IFA 2018: Huawei Kirin 980 Keynote Live Blog

07:50AM EDT - Our big keynote of the IFA 2018 show is from Huawei, with CEO Richard Yu set to take the stage and detail the newest Kirin 980 chipset for us. There's no livestream, so sit back and read as the information flows in.

07:54AM EDT - This venue is packed. It truly is a keynote

07:56AM EDT - Last year Huawei unveiled the Kirin 970 at IFA

07:56AM EDT - We didn't get a heads up, so it really was a rush to cover it

07:57AM EDT - We're front row for this one

07:57AM EDT - 3 minutes to go time

08:00AM EDT - Huawei has a history of developing a lot of firsts with its new chipsets, so this will be interesting

08:01AM EDT - Here we go. First up is a general IFA event speaker

08:02AM EDT - How great IFA is growing and to introduce the speaker

08:03AM EDT - IFA is about trends and consumers

08:03AM EDT - Have to come to Berlin for the cutting edge but also ready for consumers

08:03AM EDT - It's a test bed for if consumers are ready for the technology

08:03AM EDT - 250k visitors from 120 countries

08:03AM EDT - Determines what will be on the shelves and retailers this holiday season

08:04AM EDT - Smart home is a key area

08:04AM EDT - AI is the glue for the connected future

08:04AM EDT - AI takes care of things, it takes care of us

08:05AM EDT - AI is real and tangible, no more so than at IFA

08:05AM EDT - AI is going to spread quicker than any other consumer technology

08:06AM EDT - The challengers from China have become the champions

08:06AM EDT - One company exemplifies this - investment into R&D

08:06AM EDT - Richard Yu to the stage

08:07AM EDT - Last year was about mobile AI, on device IFA

08:07AM EDT - Last year, first AI processor

08:07AM EDT - Kirin 970

08:07AM EDT - More and more AI-services coming to smartphones, accelerated by Huawei

08:08AM EDT - Low power AI, AI translation, AI assisted composition

08:08AM EDT - Leading the trend of the AI smartphone

08:08AM EDT - Kirin 980 - world first 7nm SoC

08:08AM EDT - first Cortex A76

08:08AM EDT - DUal NPU

08:09AM EDT - 6.9b transistors

08:09AM EDT - Mali G76

08:09AM EDT - 1.4 Gbps Cat 21 modem

08:09AM EDT - LPDDR4X-2133

08:09AM EDT - i8 Sensor Processor

08:09AM EDT - Lots of world firsts

08:09AM EDT - less than 1cm square (100 mm sq)

08:10AM EDT - Pursuit of the cutting-edge mobile SoC

08:10AM EDT - High efficiency and compact design

08:10AM EDT - efficiency is key

08:10AM EDT - not just performance

08:11AM EDT - Kirin 980 was a three year development cycle

08:11AM EDT - TSMC improvement from 10nm to 7nm: 20% speed, 40% power efficiency, 1.6x logic density

08:11AM EDT - more and more transistors

08:12AM EDT - 6.8x density over 28nm

08:12AM EDT - 75% more perf over Kirin 970 with A76

08:12AM EDT - 58% better power efficiency

08:13AM EDT - Three lots of CPUs

08:13AM EDT - Big.middle.little

08:13AM EDT - 2xA76 + 2xA76 + 4xA55

08:13AM EDT - 2.6G peak on the biggest cores

08:14AM EDT - two different efficiency points for the A76 using Arm Dynamiq

08:14AM EDT - Big cores only fire up for things like gaming

08:14AM EDT - Music is low end cores, Social maybe middle cores, gaming is all cores

08:15AM EDT - Flexible scheduling

08:15AM EDT - Better app launch time

08:15AM EDT - First Mali G76

08:15AM EDT - 46% more perf, 178% better efficiency over Kirin 970

08:15AM EDT - Memory measured by Geekbench 4.20

08:16AM EDT - Memory measured by Geekbench 4.20

08:16AM EDT - AI loading prediciton technology

08:16AM EDT - predict the power needed for better UX and spool up cores earlier in the cycle

