Huawei Working on World’s First 5G Integrated SoC – Mate 30 Pro 5G?

Mate 20 X 5G version, Hongmeng OS, Mate 30, looks like Huawei has some tricks under the sleeve left for the second half of 2019.  If these are not enough, looks like Huawei is also working on the world’s first 5G Integrated SoC.

According to reports from Japanese media, Huawei is preparing to launch two flagship Kirin SoCs in at the same time this year. The first is the Kirin 985 for the Mate 30 series, based on TSMC’s second-generation 7nm process with EUV (extreme UV lithography). However, the second is a Kirin SoC which will be the world’s first integrated 5G baseband SoC, a single SoC integrated AP (application processor) + BP (baseband processor). Well, it could be one from the Mate 30 series which might release after Mate 30, Mate 30 Pro, Mate 30 Pro Porsche Edition. It could be Mate 30 Pro 5G version.

Of course, Qualcomm has announced on the MWC this year the integrated flagship of the 5G baseband but will be officially released at the end of the year (usually the Snapdragon Technology Summit in Hawaii in December). It will be commercially available next year. If Huawei wants to take a step ahead, they will have to release their own 5G integrated SoC before Qualcomm.

At present, the 5G phones that have been debuted around the world mainly adopt three kinds of solutions, which are all in the form of external baseband. Among them, Huawei has Kirin 980 with Barron 5000, Samsung has Exynos 9820 with Exynos 5100, and Qualcomm has Snapdragon 855 with X50.

It is unclear why Kirin 985 is not the first to integrate 5G baseband products. The reason is related to the time link. After all, the source said that the integrated 5G baseband chip needs to wait until the Mate 30 series goes on the market, which is around November or December.

Source (in Chinese)