The powerful Kirin 970 chipset is expected to enter mass production in September. The chipset to be manufactured by TSMC on a 10 nm process will be a slight bump up in specs from its predecessor, the Kirin 960 and will likely feature an octa-core configuration with four Cortex A-73 cores and four Cortex A-53 cores and should make it in time for Huawei’s Mate 10 October release. The GPU is expected to release a major spec upgrade and could feature as many as 12 cores.
Yield issues have prevented TSMC from making a jump to start producing in large quantities. Yield for a chipset is, in simple terms, the amount of chipsets that turn out to be non-faulty as compared to the total number of chipsets manufactured. A higher yield is thus essential to move ahead with large scale production, a problem TSMC seems to have finally addressed.
The Kirin 970 is expected to go up against the Snapdragon 845 with the two even being compared in a leak earlier this year. While it has beaten the 845 in timelines (the 845 is not expected to be available until next year), the Snapdragon chipset is expected to feature the more powerful A75 cores which, if true, would help it outclass the Kirin 970. Regardless, the 970 is no slouch either and is expected to give stiff competition to Snapdragon’s future flagship. For now, we can expect it to power the rumored Mate 10 which, sources say, could sport a 6-inch 18:9 screen with a 2160 x 1080 resolution, not unlike the LG G6. The chipset should power Huawei’s flagship this October pitting it head to head with Google’s upcoming Pixel successors.