most powerful 5G modem," said Richard Yu, the head of Huawei's consumer business group, according to Reuters.

Kirin 990 5G is made using TSMC's 7nm manufacturing process and contains more than 10 billion transistors. The chip can support download speeds of up to 2.3 gigabits per second (Gbps) and upload speeds of up to 1.25 Gbps, according to Huawei.

The adaptive receiver in the chip enables it to switch from 5G to 4G at locations where 5G coverage is weak.

The processor can dynamically asign tasks to the most appropriate cores, depending on how demanding they are

The octa-core chip features what Huawei has described as a 'big core', 'middle core' and a 'little core' in a 2-2-4 formation. The big core features two ARM Cortex-A76 based cores running at 2.86GHz, while the middle core features the same ARM technology, but running at 2.36GHz. Finally, the four cores of the little core are based on the ARM Cortex-A55 running at 1.95GHz.

The processor can dynamically asign tasks to the most appropriate cores, depending on how demanding they are, in order to reduce power consumption. Running alongside those is a 16-core Mali G76 graphics processor.

The unveiling of Huawei's Kirin 990 5G chipset comes just a few days after Samsung announced its own integrated 5G chipset, Exynos 980. MediaTek also announced its 7nm 5G chipset back in May.

Huawei's announcement also highlights its desire to capture a larger share in global 5G market and to take control of its supply chain, amid tensions with US.

In May, the US government put Huawei on its entity list, thus barring the company from purchasing products or technology from American firms, without prior approval.

Following the ban, Google announced that it was withdrawing Huawei's Android OS licence. Intel, Qualcomm and some other American tech firms also stopped supplying the Chinese firm with components.

The US government later relaxed the ban by granting Huawei a new 90-day licence to operate in the US.

Despite that relaxation, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei admitted that US sanctions will hit his company harder and will likely cut the revenues by about $30 billion.