News Huawei's sanctions-evading Kirin 9000S processor tested: significantly behind its Kirin 9000 predecessor that used TSMC tech

[Admin]

Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin 9000 remains the company's most powerful.

Huawei's sanctions-evading Kirin 9000S processor tested: significantly behind its Kirin 9000 predecessor that used TSMC tech : Read more

 

[linuxdude]

Strange, how much attention is drawn to China's chip industry here at tomshardware.
When looking at the current newsfeed, out of 12 shown articles 3 directly relate to china's semiconductor industry - I can't remember seeing the same density when it comes to Taiwan's or South Korea's or US ever. Not even 3 articles related to semiconductors unrelated to the country of origin... so what is this all about?

 

[peachpuff]

Strange, how much attention is drawn to China's chip industry here at tomshardware.

I don't get it either, but Tom must pay per article so that must be it.

 

[bit_user]

Strange, how much attention is drawn to China's chip industry here at tomshardware.

Compared to elsewhere in the world, the semiconductor industry there is rapidly developing. Also, due to political tensions, it's an area of heightened interest.

If you aren't interested in these articles, don't read read them.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

Strange, how much attention is drawn to China's chip industry here at tomshardware.
When looking at the current newsfeed, out of 12 shown articles 3 directly relate to china's semiconductor industry - I can't remember seeing the same density when it comes to Taiwan's or South Korea's or US ever. Not even 3 articles related to semiconductors unrelated to the country of origin... so what is this all about?

It is unusual, but I appreciate it because it's one of the biggest news in tech. It has direct ramifications with US sanctions affecting American companies, such as Nvidia. Much of our tech also comes from Taiwan, and geopolitics directly affects that as well.

 

[ThomasKinsley]

What jumped out at me was the AnTuTu 10 benchmark that broke down the specs per category. In each category, except the GPU, the SMIC Kirin 9000S beat the TSMC Kirin 9000. (Kirin 9000S on the left). To be sure, the Kirin 9000 is an older chip and current offerings from Qualcomm and Samsung (not to mention Apple) smoke both of them, but it still shows that China's growth in the tech sector has not abated.

CPU	279677	242171
GPU	200982	315801
Memory	225491	155272
UX	194615	188275
Total score	897496	894530

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

Results really weren't surprising at all. I don't think many thought that a 7nm process node chip could beat a 5nm one, its partially a physics problem. The bigger interest I think is that its a legitimate 7nm class process and once China has further developed their 5nm and more advanced nodes, they can improve by moving to those nodes.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Nanoreview.net this week tested the new system-on-chip and its verdict was not exactly favorable.

Anyone heard of Nanoreview before? It looks like one of those sites that just scrapes specs/benchmark results from other sites (and/or lets users submit them) and auto-generates product and comparison pages. I doubt they themselves did any testing of these chips. Which would mean we know nothing about under what conditions the tests were run or if they were comparable.

 

[bit_user]

What jumped out at me was the AnTuTu 10 benchmark that broke down the specs per category. In each category, except the GPU, the SMIC Kirin 9000S beat the TSMC Kirin 9000.

You can partially compensate for a worse process node by boosting clock speeds, but then what suffers is battery life (see below).

​

 

[dysonlu]

Strange, how much attention is drawn to China's chip industry here at tomshardware.
When looking at the current newsfeed, out of 12 shown articles 3 directly relate to china's semiconductor industry - I can't remember seeing the same density when it comes to Taiwan's or South Korea's or US ever. Not even 3 articles related to semiconductors unrelated to the country of origin... so what is this all about?

Good observation. I have Techmeme in my tech feed for more than a decade. And there too, there has been a steady increase of "news" about China in the last few years.

There's only one explanation: insecurity. It means China is really catching up and fast and this is because the sanctions have backfired (triggered an enormous push for China's homegrown companies, while the lost in profit for western companies means less R&D). So, there's a need to construct a narrative to convince the masses that China is still far behind. (Fun fact those who don't believe China will ever catch up: US' Wolf Amendment prohibits NASA from working with China. Therefore, China was not allowed access to the ISS. China built her own space station. Recently, NASA asked the US government for an exemption to the Wolf Amendment so that it can access the moon rocks China shared with the global scientific community.)