08:17AM EDT - Smoother loading, lower power consumption

08:17AM EDT - Showing almost double frame rate

08:18AM EDT - 22% better at NBA 2K18

08:18AM EDT - Lower power consumption per frame

08:18AM EDT - PUBG chinese version

08:18AM EDT - 'Jank Ratio' on the S845

08:19AM EDT - Comparison to S845 with GPU Turbo

08:19AM EDT - Dual Image Signal Processor - 46% faster

08:19AM EDT - 23% more efficient, 33% lower latency

08:20AM EDT - Better low light noise reduction

08:20AM EDT - Shown with better HDR

08:20AM EDT - Same sensor S845 vs K980

08:20AM EDT - Now onto AI

08:21AM EDT - 4500 images per minute on ResNet-50

08:21AM EDT - S845 does 2371

08:21AM EDT - Kirin 970 did about 2000

08:22AM EDT - Dual-NPU allows for in-video AI

08:22AM EDT - particular objects can be detected

08:22AM EDT - precise object segmentation

08:23AM EDT - Can track multiple people across a video

08:23AM EDT - Background replacement in video behind main object in reference frame

08:24AM EDT - per-pixel substitution

08:24AM EDT - Dual NPU AI gives better FPS and better efficiency over S845

08:25AM EDT - Modem: 4x4 MIMO, 5CA, 256QAM

08:25AM EDT - Only 3xCA at 4x4 though

08:25AM EDT - Huawei is all about communication everywhere, even high speed train

08:26AM EDT - Less game time suspended on high speed rail

08:26AM EDT - WiFi is now 2x2 160 Mhz

08:26AM EDT - Replacing Broadcom with in-house Huawei solution

08:27AM EDT - Dual GPS bands for 10x accuracy: L1 and L5

08:27AM EDT - Chipset is 5G ready with Balong 5000 modem

08:28AM EDT - 5G coming to Kirin 980 flagships during its lifetime

08:28AM EDT - Everything over Kirin 970 improved

08:29AM EDT - Kirin 980 better than S845 in every area... except GPU Benchmark

08:29AM EDT - GPU benchmark test is not a real experience. Real experience is with GPU Turbo

08:29AM EDT - With GPU Turbo, Huawei is ahead

08:30AM EDT - Best in class SoC

08:30AM EDT - Launch Mate 20 on October 16th with Kirin 980 in London

08:31AM EDT - Honor Magic 2 coming as well

08:32AM EDT - 10m P20/P20 Pro shipments. Aiming for 15m/16m

08:32AM EDT - by end of year

08:33AM EDT - Only P20 Pro is leading the pack for camera

08:33AM EDT - Professional photo recognition

08:34AM EDT - Today we want to bring more color to P20 and P20 Pro

08:34AM EDT - Design is from nature

08:35AM EDT - New Morpho Aurora color to P20/P20 Pro

08:35AM EDT - Also Mother of Pearl

08:35AM EDT - Pearl White

08:36AM EDT - Also more Style with P20 Pro

08:36AM EDT - Genuine Calf Skin

08:37AM EDT - Golden Brown color

08:37AM EDT - Italian Leather

08:37AM EDT - 8GB + 256GB model launches today with leather

08:38AM EDT - Also new gadgets

08:38AM EDT - Huawei AI Cube

08:38AM EDT - AI Speaker with 4G router inside

08:39AM EDT - Powered by Alexa speaker

08:39AM EDT - 4G Cat 6, up to 300 Mbps. 802.11ac WiFi 1200 Mbps

08:39AM EDT - 0.4 L sound cavity

08:39AM EDT - Huawei Histen

08:40AM EDT - Multi-microphone far-field processing array

08:40AM EDT - Alexa built in

08:40AM EDT - Amazon to the stage

08:41AM EDT - Our Kirin 980 coverage is now live

08:41AM EDT - https://www.anandtech.com/show/13298/hisilicon-announces-the-kirin-980-first-a76-g76-on-7nm

08:44AM EDT - >More Alexa. It's uninteresting

08:45AM EDT - More Huawei IoT: Huawei Locator

08:45AM EDT - Global C-IoT locator with two weeks battery life with GPS

08:47AM EDT - New P20 colors from 5th Sep

08:48AM EDT - Leather versions on 5th Sep, at 999 Euro

08:48AM EDT - Experience in the booth

08:48AM EDT - That's a wrap.