How Huawei Built a Five‑Series Chip Empire: From 1991 to AI Powerhouses

This article provides a comprehensive overview of Huawei’s chip industry layout, covering six major series and their historical development, technical specifications, market impact, and future direction.

1. Huawei's 30‑Year Chip R&D Journey

1991: Huawei’s chip business started in the Integrated Circuit Design Center. The first successful tape‑out was the SD502, used for multi‑function switch interfaces.

1993: Using imported EDA tools, Huawei developed the SD509, which powered the C&C08 digital switch that became a global best‑seller.

1995: The Central Research Department was created, taking over telecom‑system chip development.

2004: HiSilicon Semiconductor was founded, initially focusing on digital security chips.

2009: The K3V1 chip launched as a one‑stop solution for low‑end GSM smartphones, marking the start of Huawei’s mobile‑chip exploration.

2012: HiSilicon became a laboratory‑level unit equivalent to a first‑level Huawei department.

After three decades, Huawei now has five major chip series: Kirin (mobile SoC), Kunpeng (server/PC CPUs), Ascend (AI chips), Balong & Tiangang (communication chips), Boudica & Lingxiao (IoT connectivity), and Honghu (video/display chips). Together they ship tens of millions of units.

2. Rapid Rise of Compute Chips: Kunpeng and Ascend

Digital transformation drives explosive data growth; IDC forecasts a $1.14 trillion global compute‑industry investment by 2023, with China contributing roughly 10%.

Huawei built a “compute‑storage‑network‑management‑intelligence” ecosystem around the Kunpeng (CPU) and Ascend (NPU) engines, becoming the only vendor with in‑house CPU, NPU, storage‑controller, network‑interconnect, and intelligent‑management chips.

Kunpeng Series

Kunpeng includes server and PC processors. Early embedded CPU Hi1380 laid the foundation, followed by Kunpeng 912 and 916, leading to flagship Kunpeng 920/920s for servers and PCs.

Based on ARM v8, Kunpeng is fully designed by Huawei. Compatibility with over 5 million Android apps enables native execution without translation, delivering up to three times the performance of heterogeneous x86 solutions.

January 2019: Huawei announced the industry‑leading Kunpeng 920 (7 nm), supporting 64 cores, 2.6 GHz, 8‑channel DDR4, PCIe 4.0, CCIX, and 640 Gbps total bandwidth. SPECint score exceeds 930, 25 % above the benchmark, with 30 % better energy efficiency.

Ascend Series

With Moore’s law slowing, AI chips address compute gaps. Ascend 310 targets edge scenarios, delivering 16 TOPS (INT8) and 8 TFLOPS (FP16) at 8 W. It powers Atlas 200/300/500/800 products across security, finance, healthcare, transportation, power, and automotive.

Ascend 910 targets training, offering 512 TOPS (INT8) and 256 TFLOPS (FP16) at 310 W, surpassing NVIDIA Tesla V100 and Google TPU v3. Released August 2019, it marks a new phase for Huawei’s AI strategy.

Future roadmap includes Ascend 610 for autonomous driving, Ascend 320 (upgrade of 310) planned for 2021, and Ascend 920 (upgrade of 910).

3. From Catch‑up to Leadership: Kirin Mobile SoC

Mobile SoC integrates an application processor (CPU, GPU, ISP) and a baseband processor (BP). Early attempts: K3V1 (110 nm) failed to launch; K3V2 (2012) still lagged but narrowed the gap.

2013: Kirin 910 became the world’s first quad‑core SoC (28 nm, Mali‑450MP4 GPU, integrated Balong 710 baseband) used in Huawei P6s.

Subsequent generations (Kirin 920‑980, 620‑810) advanced process nodes, achieving 64‑bit, 16 nm, 10 nm, and 7 nm. Notable milestones: Kirin 925 (> 7 million units in Mate 7), Kirin 620 (> 10 million units in Honor 4X), Kirin 930 (first 64‑bit phone chip), Kirin 950/970/980 (first commercial 16 nm, 10 nm, 7 nm chips). Kirin 970 introduced an on‑chip NPU for edge AI, powering Mate 10 with > 10 million shipments.

September 2019: Kirin 990/990 5G launched on 7 nm (+) process. Kirin 990 5G, the world’s first flagship 5G SoC, integrates a 5G modem, supporting NSA/SA, TDD/FDD, and full‑band 5G. Paired with Balong 5000, it achieves 2.3 Gbps downlink and 1.25 Gbps uplink.

4. Core Communication Chips: Balong and Tiangang

Balong Series (Baseband)

Baseband chips synthesize and decode radio signals. Since 2007 Huawei developed its own baseband to reduce reliance on Qualcomm.

2010: Balong 700 (first TD‑LTE baseband) broke Qualcomm’s monopoly.

2014: Integrated baseband and AP on Kirin 910.

Balong 4G series shipped over 100 million units, covering Cat 4‑19 (150 Mbps‑1.6 Gbps).

February 2018: Balong 5G01, the first commercial 3GPP‑based 5G chip (large form factor).

January 2019: Balong 5000, a compact 5G/4G/3G/2G solution, delivering 4.6 Gbps (Sub‑6 GHz) and 6.5 Gbps (mmWave), ten times LTE speeds, usable in smartphones, broadband terminals, and automotive.

Tiangang Series (Base Station)

Tiangang is the industry’s first 5G base‑station core chip, offering higher integration, compute, and spectrum bandwidth. It supports up to 64 channels, 2.5× compute improvement, 200 MHz spectrum, and reduces base‑station size by > 50 %, weight by 23 %, and power by 21 %.

5. Connectivity Chips for IoT: Boudica and Lingxiao

Boudica Series (NB‑IoT)

NB‑IoT targets low‑power, wide‑coverage IoT applications. Huawei began R&D in 2014; 2016 released the first commercial NB‑IoT chip Boudica 120, followed by Boudica 150 (3GPP R14) with lower power.

By April 2019, Boudica 120 shipped > 7 million units, Boudica 150 > 13 million. Boudica 200 (R15) is planned for 2020.

Lingxiao Series (Wi‑Fi)

Lingxiao addresses router performance issues. The series includes a router CPU, Wi‑Fi chip, and powerline chip.

December 2018: Lingxiao 5651 (four‑core 1.4 GHz CPU) and Lingxiao 1151 (dual‑band Wi‑Fi) appeared in Honor Router Pro 2.

2019: Lingxiao Wi‑Fi‑IoT chip launched for smart‑home scenarios.

6. Video and Display Chips: Honghu Series

Security Chips

Security products need ISP, DVR‑SoC, IPC‑SoC, and NVR‑SoC chips. HiSilicon’s security chips use an ARM+IVE architecture, achieving advantages in power, cost, and efficiency, and hold up to 70 % market share in IPC.

Set‑Top Box Chips

Since 2008 HiSilicon entered the set‑top‑box market, becoming the domestic leader and second globally after Broadcom. Solutions include OTT and IPTV chips.

Honghu Display Chips

Honghu targets smart‑display applications. The first 4K TV chip appeared in 2014; by 2019, over 40 million units shipped.

July 2019: Honghu 818, featuring dual‑A73+A53 CPUs and 4×Mali‑G51 GPU, introduced advanced video decoding, HDR, dynamic compensation, and Histen audio optimization, delivering superior audio‑visual experience.

Overall, Huawei’s five chip families have achieved breakthroughs in their respective fields, illustrating a successful “reverse‑catch‑up” strategy. Early commitment to independent chip design laid the foundation for today’s “China‑chip” era, and continued innovation promises further growth for the domestic semiconductor ecosystem.