 

[ivan_vy]

Good observation. I have Techmeme in my tech feed for more than a decade. And there too, there has been a steady increase of "news" about China in the last few years.

There's only one explanation: insecurity. It means China is really catching up and fast and this is because the sanctions have backfired (triggered an enormous push for China's homegrown companies, while the lost in profit for western companies means less R&D). So, there's a need to construct a narrative to convince the masses that China is still far behind. (Fun fact those who don't believe China will ever catch up: US' Wolf Amendment prohibits NASA from working with China. Therefore, China was not allowed access to the ISS. China built her own space station. Recently, NASA asked the US government for an exemption to the Wolf Amendment so that it can access the moon rocks China shared with the global scientific community.)

NASA researchers get permission to apply for China’s moon samples

NASA-funded researchers have been granted permission to apply for access to China’s Chang’e-5 lunar samples in an exception to a prohibition on bilateral activities.

spacenews.com

geopolitics hurting science. Politicians are not so tech savvy people and have short sighted objectives, sanctions are making the opposed intentions to come true.

 

[ivan_vy]

What jumped out at me was the AnTuTu 10 benchmark that broke down the specs per category. In each category, except the GPU, the SMIC Kirin 9000S beat the TSMC Kirin 9000. (Kirin 9000S on the left). To be sure, the Kirin 9000 is an older chip and current offerings from Qualcomm and Samsung (not to mention Apple) smoke both of them, but it still shows that China's growth in the tech sector has not abated.

CPU	279677	242171
GPU	200982	315801
Memory	225491	155272
UX	194615	188275
Total score	897496	894530

it all boils down to availability and price-performance ratio. Enough of these good-enough chips can seize a part of the market. More sales, more money, more R&D. iPhone SE line exists for those reasons.

 

[ivan_vy]

The strange thing is that they're seemingly obsessed with reporting about China-related chips news, but they (more or less strictly) disallow people from commenting the geopolitical implications of those very news... To use an euphemism, it looks bemusing to me. Back on topic, at the end of the day most consumers look at features more than raw performance, it's how Samsung managed to keep fielding Exynos SoCs for years in several markets despite their overall inferior performance compared to the Qualcomm-equipped models sold in other markets; most notably the Kirin 9000S had two features that allowed Huawei to offer, once again, a competitive chip in the Chinese market: 5G connectivity and satellite communication. Whether it can beat other chips in some benchmarks is a secondary or even tertiary consideration for most people, as long as the phone is responsive and capable enough.

most people (low and mid-tier 2/3)use phones for social media and handy camera, high end user -mostly people with expendable income- rarely know the specs, they buy for exclusivity , "the more expensive the better/unique must be"; powerusers are the few.
They don't need to compete in raw power but features.

Smartphone sales by price 2012-2022 | Statista

In 2018, mid-tier smartphones were the highest selling price category worldwide.

www.statista.com

 

[watzupken]

There are a lot of articles trying to disprove China’s advancement. But this consolation or self assurance does nothing for the US other than giving themselves a false sense of security. It’s like saying that China is far behind from a fab perspective, and then they got a shock China delivered a 7nm chip. What is the volume or efficiency is not important because these can be refined over time. It is just self denial.

 

[linuxdude]

There are a lot of articles trying to disprove China’s advancement. ... . It’s like saying that China is far behind from a fab perspective, and then they got a shock China delivered a 7nm chip. What is the volume or efficiency is not important because these can be refined over time. It is just self denial.

But this repetitive "look how far they've come" style of the artiles is exactly what puzzles me. Their 7nm process is indeed a great achievement, and doing a 5nm-class process with DUV only is too - but to some degree this had to be expected and from a technological pov is no miracle.

However, this is where I think the problem is - they are using a technology (DUV) at its absolut limits with no access to alternatives, so they are betting on something which is clearly dead-end. And once they have china-developed EUV (or a compareable technology) available (which probably will take a few years), other western fabs already had years and years of EUV experience, not just on the lab but out in volume production.
So when it comes to fabs, the sanctions (regardless whether they are good or bad or whatever) didn't have a large effect until the very last genarations where EUV is starting to be a must.

 

[linuxdude]

it all boils down to availability and price-performance ratio. Enough of these good-enough chips can seize a part of the market. More sales, more money, more R&D. iPhone SE line exists for those reasons.

I am not sure SMIC and/or Huawei really depend on the income of selling those chips, there is a lot of state money involved 😉

If you aren't interested in these articles, don't read read them.

I tend to give feedback to companies / magazines, as I appreciate feedback when developing software myself.
But to be honest I miss those times when tomshardware focused on actual hardware reviews. These days I get two articles about how china handles semiconductor sanctions, one or even two articles about how a raspberry pi put into some funny enclosure does this and that, and one article basically cited from phoronix about some *actual* linux benchmarking results (i appreciate but already know, because I read phoronix frequently, as they still do actual hardware tests and benchmarks).

 

[bit_user]

There's only one explanation: insecurity.

There are more explanations. We're not allowed to discuss them here (politics), but you can find them if you feeling like challenging your own thinking on this.

this is because the sanctions have backfired (triggered an enormous push for China's homegrown companies,

Not true. They've been investing in homegrown semiconductor manufacturing, CPUs, and GPUs, for over a decade. People who want to believe the sort of thing you're saying seem to unquestioningly lap up China's propaganda about their progress. If you look more closely, such as by actually reading the articles this site publishes on the matter, what you'll see is a bit different.

while the lost in profit for western companies means less R&D).

This is more theoretical than actual, at least so far. The stock prices of all the big tech firms are way up.

 

[bit_user]

NASA researchers get permission to apply for China’s moon samples

NASA-funded researchers have been granted permission to apply for access to China’s Chang’e-5 lunar samples in an exception to a prohibition on bilateral activities.

spacenews.com

geopolitics hurting science. Politicians are not so tech savvy people and have short sighted objectives, sanctions are making the opposed intentions to come true.

Science is itself political, in many instances. Don't think the political interference is all one-sided, either.

 

[bit_user]

The strange thing is that they're seemingly obsessed with reporting about China-related chips news, but they (more or less strictly) disallow people from commenting the geopolitical implications of those very news...

The forums are somewhat separate from the web site's editorial content. That might help explain the seeming contradiction.

The Forum Rules are posted here:

Info - Tom's Hardware Official Community Rules

Official Community Rules Welcome to the Tom's Hardware forums and thanks so much for taking the time to hang out with us today. It’s important to us to have the kind of community that works together to keep things on track. After all, we’re in this together. With your help and support we can...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[bit_user]

There are a lot of articles trying to disprove China’s advancement. But this consolation or self assurance does nothing for the US other than giving themselves a false sense of security.

Why can't it just be news? Maybe the site is publishing factual information without taking sides?

What is the volume or efficiency is not important because these can be refined over time. It is just self denial.

What they cannot "refine over time" is the issue of multi-patterning. That requires new equipment they can't get, and will take a long time for them to build.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why can't it just be news? Maybe the site is publishing factual information without taking sides?

Basically this. Also, if people weren't reading the articles about all the stuff going on in China, we would stop writing them. It's an area of interest for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons.

 

[ivan_vy]

Basically this. Also, if people weren't reading the articles about all the stuff going on in China, we would stop writing them. It's an area of interest for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons.

is not just tech anymore, many of our industries rely on technological advance and so the markets, many thanks to all TH staff for the stream of articles, they are really interesting.

 

[ivan_vy]

there is a lot of state money involved

just like the CHIPS act and the likes, is standard that governments supports incipient companies for strategic reasons, we know in China is more evident taking the state a stake in those companies.